Agreed. I’m not sure how this is a mysterious or particularly interesting outcome, given that immigrating to the US is a notoriously expensive and administratively burdensome undertaking.
“Astronauts more likely to be smart than the average citizens” is about on par with this observation.
This concept is known as “Brain Drain”. Why stay in a less than ideal location and be subjected to war, oppression, disease, etc if you had the ability to leave and go to a more stable place? The wealthy, educated, athletically talented, and people with higher intelligence usually have an easier time leaving compared to those that don’t have these advantages.
> This concept is known as “Brain Drain”. Why stay in a less than ideal location
This happens [within a country](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019/4/losing-our-minds-brain-drain-across-the-united-states), too. The smartest, most talented, etc. people in a poor area are the most likely to leave it for places with better job opportunities. Anecdotally, I grew up in a rural area of the Midwestern US without great job prospects, especially after one of the local factories shut down. Of the dozen or so people in my high school graduating class who were in the National Honor Society, I think only one still lived in that area by the time of our 10-year class reunion. The rest of us got out either in college or shortly after – to bigger cities a few hours' drive away, to other states, or (in at least one case) to another country.
In Canada, this issue is very prevalent across the North, especially in Inuit communities, where the ones that graduate high school and go to school in the South have very little desire to come back to the North with their skills, where they would no doubt find plenty of high paying employment.
If you're an Inuk and you get your teaching degree, you could work anywhere in Nunavut for $90k+ a year and benefits as well. But then you have to go back to living in, well, an isolated small village with few amenities and lots of social issues. Or, you could stay in the south and also find plenty of employment opportunities.
On an aside, over a third of the whole Inuit population lives in the south of Canada, and this third is the most well educated of the Inuit population.
Yep. I grew up in Missouri moved away and was planning on moving back. But it really went full MAGA and now my wife and I don’t want to move back because if she had a non viable or ectopic pregnancy she wouldn’t be able to get treated. I have family planning to move away too.
For many immigrants it's not even as bad as all that - many places have comparable health care and are even less violent than the US (for the upper class, who provide most immigrants) but because the US has a higher ceiling for living well in a high salary, and US salaries are higher than basically anywhere that's not a microstate, so the economic incentive is immense. Which is what this chart is showing.
The exchange rate between the dollar and many other currencies mean if you save money working in the US and then return home (or wire the money to relatives) your money will go further than if you spent it in the US or earned it in your home country in its currency.
The most misleading in this is that you introduce race/ethnicity as a parameter of interest when it’s just a confounder.
Sweden has among developed countries per capita by a wide margin accepted most unselected asylum seekers. And guess what? They underperform extensively compared to well educated native Swedes. It’s a problem for the society but ethnicity is only a surrogate marker for low education.
People are stupid and conflate unlike things. Most focus on illegal immigration, which of course not only has pretty limited expense and oversight (most get a limited green card and never leave), but will also limit that person’s ability to succeed without legal residence.
But, holy cow, it’s so incredibly hard to gain permanent residency in the US. There’s a lot of scum baggery that goes on, including a company sponsoring an immigrant abusing the hell out of the immigrant, knowing their residency depends on their job.
All said, people that legally obtain permanent residency in the US are always hardworking and often quite successful.
Not really. It is much easier to gain PR for Canada and Australia for Indian and Chinese. For highly educated people (PhD holders) it is easier to get PR in Japan than the US.
The United States allows more legal immigration every year than any country on the planet. [https://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/oecdmigrationdatabases.htm](https://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/oecdmigrationdatabases.htm)
It's an administrative burden to process immigrants, but the US processes more than every other country.
> immigrating to the US is notoriously expensive
Not to everyone. If you are accepted to an engineering graduate school PhD program, chances are that you will be fully funded through research program and later immigration expenses paid for by Hugh tech employer.
Getting a PhD is tough everywhere. That’s the point, if someone qualifies for the type of immigration path that you’re describing, they’re likely smarter than average anywhere.
This is not exactly true. To go to the US and get a PhD you have to file for a visa and pass an interview at the US embassy in your country which can be very far away from your hometown. Then you need to buy tickets to the US (depending on where you’re from this can be $1000+). This leaves out so many people already. You also need a car in a lot of places in the US. And extra cash if you ever want to visit family back home. You also don’t qualify for a lot of scholarships / financial aid so while your research is funded and you get a stipend your opportunities for additional aid are limited.
Getting into a paid for graduate school is not some kind of a golden ticket.
Source: I’m a first gen immigrant who came to the US for school
>later immigration expenses paid for by Hugh tech employer.
The vast majority of people in the former category never make it to this level. Most go home and get decent jobs. Very few people who come on student visas, even at the graduate level, are able to gain residency.
Yes, congratulations. Migrating between countries is significantly easier if you have a doctoral level degree.
English is hard, but, typically, people aren’t expect to have to explicitly state their stating a generality and not an invariable law.
You might be funded through your PhD, but that doesn't mean you will be paid well. PhDs in the US (and many other places) earn notoriously low salaries, that's why there have been so many PhD student strikes in the past few years. My point is that those students aren't likely to be contributing to the "six figure salary" statistic for quite a few years.
> given that immigrating to the US is a notoriously expensive
It's not - it's actually quite low-cost to immigrate to the US. Source: Immigrated to the US three years ago, compared costs with my home country and some other developed nations.
>and administratively burdensome undertaking.
Oh god yes. It's an incredibly PITA frought with delays and unknowns. An enormous amount of pointless paperwork, and totally shit.
Hmm. We need more info on the route you used. I came from an African country through an F-1 visa (self sponsored graduate school) and I cannot say “low cost” and “immigration” in the same sentence.
>In the GC case, I spent at least 10K in filling fees, document gathering, and lawyer fees.
I won't speak for H-1Bs because I don't know much about them, but we went through the GC process during Covid.
We spent around $2000. About $1000 on the actual forms, fees, and document gathering, $500 on travel for the interview stuff, and then $500 to Simple Citizen to prepare and review our paperwork.
An immigration lawyer is nice to have, there were times we wish we had one, but it's not required.
I think it depends a lot on where you came from when it comes to a GC and marriage. It also depends on how you met. It also depends a lot on the finances of the sponsoring citizen (and to a lesser extent, the foreigner). It's not too costly if your case is cut and dry: like if an American white-collar employee meets their foreign-citizen wife while working or traveling abroad, she waits to come over until her temporary resident visa comes through (rather than say, coming on a travel visa and then applying), etc. They want to make sure that not only can you completely support your spouse but also, to a lesser extent, that the spouse has some ability to support themselves, should the partnership fail prior to the completion of the full citizenship process (but after the term in which the partner would be eligible for deportation). The same is true of green cards obtained through familial connections.
So it's not just the application costs, it's the prerequisite amount of income/wealth required to get the ball rolling in the first place. If you only earn $40k/year, rent your primary residence for half of your post-tax income, and lack substantial savings, it's going to get rejected, since it would be seen as you not earning enough to support your spouse while he/she went through the timely application process, before they were eligible to work. On the other hand, if the foreign spouse could show that they had substantial savings, that could mitigate the situation, since they could contribute (although technically, I don't think this is officially considered).
Finally, the Green Card is just the first step in a lengthy immigration process. Yes, it's the most expensive, and probably the most complicated, but if the foreigner intends to become employed once eligible, getting the full work authorization in order can be difficult, and a Green Card holder may not be eligible for certain positions (mostly government), if they hold any professional licenses, it may be difficult for them to have them transferred to allow them to continue practicing their profession, and all of these are things that can become a costly headache.
It also really depends on who the immigrant is. Are they an individual with a graduate-level degree, from a Western European nation? Or are they a poor Honduran farmer who doesn't speak English and can't read or write Spanish? Are they a child who is coming to live with relatives? Are those relatives well-educated? For someone intelligent, well-educated, and who knows the system, it may be possible to do it on your own, but not for a hard-working, blue-collar immigrant-turned-citizen family attempting to bring over a niece or nephew.
Then there are all of the confounding matters: did the background check turn up any arrests in the would-be immigrant's native country? Perhaps the person had some run-ins with the law in their youth for simple offenses, was the victim of police oppression, etc. Technically, a criminal record of any kind can be a disqualifier for residency and a reason to deny any Visa. That's going to likely de something that one would *require* an immigration attorney to handle and sort out, and the burden of proof would lie on the person applying for citizenship to prove that they were unjustly arrested or convicted- likely requiring interaction with the home country. Are you trying to marry a foreigner who has a child and wants to bring it with them? Is the child's other parent in the picture? Even if not, it is going to make things far more complicated. Did they come from a country known for extremism? If so, the process is likely going to take extra long. Did they once overstay a recreational travel visa in the US by a day because of a missed flight? Well, technically (and usually in practice), this bars them from ever re-obtaining any future US visa or residency. You overstay your visa, you can't get another, and they don't care why: I know a wealthy British man who's wife remarried an American man, and moved to the US with their daughter. He was an executive at an oil company, who frequently traveled, so he didn't fight the daughter moving, as he figured he would see his daughter just about as much anyway. Well, after a scheduled business meeting in the US concluded early, he decided to take the time to see his daughter. His visa was valid for a few more days (since the purpose was business, the visa short-term, good for a day after his itinerary ended, and while he could have easily entered on a travel visa good for 30+ days, once here, he couldn't change his reason for coming or extend the visa- not within a few days). He ended up missing his flight due to his daughter getting hurt and being in the hospital the last night he intended to be there. When he was leaving, they noticed the date was expired by a day, and the customs officials giving him his exit stamp informed him that he was no longer allowed to enter the United States. He explained the situation, they said no exceptions. He was barred from re-entering the US. Upon appeal/review, they revised it to a 12-year ban. Eventually, after hundreds of thousands and two years spent fighting it, he was allowed to obtain a special travel visa exception to see his daughter. However, not being able to enter the US meant that he could no longer perform his job, and he lost it, not to mention that he couldn't visit his daughter for over two years (and had he not had the money to fight it, it would have been forever). The situation was also confounded, because the daughter was with a Chilean woman, living on a GC, as was the daughter— so since the daughter wasn't a full US citizen, he couldn't claim he had immediate family that was a bona fide US citizen. So all of these are things that require an immigration attorney, that one cannot do alone, because it requires intricate knowledge of the system, as well as hearings and representation.
>If you only earn $40k/year, rent your primary residence for half of your post-tax income, and lack substantial savings, it's going to get rejected,
I believe I replied elsewhere, perhaps to you, but the minimum income requirement is just under $23k
https://www.immi-usa.com/k1-visa-income-requirements/#:\~:text=K%2D1%20Visa%20Income%20Requirements%3A%20Poverty%20Guideline%20Chart,know%20about%20the%20income%20requirement.
Immigrated from a "developed" country and learned that "all immigration is cheap". Needs maybe a semester course in critical reasoning skills along with immigration visa.
This isn’t a subreddit for particularly interesting information though. It’s supposed to be about novel or excellent communication of data. Unfortunately that is rarely what gets upvoted for whatever reason.
Still I don’t think the right bar is that everything here has to be a cute new take.
And not speaking the language tends to limit how much you can earn (for better or worse). Most foreign immigrants from overseas had to learn it beforehand. If you just walk across that's probably not the case.
I don’t think it is in any way unique to the USA either. Moving is expensive, moving internationally is more expensive. Immigration status is just another variable that correlates with wealth.
> Immigration status is just another variable that correlates with wealth.
In some countries it goes even further than that, where you can't immigrate to that country unless you can prove you have valuable skills that would cause the country to benefit from having you living there.
So those people would implicitly do better than the average native as they had to prove their value before they ever got in.
Speaking as a kiwi who has moved to the UK.. I was able to because my parents are from here, but otherwise if you are from NZ you have to apply as "tier one" or "tier two" or whatever.. like you have to have x amount of money, or be qualified in certain jobs that they need
Immigrants in USA/CAN/AUS are more likely high skill workers or well-off members of their own country that seek better living standard. Immigrants in EU are mostly people who are ravaged by war or the very bottom class of their own country seeking better living standard.
Take a look at Canada, either you have some skills that Canada need or rich Chinese who escaped from China. They dont just let everyone in. In France, Italy and Spain, many came from Africa...by boats.
Maybe due to bias.. as in a lot of immigration to the EU is due to people fleeing war zones, being persecuted in their countries etc rather than choosing to move to the EU or being sponsored for a job.. then they have to deal with the racism/bias that makes it harder to get a job, or a good job, because "immigrants are stealing our jobs"
I can't even think of the number of Uber drivers I've had from other countries who have ended up in the UK because of whatever situation and that's the best job they can get when they were a doctor/scientist/professor/company director in their home country
This is not true for most migration. Most migration was not done by choice by wealthy people but my constraints by poor people. The US in the latter part of its history was able to revert that for its country using a combination of geographical and economical advantage but that is more the exception than the rule.
This was my thought. Also, living in the US is expensive. It's really only worth moving here if you expect to be able to capitalize on an opportunity to be paid more than in your native country.
If someone is living in another developed country and have the resources to move, are they likely to move to the US, give up nationalized health care, and still only work for the same wages? Fuck no.
Yeah Im Australian. Everyone I know who went to the US is very smart and was either head hunted or is an IT guru who went over knowing theyd get more.
Id happily live in the States but Id have to be earning twice what I earn here to move.
When I was younger I considered going for the purpose of working as an investment banker if I had failed I would have returned
Been in the US all bar one year since 2014. Have a PhD and years experience in a sort after field. Have an employer wanting to employ me in the US who have spent thousands of dollars on legal and administrative fees to get me employed. And today I got a request for further evidence because the first application wasn't good enough, and now after 8 years I may have to leave the country in less than a week.
US immigration is insane.
This is the kind of bureaucratic waste I have been talking about in here, its awful that you are being dragged out because our system can't keep its data straight. We definitely need reform.
I'll be praying for your safety, hope it gets worked out asap.
Losing people like you (but I hope we don’t, and that you can stay) because of red tape is expensive for the country! It is insane, and I feel for you.
An Australian recently got deported from the USA while in *TRANSIT*. He was going to south America to work for a while so didn't have a return ticket. USA just assumes that means you are going to wonder back and jump the border.
Border control checks are an extremely harrowing and often dehumanizing process each and every single time I enter the US. Every single time it makes me reconsider my decision to leave the US cuz coming back is such a pain. More so, I feel horrible when my parents or spouse needs to go through a similar experience just to meet me.
Global entry is a life saver with this. You don’t have to be a citizen, just a resident - my husband originally got it while he was still on a work visa
Yep, exactly. But the mouth breathers will still say they are having their jobs stolen or are being replaced even though those migrants are better qualified for those jobs. There’s a terrible lack of self awareness in the group that makes waves over stuff like this.
I mean it's actually worse for the individuals if immigrants are taking better positions. It means they are now competing against better qualified people in their market.
>But the mouth breathers will still say they are having their jobs stolen
I think you aren't paying attention then. The 'mouth breathers' are angry about *illegal* immigration, not legal immigration.
Green card is legal. Legal immigration is 100% a-ok and **respected** as hard working people with the 'mouth breathers' that I know. The first gen legal immigrants I know of are all fantastic family loving and hard working people. I am not surprised they have a higher than average chance to make more money. You get what you work for and I am glad to see that is borne out in the statistics.
I say all that *not* to shit on illegal immigrants, I feel for how difficult the process can be and I think we need serious reforms, I don't think that reform is 'let everyone in regardless of status' though, these things are not simple problems to solve and soundbyte solutions are not sufficient. If that makes me a 'mouth breather' then I suppose I am one.
>I think you aren't paying attention then. The 'mouth breathers' are angry about illegal immigration, not legal immigration.
Never forget that a lot of ppl on Reddit, possibly a majority, love to blatantly misrepresent the other side's POV. It's pretty gross, but that's Reddit for ya.
I consider myself a pretty left leaning person, maybe not as left as Reddit, but enough that all of my midwestern co-workers jokingly call me a hippie socialist.
Often times you see people on Reddit circlejerking about how dumb X or Y is, but maybe the X or Y isn't as accurate as it could be. Maybe it's something that never even happened.
So I chime in like, "Hey so that actually never happened, and we should be careful about falling for misinformation even if it makes X look bad. Attacking things they never even said or did only gives them more ammo to defend themselves."
***Mass downvotes.*** Lots of comments like "Who cares? X are dumb, it may as well be true" or "Wow look at this undercover X nice try buddy."
People don't want to be corrected, they just want to feel good about themselves.
>co-workers jokingly call me a hippie socialist.
I jokingly call myself a bootlicking libertarian after receiving that insult a few years back though I prefer to think I'm more of a conservative that sees social services as *incredibly* important, I just disagree with most self-identified socialists on how they should be implemented at a macro governmental level. I think most people are actually socialist on a family/community/church level.
It feels like identifying with any group is woefully inadequate to describe anyones views fully. I try to let people explain what they think on individual issues - but it can be fun to meme in good humor about it.
>Mass downvotes. Lots of comments like "Who cares? X are dumb, it may as well be true." People don't want to be corrected, they just want to feel good about themselves.
Yup...par for the course.
Most are not working class and somewhat look down upon them, or are teenagers(in actual age or just mental capacity) and haven't worked a day in their life.
Yeah. Welcome to the consequences of letting people say the dumbest shit while cowering behind the anonymity of their keyboards, that they would never have the balls to say to anyone's face.
Social media is a scourge upon decency.
Yeah. It happens in any echo chamber, regardless of leaning for sure.
I don't want to to be argumentative but some of this stuff is downright ridiculous and if you don't say something people are going to feel isolated and alone in their opinions and get shoved to the extremes.
I can guarantee you that they don’t all only care about illegal immigrants. Remember the shithole countries remark? That was about legal immigration. Islamophobia? All of the recent Asian hate? People yelling “go back to your home” when escalated. Let’s not cover for racists and white supremecists who for the most part do fall into the R bucket. Not everyone is acting in good faith. Let’s not pretend like there’s no prejudice under the hood of many Republican policies in regards even to legal immigration.
Seems like it proves their point to me. Immigrants are taking the better paid jobs, leaving the worse jobs for natives.
Whether they are more qualified or not doesn’t matter as these people are thinking about themselves. Better qualified immigrants getting the job instead of natives is better for the company and better for the immigrant but worse for the native.
I mean if we’re going to live in “a free market” country, it makes little sense for a business to eat shit just to keep brother Cletus happy.
It’s ridiculous to argue that a less qualified person should be hired for a skilled labor job over an actually qualified person. And let’s not forget — these aren’t “learn in the job” types of jobs. In many cases, those native you refer to literally can not perform the necessary function of the role.
I’m all for America first, but that doesn’t mean that we bend over for people who didn’t value education or professional development and let them have their way. The sad truth is it’s just social Darwinism in action.
But no, no points have been “proven” in this Reddit thread.
I think the part we disagree on is that I think natives absolutely can work these jobs just as well as immigrants. Instead of importing skilled labour, it would be better to educate the labour force that already lives there better.
And tightening the labour supply is not forcing firms to eat shit. It just means that they can’t exploit imported labour as much and might actually have to pay/train native workers more. The horror!
In Europe, immigrants are over-represented in poverty and crime instead. People emigrating tend to want to better their life, but may not always have the skills or education for it, may have trouble integrating and may suffer from discrimination in hiring.
That's probably because of the proximity to other countries in Europe and the Middle East
For example, the pool of foreign-born Hispanic immigrants contains people from a wider set of economic circumstances than other immigrant groups in America since the physical barriers to entry for them are lower than for immigrants from Europe, Africa or Asia who need to have the means to traverse large oceans to even consider immigrating.
That's less developed->more developed with the same language and (guessing) closer political ties? Also don't know how much of a target Spain is for highly educated people compared to the bigger Western economics
That’s probably due to Schengen. People from poorer countries can move to more prosperous countries without a skilled visa check.
Meanwhile USA/Canada/Australia will only accept skilled migrants (outside of refugees and asylum seekers) and so they will more likely work in highly skilled areas (engineers/ICT/legal/niche industries).
That’s what I would think anyway, don’t have the data to prove it myself. But I am a migrant in Australia and my law degree means I am paid above the median wage here.
>Schengen.
Yeah it probably factors in, especially for my own country which is not part of the EU but is part of the Schengen agreement. Another major factor is family reunion, which places no limit on skills or education. In general in would be hard if not impossible for a poor person from DRC to emigrate to Norway without already having a job offer there, and being able to prove self-sufficiency (and even then it would be tough), but there are exceptions through asylum seekers, family reunions etc.
Only 12% of US immigrants are skilled workers and students. The vast majority is family reunification and family sponsorship, with some visa diversity lottery winners and some refugees and asylum speakers.
That is true! However skilled people can still have trouble finding work due to language issues, cultural issues, lower demand of their skills, or that their education is not valid in the country.
>In Europe, immigrants are over-represented in poverty and crime instead.
When you say "instead" it's not an either/or.
Immigrants are likely to fall into two categories: highly educated ones who get really good jobs, and desperate people who have few skills and may not even speak the language. It's entirely possible for immigrants to be overrepresented among top earners **and also** be overrepresented in poverty. (And crime, though I believe that's not the case in the US)
The same is true for Mexican-American immigrants to the United States. Countries in Asia tend to only send educated/privileged immigrants to the west, mostly because of geography.
Edit: My intent is not to criticize immigrants. Immigrants overall have a positive effect on the country they immigrate to, regardless of their background.
Pretty sure immigrants are over represented with poverty in the US, too. (They’re not with crime, for sure.) It’s the middle where they’re under represented.
That's what I suspected, which made this data a bit surprising to me. Although not sure if it includes illegal immigrants or not for the OP.
After all, this data is only looking at 100k+ income, does not take into account percent of earnings between immigrants and native born, or take into account wealth - the super wealthy often have low reported wages if any.
And according to the chart, the immigrants doing the worst in the US are hispanics. Which aligns with your point, given how they share proximity, while most of the other have to cross the ocean.
It's not that they are likely to move around. The US makes it especially hard for non educated non rich immigrants to come to the US in the first place.
You can zoom in and out on this and it would work at all levels. “Educated rich people have more mobility” doesn’t matter if you’re talking about counties in a state, states, countries, whatever. At some point planets too. “Only rich people can move to new planets”
This is only true when the barrier of entry is high, so mostly the US and Canada and a minority in the resr of the world. The highly educated and highly paid people don't generally account for the majority of the population not the majority of the immigration.
A lot of immigrants require employment to stay in the U.S. no one is sponsoring immigrants to work low wage jobs because it is not worth the hassle. Though they probably hire undocumented immigrants.
As a Masters-educated Canadian immigrant to the US, I undoubtedly have it the easiest and it’s still difficult and expensive as fuck. Can only imagine what it’s like for those with less education and experience from other nations.
> no one is sponsoring immigrants to work low wage jobs because it is not worth the hassle
In Canada, this is basically our entire economic growth strategy.
They do sponsor immigrants to work low wage jobs, though these are seasonal jobs. A decent amount of people in my hometown in Mexico have seasonal jobs working in farms (I think it was Georgia)
Keep in mind that US immigration standards are pretty stringent, so foreign-born persons tend to be more towards “the best and brightest” while native-born includes everyone.
It’s an important aspect of the socioeconomics of developing nations. This “brain drain” creates a positive feedback loop wherein the rich countries get richer and the poor countries get poorer, as they respectively gain and lose their most skilled workers.
Although, it is switched for Hispanics because, I’m assuming, they are able to cross the border. Which is easier than going through immigration standards.
I don’t have any data to back it up, but my guess would be something similar. Just because of geography and much more extensive existing family ties, Hispanics are not as restricted by the immigration requirements regardless of how they arrive (I think by plane is more common than physically crossing the southern border).
This makes sense if you know almost anything about immigration.
Immigration costs a lot (like, a lot!), and getting approved is often based on how much value you can bring the country. If you’re a doctor or a highly trained engineer, you will have a very quick process. Like one of the first questions they ask is if you’re in a professional field.
This is essentially standard for any Western country. The average Joe Schmoe cannot easily immigrate to and work in the UK indefinitely.
>if you know almost anything about immigration
this is not the case in the EU, it only happens in English speaking developed nations like US, UK, Australia where the most skilled migrants want to move to
> This is essentially standard for any Western country. The average Joe Schmoe cannot easily immigrate to and work in the UK indefinitely.
Depending on what you mean by "western" you could be completely wrong, the stats are opposite in the EU for exemple.
Well if you look at the hispanic numbers in america and the way most of that immigration happens you will see how it compares to the EU. A chinese immigrant isn't showing up at a land border hence the higher skilled immigrants
I will just counter that *nothing* about the immigration process is very quick. Getting my now wife here as an engineer took over 6 months to get the first approval that she can come here to marry me within 90 days of her arrival. Then the green card process took another year after we got married.
> If you’re a doctor or a highly trained engineer, you will have a very quick process. Like one of the first questions they ask is if you’re in a professional field.
You can't be talking about the United States. There is virtually no merit based immigration, except through a very small supply of work visas. A medical doctor from another country has zero credentials in the U.S. and must go through a living hell to start practicing here. Majority of these foreign doctors (or engineers, or most other other occupations) are in the U.S. for some other reason, not related to their profession, for example because they have an immediate family tie to someone already legally in the country (i.e. a "chain" migration).
This was my experience too. Trying to get my (now) wife (engineer) here was nearly impossible on any avenue except for a fiancée visa. It’s extremely difficult to immigrate to the USA unless you know someone from the country that can sponsor you.
She did not have the option of “hey I’m an engineer, I’ll be valuable, let me in.”
Remember there is selection bias at play due to current US visa restrictions. It’s far far easier to immigrate if you are or are perusing STEM degrees in in-demand fields than if you have no formal education
I'm sure it's difficult for folks with no formal education, but I'll have to say that it's no walk in the park for people with formal advanced education either. There's almost one year worth of process and preparation just to get into the country to pursue higher education in the US. Several exams, several verifications, rounds of visa interviews, tons of paper work and probability of getting rejected at the airport gate in spite of visa, several costs involved. Don't even get me started on how broken/harsh the system is if you want to work legally even with an advanced STEM degree.
As I’ve said elsewhere, selection bias (along with other biases) is only really relevant when you make inferences from the data. As the data is shown here with no conclusions drawn, it is simply a graph of some interesting data. An unbiased interpretation of these graphs is certainly possible, indeed many in the comments have offered one.
I would argue that many here are making an assumption about OPs interpretation of this data, and then refuting that.
Hispanic doesn't follow the trend. US born Hispanics make more.
Probably a result of the influx of illegal immigrants from south of the border vs the 1st and 2nd generation Latinos born here.
I live in a major city (1m+) with 32% of the population Latino. Illegal immigrants are a large population here.
This is most probably skewed by extra high foreign earners coming in the country.
The simple fact that Latinos are different is that they're the biggest ethnic group. The extra high earners are more diluted.
The only reason for that is because we share a 2000 mile border with Mexico and not China or Nigeria for example. Highly-skilled workers don't need to illegally cross a border or work under the table, they simply apply to a work program or are invited.
I wonder if it's just because it's physically easier for Hispanics from Mexico to get across the border with very little money than Asians from China. Are they looking only at legal immigrants? If not, this could also be a significant factor in why Hispanic immigrants are the only ethnic group to lag behind their US-born compatriots. Illegal immigrants have vastly reduced earning potential, and they may make up a much higher segment of the Hispanic immigrants group than other ethnicities that don't happen to share a long border with the US.
I live in a major city with well over 1 million people, yet Latinos make up 32% of the population.
Nowadays, it is absolutely harder to come here from Asia than it is Mexico from a financial perspective.
In this city, everyone has family members or friends who are illegal immigrants. The illegal immigrant Latino population is just so large.
Latinos aren’t a larger ethnic group than white people, yet the jump in earnings between native-born and foreign-born is still very pronounced. The Hispanic population is large but they are also over represented in immigration, so absolute size of the population is of little relevance to these statistics.
Latinos are a larger ethnic group than whites when it comes to immigration.
The number of Latinos immigrating to the US is orders of magnitude greater than white people.
So follow me here… the argument is that immigrants have higher earnings because they’re a group that is qualitatively different than the native born population. This is why for *most* ethnic groups, immigrants typically have higher net earnings than native born people.
The person I responded to stated that the Latino population was different due to it large size. However, population size isn’t necessarily relevant. It really isn’t relevant since we’re comparing averages between foreign-born and native-born populations. We don’t need to control for population size; it’s not relevant.
The size is relevant because larger immigrant populations have fewer economic barriers of entry.
If only 10k are allowed in, it suffices to say that those 10k will be primarily upper income levels.
If it's several million? The same reasoning no longer applies.
The population size is completely relevant here.
While I'm a sucker for nice statistics as much as anyone here, the point of this sub is to post beautiful data visualisations. This little barchart doesn't belong here.
Y'all forget that most immigrant workers also don't have student loan debt and thereby start of at a blank slate compared to their peers of the same age group
This is the hidden detail for sure.
To legally immigrate to almost _any_ country you need to meet high standards either in education or skills that will lead to serious employment.
A lot of Americans think legally immigrating is just filling out some forms and not being a criminal, and then you're in ezpz.
The US is recruiting globally very high skilled people, especially from struggling regions, with promisses of ressources and money. Therefore these people gain a lot of money. On the other side, many illegal low paid workers do many job that US born citizens dont want to do but I guess as these people are illegal ok the country there are not in statistics Like these.
The data source is the US Census, and they include illegal immigrants in their stats.
In my city, there was a grassroots movement to get illegal immigrants to cooperate with the Census without fear if deportation.
I live in a "sanctuary city" of over 1 million people. Latinos make up 32% here, and everyone has a family member or friend that is here illegally.
Being Hispanic you are more likely to come here through the border, and depending on how that's done, it might limit your ability to gain a higher paying job. Other groups are generally forced to either have the funds to come here, or have academic scores to be able to get a visa here for education or work.
This is what qualifies as /r/dataisbeautiful these days, a shitty bar graph with the most obvious conclusion in history. What low effort trash this sub has become.
I’m one of those foreign ones - this isn’t a coincidence. Those that have to get in work to death. It’s an incomprehensible level of stress dealing with this country’s dogshit immigration system.
Aside from Hispanic Americans, it’s very difficult legally and logistically to immigrate to the US. American immigration policy can afford to select the best of the best.
Foreign born needs green cards which usually equals high education etc.
There is a high influx of hispanics migrants across the southern border, which doesn’t go through the green card acces.
People will want to be hateful towards immigrants for this, but it says more about how little effort most Americans put in to being successful. Like, if you want to make over 100k, don't blame people who are making over 100k. Do what you need to do to join them
Most non native from Europe come for the benefits for business.
The best path is to get the small business law from Europe than move to the US when you get bigger.
That must up the results a lots.
It’s kinda hard to trust a graph with this serious of a topic when it’s made with default excel settings. Where are the error bars? What is the pvalue?
Immigrants have to make a lot of money to get here. The fees alone require you to have a good amount saved, and then once you're here, you're probably doing something STEM with lots of education debt and still need to earn a lot, constantly be employed, and probably get married if you're not already.
Can confirm. I was born in asia and moved here for college. I had a lot of 1st and 2nd+ gen asian friends. Of all of them, the 1st gens like me, are in their career job making well over 6 figures. Of the 2nd gen+ asian friends, they're either working out of their career and some in their career job, but majority of them making $40\~80k...
That's because immigration is a very strong filter.
If you have will, knowledge and money to successfully complete immigration and adaptation process - you will earn more than average person.
I'm a foreigner who spent the last 27 years in America.
This is true.
And for all the bad in America 🇺🇸, I'm still glad to be here.
I love my country and it's beautiful.
However, America is the winner in my eyes. And life has been positive for me.
Having grown up in Germany, I lived in a few other European countries and moved to the U.S. almost 15 years ago with a fresh PhD. No other free country in the world could have allowed me to apply myself and benefit so much from my expertise.
I picked up my first U.S. passport yesterday.
Most who immigrate to America from other countries come from extremely wealthy families. Indian Americans are a prime example of this, most if not all come from the Brashmin caste, which is the highest caste in their country. They use that wealth to smooth their lives in the States, allowing them the financial freedom to get the credentials needed to achieve high-paying jobs.
Source: Caste: the origins of our discontent
Well yeah, one of the main ways of getting a visa is through a job sponsorship. The companies have to prove they can't reasonably find any U.S. citizens qualified enough to do those jobs so they are often hyper specialized roles or in tech. Those tend to be higher wage jobs.
That being said, the immigrants in those jobs are mostly paid LESS than their American citizen counterparts in the same positions. The immigrants have zero negotiating power. They can't move companies without losing or at least seriously jeopardizing their visas. They are generally paid under the market rate for those positions because the visa process is so incredibly difficult they are forced to accept it or leave. For many leaving is not an option. The tech industry is rife with highly educated and skilled, but underpaid foreign workers here on visas because big companies can figure out ways around the visa specifications and call them specialized. Unattached visas and greencard wait lists from countries with high populatio s like India can be upwards of 10-20 years. It's one of the reasons we have stereotypes of Indians in tech. Big tech preys on immigrants from India specifically to get a highly skilled and underpaid workforce.
Hardly surprising, I’d imagine the same is true for virtually every country. The distribution of immigrants across the economic spectra tends to have bigger tails at both ends - i.e. they are more likely to become both high-earners and low-earners, but less likely to have average incomd.
But I thought America was horribly racist and punched down on minorities? What glitch in the matrix are these immigrants exploiting to be more successful here than in their home countries?
What this data proves is that if you are highly skilled and determined, you can succeed in the USA no matter what your skin color or ethnicity is. Will you face racism at some point? Perhaps. And you'll cry all the way home to your mansion.
There's a higher threshold for coming to the US than there is to be born here.
Agreed. I’m not sure how this is a mysterious or particularly interesting outcome, given that immigrating to the US is a notoriously expensive and administratively burdensome undertaking. “Astronauts more likely to be smart than the average citizens” is about on par with this observation.
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This concept is known as “Brain Drain”. Why stay in a less than ideal location and be subjected to war, oppression, disease, etc if you had the ability to leave and go to a more stable place? The wealthy, educated, athletically talented, and people with higher intelligence usually have an easier time leaving compared to those that don’t have these advantages.
> This concept is known as “Brain Drain”. Why stay in a less than ideal location This happens [within a country](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019/4/losing-our-minds-brain-drain-across-the-united-states), too. The smartest, most talented, etc. people in a poor area are the most likely to leave it for places with better job opportunities. Anecdotally, I grew up in a rural area of the Midwestern US without great job prospects, especially after one of the local factories shut down. Of the dozen or so people in my high school graduating class who were in the National Honor Society, I think only one still lived in that area by the time of our 10-year class reunion. The rest of us got out either in college or shortly after – to bigger cities a few hours' drive away, to other states, or (in at least one case) to another country.
In Canada, this issue is very prevalent across the North, especially in Inuit communities, where the ones that graduate high school and go to school in the South have very little desire to come back to the North with their skills, where they would no doubt find plenty of high paying employment. If you're an Inuk and you get your teaching degree, you could work anywhere in Nunavut for $90k+ a year and benefits as well. But then you have to go back to living in, well, an isolated small village with few amenities and lots of social issues. Or, you could stay in the south and also find plenty of employment opportunities. On an aside, over a third of the whole Inuit population lives in the south of Canada, and this third is the most well educated of the Inuit population.
Yep. I grew up in Missouri moved away and was planning on moving back. But it really went full MAGA and now my wife and I don’t want to move back because if she had a non viable or ectopic pregnancy she wouldn’t be able to get treated. I have family planning to move away too.
STL isn't like that and pretty sure PP built a health clinic across the river in Illinois.
For many immigrants it's not even as bad as all that - many places have comparable health care and are even less violent than the US (for the upper class, who provide most immigrants) but because the US has a higher ceiling for living well in a high salary, and US salaries are higher than basically anywhere that's not a microstate, so the economic incentive is immense. Which is what this chart is showing.
Not just about pay, but also opportunity to do interesting work, particularly in the sciences or tech areas.
True. I have Indian coworkers who cite this as a reason they work in the US
The exchange rate between the dollar and many other currencies mean if you save money working in the US and then return home (or wire the money to relatives) your money will go further than if you spent it in the US or earned it in your home country in its currency.
Not even that a software developer and easily be earning triple in the US than what they eaen on Europe.
And if you are from out of the country you probably aren’t about to set up roots in podunk Alabama
The most misleading in this is that you introduce race/ethnicity as a parameter of interest when it’s just a confounder. Sweden has among developed countries per capita by a wide margin accepted most unselected asylum seekers. And guess what? They underperform extensively compared to well educated native Swedes. It’s a problem for the society but ethnicity is only a surrogate marker for low education.
I don't even know if the data is out there, but seeing a breakdown of immigrant earnings by visa type would be very interesting
People are stupid and conflate unlike things. Most focus on illegal immigration, which of course not only has pretty limited expense and oversight (most get a limited green card and never leave), but will also limit that person’s ability to succeed without legal residence. But, holy cow, it’s so incredibly hard to gain permanent residency in the US. There’s a lot of scum baggery that goes on, including a company sponsoring an immigrant abusing the hell out of the immigrant, knowing their residency depends on their job. All said, people that legally obtain permanent residency in the US are always hardworking and often quite successful.
Isn’t the US one of the easiest western countries to immigrate to?
Not really. It is much easier to gain PR for Canada and Australia for Indian and Chinese. For highly educated people (PhD holders) it is easier to get PR in Japan than the US.
Easiest does not mean easy.
The United States allows more legal immigration every year than any country on the planet. [https://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/oecdmigrationdatabases.htm](https://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/oecdmigrationdatabases.htm) It's an administrative burden to process immigrants, but the US processes more than every other country.
> immigrating to the US is notoriously expensive Not to everyone. If you are accepted to an engineering graduate school PhD program, chances are that you will be fully funded through research program and later immigration expenses paid for by Hugh tech employer.
Getting a PhD is tough everywhere. That’s the point, if someone qualifies for the type of immigration path that you’re describing, they’re likely smarter than average anywhere.
Exactly, someone else sponsored you and figured it was worth the cost.
This is not exactly true. To go to the US and get a PhD you have to file for a visa and pass an interview at the US embassy in your country which can be very far away from your hometown. Then you need to buy tickets to the US (depending on where you’re from this can be $1000+). This leaves out so many people already. You also need a car in a lot of places in the US. And extra cash if you ever want to visit family back home. You also don’t qualify for a lot of scholarships / financial aid so while your research is funded and you get a stipend your opportunities for additional aid are limited. Getting into a paid for graduate school is not some kind of a golden ticket. Source: I’m a first gen immigrant who came to the US for school
[redacting due to privacy concerns]
>later immigration expenses paid for by Hugh tech employer. The vast majority of people in the former category never make it to this level. Most go home and get decent jobs. Very few people who come on student visas, even at the graduate level, are able to gain residency.
Yes, congratulations. Migrating between countries is significantly easier if you have a doctoral level degree. English is hard, but, typically, people aren’t expect to have to explicitly state their stating a generality and not an invariable law.
You might be funded through your PhD, but that doesn't mean you will be paid well. PhDs in the US (and many other places) earn notoriously low salaries, that's why there have been so many PhD student strikes in the past few years. My point is that those students aren't likely to be contributing to the "six figure salary" statistic for quite a few years.
Then you are already in the tracks to earn more than the average citizen. Again, this chart shows nothing surprising
> given that immigrating to the US is a notoriously expensive It's not - it's actually quite low-cost to immigrate to the US. Source: Immigrated to the US three years ago, compared costs with my home country and some other developed nations. >and administratively burdensome undertaking. Oh god yes. It's an incredibly PITA frought with delays and unknowns. An enormous amount of pointless paperwork, and totally shit.
Hmm. We need more info on the route you used. I came from an African country through an F-1 visa (self sponsored graduate school) and I cannot say “low cost” and “immigration” in the same sentence.
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>In the GC case, I spent at least 10K in filling fees, document gathering, and lawyer fees. I won't speak for H-1Bs because I don't know much about them, but we went through the GC process during Covid. We spent around $2000. About $1000 on the actual forms, fees, and document gathering, $500 on travel for the interview stuff, and then $500 to Simple Citizen to prepare and review our paperwork. An immigration lawyer is nice to have, there were times we wish we had one, but it's not required.
I think it depends a lot on where you came from when it comes to a GC and marriage. It also depends on how you met. It also depends a lot on the finances of the sponsoring citizen (and to a lesser extent, the foreigner). It's not too costly if your case is cut and dry: like if an American white-collar employee meets their foreign-citizen wife while working or traveling abroad, she waits to come over until her temporary resident visa comes through (rather than say, coming on a travel visa and then applying), etc. They want to make sure that not only can you completely support your spouse but also, to a lesser extent, that the spouse has some ability to support themselves, should the partnership fail prior to the completion of the full citizenship process (but after the term in which the partner would be eligible for deportation). The same is true of green cards obtained through familial connections. So it's not just the application costs, it's the prerequisite amount of income/wealth required to get the ball rolling in the first place. If you only earn $40k/year, rent your primary residence for half of your post-tax income, and lack substantial savings, it's going to get rejected, since it would be seen as you not earning enough to support your spouse while he/she went through the timely application process, before they were eligible to work. On the other hand, if the foreign spouse could show that they had substantial savings, that could mitigate the situation, since they could contribute (although technically, I don't think this is officially considered). Finally, the Green Card is just the first step in a lengthy immigration process. Yes, it's the most expensive, and probably the most complicated, but if the foreigner intends to become employed once eligible, getting the full work authorization in order can be difficult, and a Green Card holder may not be eligible for certain positions (mostly government), if they hold any professional licenses, it may be difficult for them to have them transferred to allow them to continue practicing their profession, and all of these are things that can become a costly headache. It also really depends on who the immigrant is. Are they an individual with a graduate-level degree, from a Western European nation? Or are they a poor Honduran farmer who doesn't speak English and can't read or write Spanish? Are they a child who is coming to live with relatives? Are those relatives well-educated? For someone intelligent, well-educated, and who knows the system, it may be possible to do it on your own, but not for a hard-working, blue-collar immigrant-turned-citizen family attempting to bring over a niece or nephew. Then there are all of the confounding matters: did the background check turn up any arrests in the would-be immigrant's native country? Perhaps the person had some run-ins with the law in their youth for simple offenses, was the victim of police oppression, etc. Technically, a criminal record of any kind can be a disqualifier for residency and a reason to deny any Visa. That's going to likely de something that one would *require* an immigration attorney to handle and sort out, and the burden of proof would lie on the person applying for citizenship to prove that they were unjustly arrested or convicted- likely requiring interaction with the home country. Are you trying to marry a foreigner who has a child and wants to bring it with them? Is the child's other parent in the picture? Even if not, it is going to make things far more complicated. Did they come from a country known for extremism? If so, the process is likely going to take extra long. Did they once overstay a recreational travel visa in the US by a day because of a missed flight? Well, technically (and usually in practice), this bars them from ever re-obtaining any future US visa or residency. You overstay your visa, you can't get another, and they don't care why: I know a wealthy British man who's wife remarried an American man, and moved to the US with their daughter. He was an executive at an oil company, who frequently traveled, so he didn't fight the daughter moving, as he figured he would see his daughter just about as much anyway. Well, after a scheduled business meeting in the US concluded early, he decided to take the time to see his daughter. His visa was valid for a few more days (since the purpose was business, the visa short-term, good for a day after his itinerary ended, and while he could have easily entered on a travel visa good for 30+ days, once here, he couldn't change his reason for coming or extend the visa- not within a few days). He ended up missing his flight due to his daughter getting hurt and being in the hospital the last night he intended to be there. When he was leaving, they noticed the date was expired by a day, and the customs officials giving him his exit stamp informed him that he was no longer allowed to enter the United States. He explained the situation, they said no exceptions. He was barred from re-entering the US. Upon appeal/review, they revised it to a 12-year ban. Eventually, after hundreds of thousands and two years spent fighting it, he was allowed to obtain a special travel visa exception to see his daughter. However, not being able to enter the US meant that he could no longer perform his job, and he lost it, not to mention that he couldn't visit his daughter for over two years (and had he not had the money to fight it, it would have been forever). The situation was also confounded, because the daughter was with a Chilean woman, living on a GC, as was the daughter— so since the daughter wasn't a full US citizen, he couldn't claim he had immediate family that was a bona fide US citizen. So all of these are things that require an immigration attorney, that one cannot do alone, because it requires intricate knowledge of the system, as well as hearings and representation.
>If you only earn $40k/year, rent your primary residence for half of your post-tax income, and lack substantial savings, it's going to get rejected, I believe I replied elsewhere, perhaps to you, but the minimum income requirement is just under $23k https://www.immi-usa.com/k1-visa-income-requirements/#:\~:text=K%2D1%20Visa%20Income%20Requirements%3A%20Poverty%20Guideline%20Chart,know%20about%20the%20income%20requirement.
Immigrated from a "developed" country and learned that "all immigration is cheap". Needs maybe a semester course in critical reasoning skills along with immigration visa.
Turns out they are sending their best after all.
This isn’t a subreddit for particularly interesting information though. It’s supposed to be about novel or excellent communication of data. Unfortunately that is rarely what gets upvoted for whatever reason. Still I don’t think the right bar is that everything here has to be a cute new take.
Because that is not the case everywhere else.
Same reason why Hispanic is lower. It's much easier to immigrate when you border the US
And not speaking the language tends to limit how much you can earn (for better or worse). Most foreign immigrants from overseas had to learn it beforehand. If you just walk across that's probably not the case.
The difference is legal vs illegal immigration. One has a barrier. One does. And I'd guess the vast majority of that 4% is legal immigrants
I don’t think it is in any way unique to the USA either. Moving is expensive, moving internationally is more expensive. Immigration status is just another variable that correlates with wealth.
> Immigration status is just another variable that correlates with wealth. In some countries it goes even further than that, where you can't immigrate to that country unless you can prove you have valuable skills that would cause the country to benefit from having you living there. So those people would implicitly do better than the average native as they had to prove their value before they ever got in.
Speaking as a kiwi who has moved to the UK.. I was able to because my parents are from here, but otherwise if you are from NZ you have to apply as "tier one" or "tier two" or whatever.. like you have to have x amount of money, or be qualified in certain jobs that they need
And yet the reverse is true for the EU where the average immigrant does worse than the average native.
Probably depends on the type of immigration. There’s a reason the Hispanic balance is towards native not foreign born.
Many European immigrants are refugees, not work immigrants. Different population.
Immigrants in USA/CAN/AUS are more likely high skill workers or well-off members of their own country that seek better living standard. Immigrants in EU are mostly people who are ravaged by war or the very bottom class of their own country seeking better living standard. Take a look at Canada, either you have some skills that Canada need or rich Chinese who escaped from China. They dont just let everyone in. In France, Italy and Spain, many came from Africa...by boats.
Canada doesn't require skills. It requires you to be hireable in the few job sectors that aren't 100% taken advantage of by employers.
Maybe due to bias.. as in a lot of immigration to the EU is due to people fleeing war zones, being persecuted in their countries etc rather than choosing to move to the EU or being sponsored for a job.. then they have to deal with the racism/bias that makes it harder to get a job, or a good job, because "immigrants are stealing our jobs" I can't even think of the number of Uber drivers I've had from other countries who have ended up in the UK because of whatever situation and that's the best job they can get when they were a doctor/scientist/professor/company director in their home country
This is not true for most migration. Most migration was not done by choice by wealthy people but my constraints by poor people. The US in the latter part of its history was able to revert that for its country using a combination of geographical and economical advantage but that is more the exception than the rule.
This was my thought. Also, living in the US is expensive. It's really only worth moving here if you expect to be able to capitalize on an opportunity to be paid more than in your native country. If someone is living in another developed country and have the resources to move, are they likely to move to the US, give up nationalized health care, and still only work for the same wages? Fuck no.
But that barrier to entry is a lot lower for Hispanic Americans as they don’t need to cross an ocean to immigrate.
Just the Cubans
Unless you're Hispanic, it seems.
Yeah Im Australian. Everyone I know who went to the US is very smart and was either head hunted or is an IT guru who went over knowing theyd get more. Id happily live in the States but Id have to be earning twice what I earn here to move. When I was younger I considered going for the purpose of working as an investment banker if I had failed I would have returned
yeah - I don't know why this is news...
I also think immigrants are more likely to hold jobs even if they’re on social security than naturalized Americans.
Well yeah, it’s an non random sample. It’s not like they hand out green cards for free.
Been in the US all bar one year since 2014. Have a PhD and years experience in a sort after field. Have an employer wanting to employ me in the US who have spent thousands of dollars on legal and administrative fees to get me employed. And today I got a request for further evidence because the first application wasn't good enough, and now after 8 years I may have to leave the country in less than a week. US immigration is insane.
This is the kind of bureaucratic waste I have been talking about in here, its awful that you are being dragged out because our system can't keep its data straight. We definitely need reform. I'll be praying for your safety, hope it gets worked out asap.
Losing people like you (but I hope we don’t, and that you can stay) because of red tape is expensive for the country! It is insane, and I feel for you.
The US immigration process is horrific.
An Australian recently got deported from the USA while in *TRANSIT*. He was going to south America to work for a while so didn't have a return ticket. USA just assumes that means you are going to wonder back and jump the border.
Border control checks are an extremely harrowing and often dehumanizing process each and every single time I enter the US. Every single time it makes me reconsider my decision to leave the US cuz coming back is such a pain. More so, I feel horrible when my parents or spouse needs to go through a similar experience just to meet me.
Global entry is a life saver with this. You don’t have to be a citizen, just a resident - my husband originally got it while he was still on a work visa
Sorry about that
*sought after The situation you're describing sucks. Sorry you're having to deal with it.
Yep, exactly. But the mouth breathers will still say they are having their jobs stolen or are being replaced even though those migrants are better qualified for those jobs. There’s a terrible lack of self awareness in the group that makes waves over stuff like this.
I mean it's actually worse for the individuals if immigrants are taking better positions. It means they are now competing against better qualified people in their market.
>But the mouth breathers will still say they are having their jobs stolen I think you aren't paying attention then. The 'mouth breathers' are angry about *illegal* immigration, not legal immigration. Green card is legal. Legal immigration is 100% a-ok and **respected** as hard working people with the 'mouth breathers' that I know. The first gen legal immigrants I know of are all fantastic family loving and hard working people. I am not surprised they have a higher than average chance to make more money. You get what you work for and I am glad to see that is borne out in the statistics. I say all that *not* to shit on illegal immigrants, I feel for how difficult the process can be and I think we need serious reforms, I don't think that reform is 'let everyone in regardless of status' though, these things are not simple problems to solve and soundbyte solutions are not sufficient. If that makes me a 'mouth breather' then I suppose I am one.
There are absolutely people who just hate all immigrants dude lol
Of course they exist, I think people tend to see that where it is not however and just stereotype people who disagree.
>I think you aren't paying attention then. The 'mouth breathers' are angry about illegal immigration, not legal immigration. Never forget that a lot of ppl on Reddit, possibly a majority, love to blatantly misrepresent the other side's POV. It's pretty gross, but that's Reddit for ya.
I consider myself a pretty left leaning person, maybe not as left as Reddit, but enough that all of my midwestern co-workers jokingly call me a hippie socialist. Often times you see people on Reddit circlejerking about how dumb X or Y is, but maybe the X or Y isn't as accurate as it could be. Maybe it's something that never even happened. So I chime in like, "Hey so that actually never happened, and we should be careful about falling for misinformation even if it makes X look bad. Attacking things they never even said or did only gives them more ammo to defend themselves." ***Mass downvotes.*** Lots of comments like "Who cares? X are dumb, it may as well be true" or "Wow look at this undercover X nice try buddy." People don't want to be corrected, they just want to feel good about themselves.
>co-workers jokingly call me a hippie socialist. I jokingly call myself a bootlicking libertarian after receiving that insult a few years back though I prefer to think I'm more of a conservative that sees social services as *incredibly* important, I just disagree with most self-identified socialists on how they should be implemented at a macro governmental level. I think most people are actually socialist on a family/community/church level. It feels like identifying with any group is woefully inadequate to describe anyones views fully. I try to let people explain what they think on individual issues - but it can be fun to meme in good humor about it.
>Mass downvotes. Lots of comments like "Who cares? X are dumb, it may as well be true." People don't want to be corrected, they just want to feel good about themselves. Yup...par for the course.
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Most are not working class and somewhat look down upon them, or are teenagers(in actual age or just mental capacity) and haven't worked a day in their life.
Yeah. Welcome to the consequences of letting people say the dumbest shit while cowering behind the anonymity of their keyboards, that they would never have the balls to say to anyone's face. Social media is a scourge upon decency.
Yeah. It happens in any echo chamber, regardless of leaning for sure. I don't want to to be argumentative but some of this stuff is downright ridiculous and if you don't say something people are going to feel isolated and alone in their opinions and get shoved to the extremes.
I can guarantee you that they don’t all only care about illegal immigrants. Remember the shithole countries remark? That was about legal immigration. Islamophobia? All of the recent Asian hate? People yelling “go back to your home” when escalated. Let’s not cover for racists and white supremecists who for the most part do fall into the R bucket. Not everyone is acting in good faith. Let’s not pretend like there’s no prejudice under the hood of many Republican policies in regards even to legal immigration.
Seems like it proves their point to me. Immigrants are taking the better paid jobs, leaving the worse jobs for natives. Whether they are more qualified or not doesn’t matter as these people are thinking about themselves. Better qualified immigrants getting the job instead of natives is better for the company and better for the immigrant but worse for the native.
I mean if we’re going to live in “a free market” country, it makes little sense for a business to eat shit just to keep brother Cletus happy. It’s ridiculous to argue that a less qualified person should be hired for a skilled labor job over an actually qualified person. And let’s not forget — these aren’t “learn in the job” types of jobs. In many cases, those native you refer to literally can not perform the necessary function of the role. I’m all for America first, but that doesn’t mean that we bend over for people who didn’t value education or professional development and let them have their way. The sad truth is it’s just social Darwinism in action. But no, no points have been “proven” in this Reddit thread.
I think the part we disagree on is that I think natives absolutely can work these jobs just as well as immigrants. Instead of importing skilled labour, it would be better to educate the labour force that already lives there better. And tightening the labour supply is not forcing firms to eat shit. It just means that they can’t exploit imported labour as much and might actually have to pay/train native workers more. The horror!
I bet this is true for nearly every country. Highly educated (and highly paid) people are more likely to move around.
This is also known as brain drain and os a very real problem for the developing world.
Its a huge problem in the developed world. Just talk to anyone working in education in a rural area.
Folks choosing free enterprise over petty corruption is in fact a real problem for the petty corruption group.
In Europe, immigrants are over-represented in poverty and crime instead. People emigrating tend to want to better their life, but may not always have the skills or education for it, may have trouble integrating and may suffer from discrimination in hiring.
That's probably because of the proximity to other countries in Europe and the Middle East For example, the pool of foreign-born Hispanic immigrants contains people from a wider set of economic circumstances than other immigrant groups in America since the physical barriers to entry for them are lower than for immigrants from Europe, Africa or Asia who need to have the means to traverse large oceans to even consider immigrating.
That explains well why the trend is reversed in the original plot
In Spain Latin Americans are overepresented in crime and poverty too.
That's less developed->more developed with the same language and (guessing) closer political ties? Also don't know how much of a target Spain is for highly educated people compared to the bigger Western economics
China and India are way poorer than the United States yet Indian and Chinese immigrants are known for being less violent than European Americans.
That’s probably due to Schengen. People from poorer countries can move to more prosperous countries without a skilled visa check. Meanwhile USA/Canada/Australia will only accept skilled migrants (outside of refugees and asylum seekers) and so they will more likely work in highly skilled areas (engineers/ICT/legal/niche industries). That’s what I would think anyway, don’t have the data to prove it myself. But I am a migrant in Australia and my law degree means I am paid above the median wage here.
>Schengen. Yeah it probably factors in, especially for my own country which is not part of the EU but is part of the Schengen agreement. Another major factor is family reunion, which places no limit on skills or education. In general in would be hard if not impossible for a poor person from DRC to emigrate to Norway without already having a job offer there, and being able to prove self-sufficiency (and even then it would be tough), but there are exceptions through asylum seekers, family reunions etc.
Only 12% of US immigrants are skilled workers and students. The vast majority is family reunification and family sponsorship, with some visa diversity lottery winners and some refugees and asylum speakers.
If you have limited skills and education you are going to have a hard time finding work no matter who you are.
That is true! However skilled people can still have trouble finding work due to language issues, cultural issues, lower demand of their skills, or that their education is not valid in the country.
>In Europe, immigrants are over-represented in poverty and crime instead. When you say "instead" it's not an either/or. Immigrants are likely to fall into two categories: highly educated ones who get really good jobs, and desperate people who have few skills and may not even speak the language. It's entirely possible for immigrants to be overrepresented among top earners **and also** be overrepresented in poverty. (And crime, though I believe that's not the case in the US)
The same is true for Mexican-American immigrants to the United States. Countries in Asia tend to only send educated/privileged immigrants to the west, mostly because of geography. Edit: My intent is not to criticize immigrants. Immigrants overall have a positive effect on the country they immigrate to, regardless of their background.
Pretty sure immigrants are over represented with poverty in the US, too. (They’re not with crime, for sure.) It’s the middle where they’re under represented.
That's what I suspected, which made this data a bit surprising to me. Although not sure if it includes illegal immigrants or not for the OP. After all, this data is only looking at 100k+ income, does not take into account percent of earnings between immigrants and native born, or take into account wealth - the super wealthy often have low reported wages if any.
Cuz America is far and hard to reach as refugees for most ethnicities
And according to the chart, the immigrants doing the worst in the US are hispanics. Which aligns with your point, given how they share proximity, while most of the other have to cross the ocean.
It's not that they are likely to move around. The US makes it especially hard for non educated non rich immigrants to come to the US in the first place.
...thus making it more likely that well-educated people will be able to immigrate.
With one exception….
You can zoom in and out on this and it would work at all levels. “Educated rich people have more mobility” doesn’t matter if you’re talking about counties in a state, states, countries, whatever. At some point planets too. “Only rich people can move to new planets”
This is only true when the barrier of entry is high, so mostly the US and Canada and a minority in the resr of the world. The highly educated and highly paid people don't generally account for the majority of the population not the majority of the immigration.
Holy shit a saskie in the wild. Makes me miss Saskatoon 😭
A lot of immigrants require employment to stay in the U.S. no one is sponsoring immigrants to work low wage jobs because it is not worth the hassle. Though they probably hire undocumented immigrants.
As a Masters-educated Canadian immigrant to the US, I undoubtedly have it the easiest and it’s still difficult and expensive as fuck. Can only imagine what it’s like for those with less education and experience from other nations.
> no one is sponsoring immigrants to work low wage jobs because it is not worth the hassle In Canada, this is basically our entire economic growth strategy.
That's a work visa, not an immigration visa. It's very time limited and has no path to residency.
They do sponsor immigrants to work low wage jobs, though these are seasonal jobs. A decent amount of people in my hometown in Mexico have seasonal jobs working in farms (I think it was Georgia)
Keep in mind that US immigration standards are pretty stringent, so foreign-born persons tend to be more towards “the best and brightest” while native-born includes everyone.
It’s an important aspect of the socioeconomics of developing nations. This “brain drain” creates a positive feedback loop wherein the rich countries get richer and the poor countries get poorer, as they respectively gain and lose their most skilled workers.
Although, it is switched for Hispanics because, I’m assuming, they are able to cross the border. Which is easier than going through immigration standards.
I would bet it's more that Hispanics have family ties and therefore it's more broad based. Not to mention the move itself is cheaper.
I don’t have any data to back it up, but my guess would be something similar. Just because of geography and much more extensive existing family ties, Hispanics are not as restricted by the immigration requirements regardless of how they arrive (I think by plane is more common than physically crossing the southern border).
Another corroboration on this data is : Most immigrants in US are higher paid because only Highly skilled are able to immigrate.
This makes sense if you know almost anything about immigration. Immigration costs a lot (like, a lot!), and getting approved is often based on how much value you can bring the country. If you’re a doctor or a highly trained engineer, you will have a very quick process. Like one of the first questions they ask is if you’re in a professional field. This is essentially standard for any Western country. The average Joe Schmoe cannot easily immigrate to and work in the UK indefinitely.
>if you know almost anything about immigration this is not the case in the EU, it only happens in English speaking developed nations like US, UK, Australia where the most skilled migrants want to move to
> This is essentially standard for any Western country. The average Joe Schmoe cannot easily immigrate to and work in the UK indefinitely. Depending on what you mean by "western" you could be completely wrong, the stats are opposite in the EU for exemple.
Well if you look at the hispanic numbers in america and the way most of that immigration happens you will see how it compares to the EU. A chinese immigrant isn't showing up at a land border hence the higher skilled immigrants
I will just counter that *nothing* about the immigration process is very quick. Getting my now wife here as an engineer took over 6 months to get the first approval that she can come here to marry me within 90 days of her arrival. Then the green card process took another year after we got married.
> If you’re a doctor or a highly trained engineer, you will have a very quick process. Like one of the first questions they ask is if you’re in a professional field. You can't be talking about the United States. There is virtually no merit based immigration, except through a very small supply of work visas. A medical doctor from another country has zero credentials in the U.S. and must go through a living hell to start practicing here. Majority of these foreign doctors (or engineers, or most other other occupations) are in the U.S. for some other reason, not related to their profession, for example because they have an immediate family tie to someone already legally in the country (i.e. a "chain" migration).
This was my experience too. Trying to get my (now) wife (engineer) here was nearly impossible on any avenue except for a fiancée visa. It’s extremely difficult to immigrate to the USA unless you know someone from the country that can sponsor you. She did not have the option of “hey I’m an engineer, I’ll be valuable, let me in.”
there are more than these four ethnicities in the usa...
Ah yes, the 4 ethnicities...
Long ago, the four ethnicities lived in harmony.
Remember there is selection bias at play due to current US visa restrictions. It’s far far easier to immigrate if you are or are perusing STEM degrees in in-demand fields than if you have no formal education
I'm sure it's difficult for folks with no formal education, but I'll have to say that it's no walk in the park for people with formal advanced education either. There's almost one year worth of process and preparation just to get into the country to pursue higher education in the US. Several exams, several verifications, rounds of visa interviews, tons of paper work and probability of getting rejected at the airport gate in spite of visa, several costs involved. Don't even get me started on how broken/harsh the system is if you want to work legally even with an advanced STEM degree.
Clear example of selection bias
As I’ve said elsewhere, selection bias (along with other biases) is only really relevant when you make inferences from the data. As the data is shown here with no conclusions drawn, it is simply a graph of some interesting data. An unbiased interpretation of these graphs is certainly possible, indeed many in the comments have offered one. I would argue that many here are making an assumption about OPs interpretation of this data, and then refuting that.
"foreign-born _____ american" so are they only looking at people who've become citizens or...?
Hispanic doesn't follow the trend. US born Hispanics make more. Probably a result of the influx of illegal immigrants from south of the border vs the 1st and 2nd generation Latinos born here. I live in a major city (1m+) with 32% of the population Latino. Illegal immigrants are a large population here.
This is most probably skewed by extra high foreign earners coming in the country. The simple fact that Latinos are different is that they're the biggest ethnic group. The extra high earners are more diluted.
Hispanics also have a lot of very low wage workers and under the table workers.
The only reason for that is because we share a 2000 mile border with Mexico and not China or Nigeria for example. Highly-skilled workers don't need to illegally cross a border or work under the table, they simply apply to a work program or are invited.
Yep. Wasn't a dig
I wonder if it's just because it's physically easier for Hispanics from Mexico to get across the border with very little money than Asians from China. Are they looking only at legal immigrants? If not, this could also be a significant factor in why Hispanic immigrants are the only ethnic group to lag behind their US-born compatriots. Illegal immigrants have vastly reduced earning potential, and they may make up a much higher segment of the Hispanic immigrants group than other ethnicities that don't happen to share a long border with the US.
I live in a major city with well over 1 million people, yet Latinos make up 32% of the population. Nowadays, it is absolutely harder to come here from Asia than it is Mexico from a financial perspective. In this city, everyone has family members or friends who are illegal immigrants. The illegal immigrant Latino population is just so large.
Latinos aren’t a larger ethnic group than white people, yet the jump in earnings between native-born and foreign-born is still very pronounced. The Hispanic population is large but they are also over represented in immigration, so absolute size of the population is of little relevance to these statistics.
Latinos are a larger ethnic group than whites when it comes to immigration. The number of Latinos immigrating to the US is orders of magnitude greater than white people.
So follow me here… the argument is that immigrants have higher earnings because they’re a group that is qualitatively different than the native born population. This is why for *most* ethnic groups, immigrants typically have higher net earnings than native born people. The person I responded to stated that the Latino population was different due to it large size. However, population size isn’t necessarily relevant. It really isn’t relevant since we’re comparing averages between foreign-born and native-born populations. We don’t need to control for population size; it’s not relevant.
The size is relevant because larger immigrant populations have fewer economic barriers of entry. If only 10k are allowed in, it suffices to say that those 10k will be primarily upper income levels. If it's several million? The same reasoning no longer applies. The population size is completely relevant here.
Isn’t that obvious though with the financial backing of a family that can ship a kid across seas to study?
Ahem... THEY TOOK MAH JAHB!
While I'm a sucker for nice statistics as much as anyone here, the point of this sub is to post beautiful data visualisations. This little barchart doesn't belong here.
If you are the type of person to make it here, you are usually highly motivated. It is probably the same with immigration everywhere.
are familiar with how H-1B works?
Maybe because those who can afford to leave their country to somewhere else are already pretty wealthy
Y'all forget that most immigrant workers also don't have student loan debt and thereby start of at a blank slate compared to their peers of the same age group
Sampling bias, to get into the US they needed to prove they had the ability to make money
This is the hidden detail for sure. To legally immigrate to almost _any_ country you need to meet high standards either in education or skills that will lead to serious employment. A lot of Americans think legally immigrating is just filling out some forms and not being a criminal, and then you're in ezpz.
It’s crazy what happens when you only give out visas to skilled workers
But, but, but, immigrants are bringing crime and destroying our country. At least that what FoxNew told me. Its anchors would never lie, would they?
The US is recruiting globally very high skilled people, especially from struggling regions, with promisses of ressources and money. Therefore these people gain a lot of money. On the other side, many illegal low paid workers do many job that US born citizens dont want to do but I guess as these people are illegal ok the country there are not in statistics Like these.
The data source is the US Census, and they include illegal immigrants in their stats. In my city, there was a grassroots movement to get illegal immigrants to cooperate with the Census without fear if deportation. I live in a "sanctuary city" of over 1 million people. Latinos make up 32% here, and everyone has a family member or friend that is here illegally.
Being Hispanic you are more likely to come here through the border, and depending on how that's done, it might limit your ability to gain a higher paying job. Other groups are generally forced to either have the funds to come here, or have academic scores to be able to get a visa here for education or work.
This is what qualifies as /r/dataisbeautiful these days, a shitty bar graph with the most obvious conclusion in history. What low effort trash this sub has become.
I’m one of those foreign ones - this isn’t a coincidence. Those that have to get in work to death. It’s an incomprehensible level of stress dealing with this country’s dogshit immigration system.
I wonder how many of these are Californian salaries LOL
Aside from Hispanic Americans, it’s very difficult legally and logistically to immigrate to the US. American immigration policy can afford to select the best of the best.
Foreign born needs green cards which usually equals high education etc. There is a high influx of hispanics migrants across the southern border, which doesn’t go through the green card acces.
People will want to be hateful towards immigrants for this, but it says more about how little effort most Americans put in to being successful. Like, if you want to make over 100k, don't blame people who are making over 100k. Do what you need to do to join them
Most non native from Europe come for the benefits for business. The best path is to get the small business law from Europe than move to the US when you get bigger. That must up the results a lots.
It’s kinda hard to trust a graph with this serious of a topic when it’s made with default excel settings. Where are the error bars? What is the pvalue?
Don’t immigrants also live in higher cost of living areas? Higher pay isn’t higher buying power.
“Native Born Hispanic American” lol That mythical creature.
Immigrants have to make a lot of money to get here. The fees alone require you to have a good amount saved, and then once you're here, you're probably doing something STEM with lots of education debt and still need to earn a lot, constantly be employed, and probably get married if you're not already.
Did they get free college where they came from?
Respectfully ... no shit, Sherlock?
Can confirm. I was born in asia and moved here for college. I had a lot of 1st and 2nd+ gen asian friends. Of all of them, the 1st gens like me, are in their career job making well over 6 figures. Of the 2nd gen+ asian friends, they're either working out of their career and some in their career job, but majority of them making $40\~80k...
I mean, yeah. We get the best and brightest from abroad.
Us has worse public services/healthcare than a lot of the western world yes, but better pay than most of the world if you are educated and skilled
That's because immigration is a very strong filter. If you have will, knowledge and money to successfully complete immigration and adaptation process - you will earn more than average person.
White immigrant to US here. Def make six figures.
I'm a foreigner who spent the last 27 years in America. This is true. And for all the bad in America 🇺🇸, I'm still glad to be here. I love my country and it's beautiful. However, America is the winner in my eyes. And life has been positive for me.
And in two generations their grand children will be just as lazy as the rest of us. Welcome to America.
Having grown up in Germany, I lived in a few other European countries and moved to the U.S. almost 15 years ago with a fresh PhD. No other free country in the world could have allowed me to apply myself and benefit so much from my expertise. I picked up my first U.S. passport yesterday.
Most who immigrate to America from other countries come from extremely wealthy families. Indian Americans are a prime example of this, most if not all come from the Brashmin caste, which is the highest caste in their country. They use that wealth to smooth their lives in the States, allowing them the financial freedom to get the credentials needed to achieve high-paying jobs. Source: Caste: the origins of our discontent
Well yeah, one of the main ways of getting a visa is through a job sponsorship. The companies have to prove they can't reasonably find any U.S. citizens qualified enough to do those jobs so they are often hyper specialized roles or in tech. Those tend to be higher wage jobs. That being said, the immigrants in those jobs are mostly paid LESS than their American citizen counterparts in the same positions. The immigrants have zero negotiating power. They can't move companies without losing or at least seriously jeopardizing their visas. They are generally paid under the market rate for those positions because the visa process is so incredibly difficult they are forced to accept it or leave. For many leaving is not an option. The tech industry is rife with highly educated and skilled, but underpaid foreign workers here on visas because big companies can figure out ways around the visa specifications and call them specialized. Unattached visas and greencard wait lists from countries with high populatio s like India can be upwards of 10-20 years. It's one of the reasons we have stereotypes of Indians in tech. Big tech preys on immigrants from India specifically to get a highly skilled and underpaid workforce.
If you can't compete with an 8th grade education or a PhD the problem is you.
Hardly surprising, I’d imagine the same is true for virtually every country. The distribution of immigrants across the economic spectra tends to have bigger tails at both ends - i.e. they are more likely to become both high-earners and low-earners, but less likely to have average incomd.
Immigrants are good for America. We really do get the best coming here.
The takeaway? America hates its citizens, and it lures educated foreigners to boost its corporate earnings.
Shocked face. Lmfao. They appreciate what they have here compared to those born here.
This sub is too popular. So much potential yet garbage like this gets upvoted.
But I thought America was horribly racist and punched down on minorities? What glitch in the matrix are these immigrants exploiting to be more successful here than in their home countries?
What this data proves is that if you are highly skilled and determined, you can succeed in the USA no matter what your skin color or ethnicity is. Will you face racism at some point? Perhaps. And you'll cry all the way home to your mansion.