If the Immigrant has Ambition, Skills and Work Ethic, All Should be Well

   Whether immigration strains your economy or builds it, depend largely on the ambitions and skills and work ethic of the people who come, and on the reasons they have for arriving on our shores. If they are ambitious folks, anxious to work, or people dreaming of what they can achieve in the land of opportunity, it will be well with the economy.
   But, if they see the new homeland only as a place of relief, a place of comfort at the hands of others, it might not go so well.
   The skills they bring with them? You will be well served if they bring entrepreneurial and inventive abilities. And, even if they lack skills, other than just a desire to work and contribute, you will be well served, for there is a need in economies for people who will work for others and be of the working class.
   This is not to say problems cannot arise. But, to a great extent, if the immigrant has all three characteristics -- skill and ambition and work ethic -- all will be well. If, though, he has just one of the characteristics? If he is ambitious in that he desires to make a wonderful living, but lacks the skills to make it happen and lacks the work ethic to take a menial job, then you are more likely to catch him becoming unemployed. And, if he has a strong work ethic, but lacks many work skills, there might be times when the menial, unskilled job is not available, or when the menial job does not provide a great enough of an income to meet all his needs. If he is barely putting food on the table, and has no insurance, and gets hospitalized, then look to him being an expense to the welfare system.