A just-released analysis of four decades of Census data found that immigrants have increased rather than decreased the wages of most native-born workers in California, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Between 1990 and 2000 alone, when new immigrants accounted for a 20-percent increase in California’s employment, the average real wages of native workers in California rose by 4 percent, according to Giovanni Peri, a University of California at Davis economist.

Native-born high school dropouts, the group assumed to suffer the most negative impact, saw the least gain – 0.2 percent – which is “not much, but it’s certainly not a negative,” Peri said in an interview.

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