In sum, low-skilled migrants cannot all be painted with the same brush as an unmitigated drain
on public finances. Static analyses, which examine the net fiscal impact of immigrants over a
relatively short period of time (a year, for example), highlight the importance of several
characteristics, including age, level of education, reason for migration, and—most significant—
whether or not an immigrant is employed. Net fiscal impact also varies depending on whether
one is examining public finances at the federal level, where the effect of immigration is generally
small, or the state and local level of government where in some instances the effect of
immigration can be significantly negative. An unskilled migrant who is young, single, and
employed may well be a net fiscal contributor at all three levels. Dynamic analyses, moreover,
indicate that over an immigrant’s lifetime, and over successive generations, the differences
between immigrants and natives shrink, with the result that any given immigrant’s net fiscal
impact much more closely resembles that of a native.