{"id":6714,"date":"2026-04-05T13:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T20:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/?p=6714"},"modified":"2026-04-05T14:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:03:47","slug":"the-lack-of-academic-research-on-self-boot-strapped-american-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/2026\/04\/05\/the-lack-of-academic-research-on-self-boot-strapped-american-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"The lack of academic research on self boot strapped American workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A very small part of this post was created with AI assistance. Less than 10%.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research on working-class native-born American experience<\/strong>s \u2014 people who bootstrapped themselves \u2014 is underrepresented in elite academic circles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a selection bias problem<\/strong>: academics at elite institutions tend to study what they find relatable or fundable – who themselves are global elites who study other global elite immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A global elite academic studying immigration policy without accounting for the lived experience of working-class native Americans is a blind spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suspect my experience was, at the time, common.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this reality limits our background and especially our ability to be “global”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers often study what they know – which is their own backgrounds – leading them to publish papers about elite immigrants, whose findings may denigrate Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many may have reasons to promote a specific perspective. This has led to some making claims, such as the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Bloomberg (former NYC mayor, 2013 speech)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quote: \u201cImmigrants are more entrepreneurial, more innovative, and work harder \u2014 that is how you build a stronger America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: remarks and opeds Bloomberg made while advocating for immigration reform and business-friendly visa policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason Furman (former Chair, Council of Economic Advisers)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quote (paraphrase of his public commentary): Immigration brings in \u201chighly skilled people who are often more productive than natives, boosting innovation and wages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: economic policy speeches and blog posts arguing for skilled immigration to sustain U.S. competitiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBER \/ academic summary cited by Forbes (study authors & coverage)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding presented as: immigrant inventors \u201cproduce disproportionately more innovation\u201d and create \u201cstrong positive externalities on the innovation production of their collaborators,\u201d implying native inventors have a \u201cmuch weaker impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research study summarized in Forbes (Jan 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Kim et al. (NBER authors cited in Quartz)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding\/claim: Immigrants are \u201c80% more likely to be entrepreneurs than natives\u201d and immigrant founded firms create more jobs, framed as immigrants being more entrepreneurial than American-born counterparts. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: NBER study summarized in Quartz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Op-ed authors and commentators (examples)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randall Bloomquist (opinion piece, Duluth News Tribune, Mar 2026): Argues the U.S. must \u201cattract the world\u2019s hardest workers and best minds\u201d to keep an \u201cinnovation advantage,\u201d framing foreign-born talent as superior to native workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This becomes a pop meme – that we need to import workers from abroad because Americans are dumb and lazy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most immigrant economics research focuses entirely on the immigrant experience. Very little compares and contrasts that experience to that of the U.S. born worker. This creates a sample bias problem and leads to potentially biased research findings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,25,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-globally-experienced","category-government-regulatory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6714"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6725,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714\/revisions\/6725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}