In a recent survey, a majority of Ohio economists said that mass deportations would harm the state’s economy.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to round up and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. But some experts have said that the expense, legality and politics of such a move will place some guardrails on what he’s able to do.
And with migrants playing such an important role in the economy, critics say removing them would be calamitous. CNBC on Monday reported that a massive roundup would take an estimated $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion out of the U.S. economy.
In Ohio, the group Policy Matters on Monday reported that the state’s 580,000 immigrants contribute $53 billion in annual economic output. And the state’s economists seem mostly to agree that removing a big chunk of them will cost the state on balance.
Scioto Analysis last week published a survey of 20 economists asking about the effect of mass deportations. When asked if the move would significantly reduce the state’s economic output, 14 said yes, three said no and three were uncertain.
Among those who agreed that fewer immigrant workers would reduce output was Will Georgic of Ohio Wesleyan University. But he said how much of a loss will depend on the scale of the deportations.
“While it is hard to know whether the reduction in state GDP will be significant, and this will largely depend on the scale of the deportations, the effect will be unambiguously negative,” he said in the comment section of the survey. “Deportations represent negative supply shocks as well as negative demand shocks, both suggesting a decrease in real output.”
Among the economists saying that mass deportations won’t significantly harm state GDP was David Brasington of the University of Cincinnati, who said the undocumented don’t make up a big enough share of the state workforce to have much of an impact.
“Not so many workers, and the jobs they have produce lower-value goods,” he said.
Rachel Wilson of Wittenberg University said that the economic harm from a mass deportation would be multifaceted.
“Not only will it be reduced by immigrants’ production but because of their missing demand,” she said. “Immigrants do not come and work in a vacuum. They spend the money they make creating additional demand for goods and services. They often have a high marginal propensity to consume from each dollar they earn.”
The economists were also asked if they thought a mass deportation would reduce the burden on Ohio’s social safety net. Fifteen disagreed, two agreed and three were uncertain.
Jonathan Andreas echoed some of his colleagues in explaining why he thought expelling the undocumented wouldn’t give much relief to the safety net.
“We can only deport people who are not here legally and they are ineligible for social services except kids can get public education and most of the kids of undocumented immigrants are US citizens by birth,” he said. “Furthermore, undocumented workers typically pay payroll taxes even though they don’t get any credit for it, so they subsidize Social Security and Medicare.”
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