Self-employment is an important aspect of the immigrant experience in the labor market. Self-employment rates for immigrants exceed 15 percent for some national groups. This paper addresses three related questions on the self-employment experience of immigrants. First, how do self-employment...

Employment rates in the United States fell dramatically between February 2020 and April 2020 as the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic reverberated through the labor market. This paper uses data from the CPS Basic Monthly Files to document that the employment decline was particularly severe...

Self-selection plays a dominant role in determining the size and composition of immigrant flows. The United States competes with other potential host countries in the "immigration market". Host countries vary in their "offers" of economic opportunities and also differ in the way they ration...

This paper uses the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Public Use Samples of the U.S. Census to trace the evolution of immigrant participation in welfare programs during the past two decades. The data indicate that immigrant participation in welfare programs is on the rise, and that the dollar costs...

This paper studies long-term trends in the labor market performance of immigrants in the United States, using the 1960-2000 PUMS and 1994-2009 CPS. While there was a continuous decline in the earnings of new immigrants 1960-1990, the trend reversed in the 1990s, with newcomers doing as well in...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of immigrant participation in the welfare system using the 1970 and 1980 U.S. Censuses. The availability of two cross-sections allows for identification of cohort and assimilation effects. The data indicate that recent immigrant cohorts use the welfare...

Over 12 million persons migrated to Canada or the United States between 1959 and 1981. Beginning in the mid?1960s, the immigration policies of the two countries began to diverge considerably: the United States stressing family reunification and Canada stressing skills. This paper shows that the...

This paper documents the extent to which immigrants participate in the many programs that make up the welfare state. The immigrant- native difference in the probability of receiving cash benefits is small, but the gap widens once other programs are included in the analysis: 21 percent of...

This paper studies the role of the family in determining the skill composition and labor market experiences of immigrants in the United States. Our theoretical framework, based on the assumption that family migration decisions maximize household income, shows that the family attenuates the...

In the 1980s, the wages and employment rates of less-skilled Americans fell relative to those of more-skilled workers. This paper examines the contribution of the continuing inflow of less-skilled immigrants and the increasing importance of imports in the U.S. economy to these trends. Our...