Home / Videos / Paradox of Immigration

Paradox of Immigration

1977 8:07 Milton Friedman TheAsianRepublican

Watch on:

Description

Milton Friedman explains the paradox of immigration: why illegal immigration can be economically beneficial while legal immigration combined with a welfare state creates perverse incentives.

"That's an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it's no good. Why? Because as long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don't qualify for social security, they don't qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don't qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They're hard workers, they're good workers, and they are clearly better off."

— Friedman, Milton event 1977