gap closes for some—significantly for immigrants from Europe and Asia, and at least modestly for some others—but not at all for those from Mexico.

Employment rates of recent immigrants have also fallen relative to those of natives. However, immigrants catch up to natives relatively quickly, so that after some years in the United States their employment rates are quite similar to those of natives.

What jobs do immigrants do? A higher proportion of immigrants than of the native-born work in many jobs that call for high levels of education: they are college teachers of foreign languages, medical scientists, economists. But they are even more disproportionately represented in many of the lowest-paying jobs: as waiters and waitresses, agricultural graders and sorters, private household workers. Immigrants also account for a disproportionate number of workers in many occupations that require little education but much skill, such as tailors, dressmakers, and jewelers.

How do immigrants affect the revenues and expenditures of the various levels of government in the United States? Does additional immigration raise the amount that current residents must pay in taxes to receive a constant level of government services? Fiscal impacts are a much more important policy issue today than for earlier immigrant waves, because the relative size of all levels of government is so much larger.

Fiscal impacts are typically measured through estimates of the annual difference between taxes from immigrant households and the cost of government services and benefits to those households. The panel outlined how the fiscal impacts of immigrants on the native-born should be measured within a single year, and then directed a study based on that methodology for California. In addition, the panel made use of an existing study of annual fiscal impacts on New Jersey that also follows the same general methodology.

These annual calculations provide one picture of the United States today as a consequence of past immigration policies, but they cannot be used to predict the long-run cost to taxpayers of admitting additional immigrants. For this reason, the panel also directed a study of the long-term fiscal consequences of new immigrants. The long-term analysis takes the annual calculations as a starting point, and then projects revenues and expenditures into the future, under various assumptions about the course of immigration policy, fiscal policy, and the economic assimilation of immigrants and their descendants.

The panel's calculations of annual fiscal impact required data on government spending, taxes, household income, and program participation by household mem-

Front Matter (R1-R14)

Summary (1-13)

1 The Immigration Debate (14-19)

2 Background to Contemporary U.S. Immigration (20-75)

3 The Face of the U.S. Population in 2050 (76-134)

4 Immigration's Effects on Jobs and Wages: First Principles (135-172)

5 Immigration's Effects on Jobs and Wages: Empirical Evidence (173-253)

6 Do Immigrants Impose a Net Fiscal Burden? Annual Estimates (254-296)

7 The Future Fiscal Impacts of Current Immigrants (297-362)

8 The Social Dimensions of Immigration (363-406)

Biographical Sketches (407-412)

Index (413-434)