International Immigration

Question A: International immigration has driven a significant portion of Ohio's Gross State Product growth over the past ten years.

Question B: An increase in the proportion of skilled immigrant workers has helped counteract human capital loss known as "brain drain" in Ohio over the past ten years.

Question C: International immigration has led to decreased wages for low-skill workers in Ohio over the past ten years.

Question A: International immigration has driven a significant portion of Ohio's Gross State Product growth over the past ten years.

Economist	Institution	Opinion	Confidence	Comment
Jonathan Andreas	Bluffton University	Agree	10	Most immigrants come to work and more workers mean more production. It is practically a tautology.
Kevin Egan	University of Toledo	Uncertain	5	For standard-of-living purposes, a better question is economic growth Per Person. Obviously as you add people to an economy you increase GDP and growth. Every new person is both a worker and consumer. Every new person increases the supply of the labor force And the demand for all products.
Kenneth Fah	Ohio Dominican University	Uncertain	7
Hasan Faruq	Xavier University	Agree	8	There may be other factors behind Ohio's growth as well but I feel confident that the net effect international immigration on Ohio's economy has been positive.
Will Georgic	Ohio Wesleyan University	Strongly Agree	10
Bob Gitter	Ohio Wesleyan University	Agree	9	Although only six percent of the workforce is foreign born they tend to be in high productivity sectors such as technology and health care.
Nancy Haskell	University of Dayton	Agree	8
Paul Holmes	Ashland University	Agree	8	Significant' is in the eye of the beholder, and also depends on whether you're talking about new immigrants, new immigrants to Ohio, or existing immigrants. Also, I'm not sure it makes sense to answer this with reference to a single state, since if Ohio changed its immigration-friendliness while other states did not, there would be general-equilibrium effects that canceled out a lot of the effect of increased or decreased immigration.
Michael Jones	University of Cincinnati	Agree	5
Trevon Logan	Ohio State University	Agree	8
Diane Monaco	Economics Professor	Strongly Agree	2	Immigrants make up approximately 20 percent of the overall United States workforce with only 5 percent of Ohioans NOT being born in the US — this is well BELOW average! The workforce plays an important role in most industries with an important mix of lower, middle, and high wage jobs. Immigration contributes to strong economic growth with future immigration increasing GDP at an increasing rate. Immigrants improve workforce efficiency and bring in a larger share of the world’s most productive, skillful & talented workers. If Ohio is already behind in the important immigrant inflows of these increasing productive/skillful/talented workforce benefits, the state will increasingly be hurt by this effect.
Curtis Reynolds	Kent State University	Uncertain	5	Research has found that immigration does have positive effects on state gross product, and data from the American Community Survey suggest a small increase in immigrants as a fraction of the Ohio population over the last 10 years (maybe 1 percentage point) but I am not sure if that is enough to have drive a "significant portion" of Ohio's Gross State Product.
Albert Sumell	Youngstown State University	Strongly Agree	10	Economic research has consistently shown that areas with higher international immigration experience higher growth.
Iryna Topolyan	University of Cincinnati	Strongly Agree	9
Ejindu Ume	Miami University	Uncertain	8
Rachel Wilson	Wittenberg University	Agree	8	Ohio's population has remained fairly steady over the last few decades. The percentage of the population that is foreign born has approximately doubled. A growing population contributes to economic activity from both a demand and supply side.

Question B: An increase in the proportion of skilled immigrant workers has helped counteract human capital loss known as "brain drain" in Ohio over the past ten years.

Economist	Institution	Opinion	Confidence	Comment
Jonathan Andreas	Bluffton University	Agree	10	practically a tautology again.
Kevin Egan	University of Toledo	Agree	1	This is true probably a small amount, but the article states immigration is only 5% of the labor force.
Kenneth Fah	Ohio Dominican University	Agree	9
Hasan Faruq	Xavier University	Strongly Agree	9
Will Georgic	Ohio Wesleyan University	Strongly Agree	10
Bob Gitter	Ohio Wesleyan University	Agree	9
Nancy Haskell	University of Dayton	Agree	8
Paul Holmes	Ashland University	Agree	6	On the surface this is clearly correct, since immigrants make up an outsized proportion of high-skill workers. But if those immigrants didn't exist, would they be replaced by domestic high-skill workers? I doubt it, I think we'd instead have a skill shortage, but I think it's hard to be certain of this.
Michael Jones	University of Cincinnati	Agree	7
Trevon Logan	Ohio State University	Agree	8
Diane Monaco	Economics Professor	Disagree	8	Immigrants make up approximately 20 percent of the overall United States workforce with only 5 percent of Ohioans NOT being born in the US — this is well BELOW average! The workforce plays an important role in most industries with an important mix of lower, middle, and high wage jobs. Immigration contributes to strong economic growth with future immigration increasing GDP at an increasing rate. Immigrants improve workforce efficiency and bring in a larger share of the world’s most productive, skillful & talented workers. If Ohio is already behind in the important immigrant inflows of these increasing productive/skillful/talented workforce benefits, the state will increasingly be hurt by this effect.
Curtis Reynolds	Kent State University	Agree	9	For a long time, Midwestern states have lost college-educated labor to other regions. In Ohio, at least, immigrants are somewhat more likely to have a bachelors degree (about 3 percentage points) and substantially more likely to have graduate degree (about 12 percentage points) according to American Community Survey data.
Albert Sumell	Youngstown State University	Strongly Agree	10
Iryna Topolyan	University of Cincinnati	Strongly Agree	9
Ejindu Ume	Miami University	Uncertain	8
Rachel Wilson	Wittenberg University	Agree	9

Question C: International immigration has led to decreased wages for low-skill workers in Ohio over the past ten years.

Economist	Institution	Opinion	Confidence	Comment
Jonathan Andreas	Bluffton University	Disagree	2	There is a lot of research on this type of scenario and some does show that low-skilled immigration reduces low-skill wages. But most research shows that native-born workers mostly switch to higher-paying jobs and most of the people who stay in low-wage jobs are immigrants themselves, so it PROBABLY benefits most low-skill, native-born workers a bit, but it could go either way for them and they certainly don't benefit as much as everyone else.
Kevin Egan	University of Toledo	Disagree	8	Many economic studies have looked at this question and have not found this to be true. Many jobs are complementary and moreover, every new worker is also a new consumer for products so it all evens out. Another way to think about it: all children are future workers. U.S. citizens are having less children. Without immigration the U.S. population is shrinking. Every adult immigrant is an immediate worker and consumer and their children are future workers and consumers.
Kenneth Fah	Ohio Dominican University	Disagree	9
Hasan Faruq	Xavier University	Uncertain	8	Low-skill workers also do jobs that local workers no longer want to do
Will Georgic	Ohio Wesleyan University	Strongly Disagree	8	Since the immigration is disproportionately high-skill, it seems plausible that recent immigration has applied upward pressure on low-skill wages in the state by increasing demand for goods/services to a greater extent than the competition for low-skill jobs increased.
Bob Gitter	Ohio Wesleyan University	Uncertain	7	To some extent they may take the place of jobs like roofers and busboys but the unskilled immigrants increase the demand for other products. Probably close to no net effect.
Nancy Haskell	University of Dayton	Disagree	8
Paul Holmes	Ashland University	Strongly Disagree	9	I think this is almost certainly false. Low-skill immigrants in Ohio are concentrated in jobs that are just not popular with low-skill domestic workers (agriculture, food service, etc.). I think it's more likely that low-skill immigrants depress the wages of existing (former) immigrants. Further, low-skill workers have seen substantial wage growth in the last few years, and most of those gains have gone to domestic workers (by my observation, at least).
Michael Jones	University of Cincinnati	Disagree	7
Trevon Logan	Ohio State University	Disagree	8
Diane Monaco	Economics Professor	Disagree	3	Immigrants make up approximately 20 percent of the overall United States workforce with only 5 percent of Ohioans NOT being born in the US — this is well BELOW average! The workforce plays an important role in most industries with an important mix of lower, middle, and high wage jobs. Immigration contributes to strong economic growth with future immigration increasing GDP at an increasing rate. Immigrants improve workforce efficiency and bring in a larger share of the world’s most productive, skillful & talented workers. If Ohio is already behind in the important immigrant inflows of these increasing productive/skillful/talented workforce benefits, the state will increasingly be hurt by this effect.
Curtis Reynolds	Kent State University	Uncertain	5	I do not know this to be true in Ohio, but in general lower-skilled immigrants have tended to increase the supply of labor in lower-skilled markets which puts downward pressure on wages. However, effects found in the literature are often not large (however, any decrease in wages among lower income people could be a cause for concern). In Ohio, this would likely happen in some industries, particularly where individuals have less than a high school degree (immigrants in Ohio are more likely to have a bachelors degree or graduate degree but also more likely to not have any degree). However, the data is not clear that there has been an actual increase in low-skilled immigration in Ohio to cause any effect.
Albert Sumell	Youngstown State University	Uncertain	5	The economic research on this question is mixed.
Iryna Topolyan	University of Cincinnati	Uncertain	5
Ejindu Ume	Miami University	Uncertain	8
Rachel Wilson	Wittenberg University	Uncertain	5	Beyond the supply and demand of low-skill workers in Ohio, if immigrants spend money in Ohio that creates more demand here which could increase demand for low skill workers thus putting upward pressure on wages.