Is there an immigration status wage differential between legal and undocumented workers? Evidence from the Los Angeles garment industry.

This paper examines the question of whether the lower wages generally observed for undocumented workers are due primarily to their immigration status or to differences from legal workers in other wage-related characteristics. When analyzing the wages of Hispanic garment workers with a model that includes controls for human capital personal and job characteristics no evidence is found of a wage differential based on immigration status. However when the model is respecified to exclude job characteristics evidence is found that an immigration status wage differential may exist. The geographical focus is on the U.S. state of California. (EXCERPT)