STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Jason Furman is the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. The views expressed are his own.
(CNN) -- Immigration reform may be a complicated issue politically, but in economic terms, the case is clear -- it is one of the biggest levers the United States has to encourage economic growth and to raise wages.
It's not just the Obama administration that thinks so.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund recently found that President Barack Obama's growth strategy, which he presented at the recent G-20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia, would add more to our economy than the steps being pursued by any other G7 country. And the single biggest contributor to that strategy? Immigration reform.
True, we can only realize the full benefits of immigration reform with a comprehensive bill passed by Congress. But the administrative steps that the President has announced -- including measures to better attract and retain high-skilled workers from around the world and to hold accountable undocumented immigrants with strong ties to the United States while providing them with temporary relief from deportation -- represent a good start and a meaningful boost to the economy.
As the President is discussing Tuesday at Casa Azafrn community center in Nashville, the main economic benefits of these actions are to raise our productivity -- increasing the amount of output we can produce for a given amount of inputs.
How do the actions announced by the President make that happen? Allowing more foreign-born entrepreneurs to come to our country -- to create jobs and to innovate -- is one common sense step to help grow the American economy. Another is enhancing the ability of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates from U.S. universities to further their on-the-job training for longer periods, something that will boost the overall skill level of the American workforce.
Less widely appreciated, but also economically important, is the contribution that offering over 4 million workers a path out of the shadows will make to our economy. And this comes as no surprise to this country's businesses. Indeed, one of the main economic arguments for this step is one that they have been making for years about their own investment -- the importance of certainty.
When faced with high levels of uncertainty, firms often hold off on making important investments for future growth. This is also true for the millions of undocumented immigrants living here in the United States. They participate in the workforce at higher rates than native-born Americans, and many are long-time members of their communities. Yet because of the uncertainty they face about their future, they are less likely to make important investments in themselves or in the communities in which they live, such as investing in their education, learning new job skills, purchasing homes or starting new businesses. And, as with firms, these decisions -- rooted in uncertainty -- can depress overall growth.
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Immigration: The truth about economic impact (Opinion ...