Much immigration economics research finds net economic benefits of immigration to the U.S. The media – and sometimes the researchers themselves – distort their findings and suggest this shows immigrants are smarter, harder working and more innovative than American natives.
There is, however, comparatively little research on traditional Americans. Instead, the media and their frequent negative approach to reporting imply Americans lack the skills to compete.
(A very small part of this post was created with AI assistance. Less than 10%.)
Research on working-class native-born American experiences — people who bootstrapped themselves — is underrepresented in elite academic circles
There’s a selection bias problem: academics at elite institutions tend to study what they find relatable or fundable – who themselves are global elites who study other global elite immigrants.
A global elite academic studying immigration policy without accounting for the lived experience of working-class native Americans is a blind spot.
For example, in a prior post I quoted from Zeke Hernandez, a professor at the Wharton School, whose comments quoted in the media imply that immigrants are smarter, harder working and more innovative than those born in the U.S.
His research promotes the view that the U.S. should import more workers from abroad. But he is aware of the conflict this causes. See The-Truth-About-Immigration-introduction.pdf. In this paper he notes moral issues around immigration and potentially taking jobs and opportunities away from citizens – and notes his own privilege. I think he is open minded about these issues.
He was born abroad, grew up in nearly half a dozen countries, and attended both public and private elite universities in the U.S. with a full scholarship to BYU where he earned both undergrad and Masters degrees.. He is sort of a global elitist. His father worked in finance for the Church of Latter Day Saints, in various countries.
No one seems to study Americans – nor those like myself who worked mowing lawns from age 10 onward and required to save my money for future college education. I paid 100% of my own college education, and lived at home to attend the local non-elite public college, There was no option for study abroad, no option for a gap year, no option for travel.
I suspect my experience was, at the time, common.
But this reality limits our background and especially our ability to be “global”.
Researchers often study what they know – which is their own backgrounds – leading them to publish papers about elite immigrants, whose findings may denigrate Americans.
Many may have reasons to promote a specific perspective. This has led to some making claims, such as the following – but note they also not distinguished between legal and illegal immigration – which blurs the discussion.
Michael Bloomberg (former NYC mayor, 2013 speech)
“Immigrants are more entrepreneurial, more innovative, and work harder; that is how you build a stronger America”
Jason Furman (former Chair, Council of Economic Advisers)
(Paraphrase of his comments): Immigration brings in “highly skilled people who are often more productive than natives, boosting innovation and wages”.
NBER / academic summary cited by Forbes (study authors & coverage)
Immigrant inventors “produce disproportionately more innovation” and create “strong positive externalities on the innovation production of their collaborators,” implying native inventors have a “much weaker impact”.
Source: National Bureau of Economic Research study summarized in Forbes (Jan 2023).
Daniel Kim et al. (NBER authors cited in Quartz)
Immigrants are “80% more likely to be entrepreneurs than natives” and immigrant founded firms create more jobs, which is framed as immigrants are more entrepreneurial than American born counterparts.
Source: NBER study summarized in Quartz.
Op-eds
Randall Bloomquist (Duluth News Tribune, Mar 2026): Argues the US must “attract the world’s hardest workers and best minds” to keep an “innovation advantage,” again framing foreign born workers as superior to native workers.
This becomes a pop meme – that we need to import workers from abroad because Americans are dumb and lazy.
Much of the above is created by a sample bias problem as well – the U.S. attracts, often, wealthier persons who study at US universities and who come from elite backgrounds. It’s as if we recruit from the top 1% or perhaps 10% – and then compare their output to 100% of the US population, rather than comparing to the top 1% or 10% in the U.S.