More immigrants

The changes in responses to the question discussed in my last post seemed to show that attitudes towards immigrants became more negative between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, and then became more favorable.  I was looking for other questions that might shed light on the issue, and found this, from the Los Angeles Times poll:  "Generally speaking, do you think that immigrants to the United States take more from the U.S. economy through social services and unemployment than they contribute through taxes and productivity or do they contribute more through taxes and productivity than they take through social services and unemployment, or haven't you heard enough about that yet to say?"  The percent who say "contribute more" minus the percent who say "take more":

  4/1985   -27
12/1989  -34
12/1990  -26
 8/1996   -45

Unfortunately, it hasn't been asked since then, but there was a similar question in November 2010:  "Some people think that immigrants contribute more in taxes than they benefit from health and welfare services.  Other people think that immigrants benefit more from health and welfare services than they contribute in taxes.  Which of these comes closer to your point of view?"  21% said contribute more, and 67% benefit more, which would come to -46 in my summary measure:  no change from 1996, and more negative than 1985-90.  Maybe people understood "benefit" as weaker than "take," or maybe the mention of "productivity" as a potential contribution in the first question made a difference.  However, I think it would at least be safe to say that opinions about the economic contributions of immigrants have not become more favorable.  At the same time, the question I discussed last time showed a favorable trend in opinions about the general contributions of migrants.   The difference could reflect a decline in prejudice--people becoming less likely to blame immigrants for crime and social disorder ("cause problems") but still regarding them as an economic cost.

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]