Widespread political ignorance is a serious problem facing presidential candidates of both major parties. Attempt to exploit.a A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation “The survey revealed widespread ignorance on the important issue of immigration. Many people believe false information about immigration and reject truthful statements about immigration.
For example, 51% believe that the statement “immigrants are causing an increase in violent crime in the United States” is “definitely true” or “probably true” (48% said it was “definitely or probably false”). Immigrationinclude Illegal immigrationhave a much lower violent crime rate than U.S.-born citizens. Similarly, 44% believe the statement that “immigrants take jobs from U.S.-born people and cause unemployment to increase” is “definitely true” or “probably true” (56% believe this is definitely or probably false). Most economists conclude that immigration does not increase unemployment for U.S.-born people and that deporting illegal immigrants actually destroys more jobs than it creates for U.S.-born workers ( here).
In a KFF survey, 59% of people believe the statement “illegal immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes to the United States every year” is false or probably false (40% believe it is true or probably true). The truth is, illegal immigrants Pay about $100 billion in taxes a yearMost of it goes to the federal government.
The KFF survey found that an overwhelming majority of respondents got one point right: 84% believed it was “true” or “probably true.”[i]”Immigrants help fill labor shortages in certain industries, such as agriculture, construction, and health care,” all of which are industries in which immigrants are major contributors. Recent studies have shown that deporting illegal immigrants reduces housing construction and raises housing costs. Immigrants also: Disproportionately represented in the medical fieldfulfills many important needs. The same is true Agriculture.
KFF’s crime question may be flawed: I think the intent of the question, and probably the way most readers will interpret it, is to ask whether immigration increases crime. rateHowever, if read literally, it could be interpreted as asking whether immigrants commit violent crimes. If 1 million immigrants enter the country and even one of them commits a violent crime, that could be considered an “increase” in violent crime in the sense that it would increase the total number of violent crimes committed in the United States, even if the crime rate had decreased significantly. Most respondents said do not have If the question were interpreted that way, we would not see a large partisan split in the responses, with a majority of Republicans saying that immigration increases violent crime and a majority of Democrats saying the opposite. Some immigrants (like some members of virtually any large group) commit violent crimes, but the percentage is small and probably almost everyone recognizes that. However, this result may be skewed because a few respondents interpreted the question very literally and answered differently than they would have if they had realized it was about crime rates.
Previous studies have found widespread ignorance on immigration policy issues, including the number of immigrants (voters). There is a tendency to overestimate it), crime rate (ibid.), etc.
Overall, public ignorance about immigration is likely to intensify restrictionist sentiment. If many people understood that immigrants commit lower crimes, pay more into the public purse than they take in, and do not increase unemployment, public opinion would likely shift in favor of immigration. These misperceptions are not the only justification for restricting immigration, but they are an important consideration for many voters.
Of course, there are other issues where ignorance skews public opinion to the left. Left-leaning voters are not immune to ignorance and prejudice. But that doesn’t make the harm caused by right-wing ignorance any less severe (and vice versa). After all, political ignorance is A widespread problem On both sides of the political spectrum. Both parties have offered worse policies than they would have otherwise..
There is no easy solution to the problem of political ignorance. But as I wrote in a recent article,Top-down and bottom-up solutions to the problem of political ignoranceand in my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter.
