Immigrants Spur Nation’s Prosperity, Government Economist Holds

Immigrants make a major contribution to this country’s prosperity, serving as large scale consumers of housing, agricultural products manufactured goods and services, Felix S. Cohen, Government official and economist, concludes in a documented study published today.

Immigration continues to be a vital factor in the nation’s opportunity for economic development, he contends in an article in the current issue of the Contemporary Jewish Record, publication of the American Jewish Committee.

At the same time the writer, a member of the Board of Appeals of the Department of Interior and well-known as a lawyer, statistically disposes of the chief arguments employed against immigrants. That they raise the American standard of living, increase employment opportunity and the number of available jobs, and show a high percentage of literacy, he proves in a contrast of ten American states with the highest population of foreign-born inhabitants, and the ten having the lowest.

American economy was enabled to recover from previous depressions because of increasing markets, “largely based on immigration,” and immigration “took up the slack,” he writes. But, “in our present period of unemployment, there is no sign anywhere of an expanding market.”

The article finds that decreasing immigration tends to retard the normal growth of population and has the economic consequence of removing potential producers and consumers from our industry and from society.

“Whatever obstructs the growth of population prevents the expansion of housing, agriculture and other consumer goods industries. Whatever prevents the expansion of consumer goods industries tends to make factory-building, machine production, construction, and road and railroad building unnecessary,” says the writer.

Making a comparison among ten states which have the highest average foreign-born population, or 20.8 per hundred, and ten with only 0.6, the lowest, he shows that the states with the greater foreign-born figure also have the highest average income, or $549 as against $231.

“If the hard facts of cash income mean anything, they mean that the popular theory that prosperity occurs only in the absence of immigration, is untrue,” he concludes.

The wealth of the highest income state is not the result of unusual natural resources or favorable climate, but “is the result of the labor of countless immigrants who were not allowed or encouraged to settle in regions more favored by nature.” Nor do immigrants threaten the American standard of living by working for lower wages and longer hours. Instead, “immigrants, like other human beings, try to get wages as high as the traffic will bear.”