TY  - JOUR
AU  - Borjas,George J.
AU  - Grogger,Jeffrey
AU  - Hanson,Gordon H.
TI  - Immigration and African-American Employment Opportunities: The Response of Wages, Employment, and Incarceration to Labor Supply Shocks
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12518
PY  - 2006
Y2  - September 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12518
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12518.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
George J. Borjas
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-1393
Fax: 617/495-9532
E-Mail: gborjas@harvard.edu

Jeffrey Grogger
Irving B. Harris Professor of Urban Policy
Harris School of Public Policy
University of Chicago
1155 E. 60th Street
Chicago, IL   60637
Tel: 773/834-0973
Fax: 773/702-0926
E-Mail: jgrogger@uchicago.edu

Gordon H. Hanson
IR/PS 0519
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA  92093-0519
Tel: 858/822-5087
Fax: 858/534-3939
E-Mail: gohanson@ucsd.edu
AB  - The employment rate of black men, and particularly of low-skill black men, fell precipitously from 1960 to 2000. At the same time, the incarceration rate of black men rose markedly. This paper examines the relation between immigration and these trends in black employment and incarceration. Using data drawn from the 1960-2000 U.S. Censuses, we find a strong correlation between immigration, black wages, black employment rates, and black incarceration rates. As immigrants disproportionately increased the supply of workers in a particular skill group, the wage of black workers in that group fell, the employment rate declined, and the incarceration rate rose. Our analysis suggests that a 10-percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the black wage by 4.0 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 3.5 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by almost a full percentage point.
ER  -