THE EFFECTS OF US IMMIGRATION ON RACIAL INEQUITY IN THE LABOUR MARKET

Abstract

The increase in the number of unskilled immigrants entering the US from Latin America and the Caribbean has led to fears of increased competition with unskilled US citizens. In this thesis, I study the effects of the arrival of Hispanic and Black immigrants to US on the economic welfare of Black and White Americans from 1980 to 2017. I perform regressional analyses of the effect of the percentage of unskilled Hispanic/Black immigrants on the average income, welfare payments, and unemployment rate of Black/White Americans. I find that a 10% increase in unskilled immigration worsened racial income inequity by 64.7% and increased racial unemployment disparities by 2.38 percentage points.