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1 1 (September 5, 2025)

handle is hein.amenin/aeiafgv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The F'scal mpact of Imm'grat', on: An Update Via PA. Orrenius, Alan D. Viard, and Madeline Zavodny September 2025 inmigrants have an overall posii ve ical inpact on the US-an effect driven by high-skilled immigrarnts, Low-skilled imrnigrants, like their US-borr co:unterparts, impose a net fiscal cost However, recent studies show that the ndect fiscal effcts of low-skilled imrnigration are positive, partly ofsettinng the egative direct scalrnpact. Moreover, imrigrants will help bear the cost of future policy changes required to ddress the grcwing national debt. Sma||er imrnigration inflows might reduce fiscal pressure on state and local governrments but would ncrease fiscal pressure on the federal gov'ernment and slnow econoric growth. immigration rose quickly in the post-*pandemric years., The US foreign-born population hit Si million, and its snare of the total population reached 15.4 percent, exceeding the previous high set in 191o (Figure 1i), Record immigration in recent years, in combination with ongoing fiscal ch.allengcs, has prompted renewd interest in immigration's nscal impact-its effect on government revenues and expenditures. While the nation's fiscal situation has worsened con- siderably over the past decade, with the debt ballooning to 98 percent of anmnual gross domestic product (GDP) from 73 percent a decade before, immigration is not the reason (CBO ,25c). In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the surge in post-pandemic immigration would add signinicantly to net federal The viewvs expressed here ate soley those of the authors and do not Reserve System. revenue over the next 10 years (itBO 2024). The best studies on the topic support this view-namely, that immigration as a whole does not add to the federal debt, Rather, the fiscal cost of irnmigration-to the extent such a cost occurs-is incurred at mainly the state and local levels due to the provision of public education to the chil- dren of imnigrants, most of whoAm are born in the US. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine gold standard study on the fiseal impat of inmigration concluded that irnigrants' average life- time fiscal impact was positive (Blaur and Mackic 2017). The net positive impact, however, was driven by very large positive contributions from college-educated imnmigrants, partly offset by sizable negative fiscal impacts of inigrants with a high school diploma or reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bark of Da:las or the Federal AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE