A new report, Looking Forward: Immigrant Contributions to the Golden State 2014, by the University of Southern California and the California Immigrant Policy Center finds that 10 percent of California’s labor force is made up of illegal aliens.
The study’s authors think this is a good thing, claiming that illegal aliens “help shape our state’s economic and civic vitality.” They call on President Obama to implement a sweeping executive amnesty to “honor these contributions and advance economic prosperity.”
Okay, never mind that the study reported that 58 percent of California’s illegal aliens lack health insurance, or that it did not look at myriad other costs associated with both illegal aliens and their U.S.-born offspring. Looking Forward boasts that illegal aliens contribute about $130 billion a year to the state’s economy.
$130 billion is an impressive number…unless one has access to Google and a calculator (which most people do nowadays). In 2012, California had a $2 trillion economy. Thus, the economic output of the 10 percent of the labor force made up of illegal aliens is responsible for just 6.5 percent of California’s GDP.
