Immigration Doesn’t Hurt City Economies or Ratings, S&P Says

Most U.S. cities with “significant immigration” over the past decade saw their credit ratings improve, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Even amid concerns about the pressures of new, lower-income or less-educated residents, cities with high numbers of the foreign born saw tax bases grow and per-capita income increase, the report released today by the ratings company said.

“To make a case that immigration causes governments to go broke or jurisdictions to have budget overruns is a simplistic argument,” said Horacio Aldrete-Sanchez, a senior director in state and local government ratings for S&P and an author of the report. “There are undoubtedly costs to these governments, but there is also an overall increase in economic activity and a stabilizing impact on the labor markets.”