---
"title": "Immigrants Work Harder than Whites for Low-Pay"
"description": "That's the percentage of adults in this country who agree that immigrants work harder than whites at low-paying jobs, compared with just 26% who disagree."
"date": "2008-01-14"
"authors":
  -
    "name": "Russell Heimlich"
    "job_title": "Former web developer"
    "link": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
"url": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/short-reads/2008/01/14/immigrants-work-harder-than-whites-for-low-pay/"
"categories":
  - "White Americans"
---

# Immigrants Work Harder than Whites for Low-Pay

Public opinion is highly lopsided when it comes to weighing the work effort of immigrants versus whites — some 64% of adults in this country agree that immigrants work harder than whites at low-paying jobs, compared with just 26% who disagree. However, an even higher percentage of blacks — 75% — say that whites are out-worked by immigrants at low-wage jobs; just 61% of whites say the same thing. One pattern is consistent regardless of race: both whites and blacks are more likely to say that whites are outworked at low-wage jobs by immigrants than to say that blacks are out-worked at such jobs by immigrants. Public opinion on these questions hasn’t changed much since 1986, despite the fact that this country has experienced a heavy influx of immigrants, many of whom have come to work at low-wage jobs, in the past two decades. [Read More](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/pubs/634/black-public-opinion)