Study: Immigrants don't take jobs from native-born Americans

At a time when immigration issues have taken center stage in the presidential campaign, a study finds that an influx of new immigrants generally does not take jobs or wages away from most native-born Americans.

The study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that immigration generally had a positive impact overall on the U.S. economy.

"The panel's comprehensive examination revealed many important benefits of immigration - including on economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship - with little to no negative effects on the overall wages or employment of native-born workers in the long term," said Francine D. Blau, chair of the panel that conducted the study and a professor at Cornell University.

The study did find some drawbacks in the economic impacts of immigration.

It found that new immigrants may take some jobs or wages away from an earlier generation of immigrants, as well as from some native-born high-school dropouts and teen workers.

It also found that new immigrants generally have a negative impact on the budgets of state and local governments - primarily because of the cost of public education for their children compared to their own lower wages.

But it also found that those children, once they are educated and enter the U.S. workforce, become greater contributors to the economy and tax revenue than their parents as well as the rest of the native-born population.