Immigration Facts #6

Immigration has no significant impact on wages.  It causes some increases and some decreases, but in either direction, the effects are small.

An increase in the number of migrants corresponding to 1% of the UK-born working-age population results in an increase in average wages of 0.1 to 0.3%.

However, there are some losers: each 1% increase in the share of migrants in the UK-born working age population leads to a 0.6% decline in the wages of the 5% lowest paid workers (whilst also leading to an increase in the wages of higher paid workers.)

This subset of losers (the 5% lowest paid) tend themselves to be migrants already working in the UK.

Source: Migration Observatory, Oxford

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Nick Clegg’s argument

27 April, 2010


1. If nobody wins the election outright, I might hold the balance of power.


2. If Labour and Gordon Brown come third, they will have “lost the election spectacularly”.


3. It would not be legitimate for anyone who had lost spectacularly to run the country, therefore I could not work with Gordon Brown.


4. However I could work with Labour, even if they had lost spectacularly – as long as I can choose the leader.


No smoke-filled-room power-broking for Nick Clegg, then.


Only fresh, new, principled politics.