Data for your Census Tract
will attach instructions and follow these instructions to complete a profile of my neighborhood. I live in 66 Beach Point, Dorchester, MA. The assianment describtion is: after a training on how to access census data, you will submit a socio-economic report of the census tract you live in.
Xu Qiu
Phillip Granberry
Econ 212G
5/8/2016
Immigration and Living Cost of Metropolitan Areas
Introduction
In the past ten years, the living cost in American metropolitan areas has been increasing. The cost of the basic commodities is a serious contributor to the elevated cost of living. In international metropolis like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the price of commodities has increased by 50%. Some say that because of immigration of people from other cities, foreign countries, and rural areas, more and more people live in metropolitan areas and demand more commodities. The growing demand increases the prices of commodities and the local GDP. However, others say that increased resident numbers in metropolitan areas are not related to their increased living costs. These and many other reasons affect the prices of commodities. This paper addresses the question of the effect of immigrants on the cost of living in the metropolitan areas of the United States. It hypothesizes that increased immigration will raise the cost of living in these areas. The paper uses the United States 2012 American Community Survey to explain the relationship between immigration and metropolitan areas’ cost of living.
Literature Review
The past 25 years have been noteworthy in shaping the United States as a nation of immigrants. Despite the enforcement of border and other immigration controls, America was still taking in around 1.27 million immigrants annually in 2007. These numbers effectively account for up to 40% of the total population growth on the national scale. The impact of these inflows on costs of living, especially in metropolitan areas, is controversial. Around 35% of the new immigrants from Mexico and Central America did not have the legal documents. This particular demography exhibits low education levels and a limited ability to speak English well. However, another wave of immigrants comes from countries such as China and India. These immigrants are highly skilled, which seems to offset the effect of the low-skilled illegal immigrants. The composition and size of the immigrant inflows have been significant particularly in most metropolitan areas in the country (Ottaviano and Giovanni 126).
The immigration to the United States has an impact on the composition of the workforce in metropolitan areas. Immigrants are usually less skilled in comparison with the natives. Thus, it implies that the presence of more immigrants reduces the average skills of the local population (Ottaviano and Giovanni 129). However, the native populations of high immigrant metropolitan areas such as Boston and San Francisco are relatively skilled. Therefore, the movement of the native population tends to be negligible. In fact, the cities that record high immigrant numbers also have a high population of low-skilled workers. In this context, the immigration inflows have significant implications for the incomes and policies of the local economy (Ottaviano and Giovanni 129). Though the impact of immigration inflow on the skill composition of the labor market is negative, the effect on the structure of wages is minimal. The wage gap between low-skilled natives and immigrant workers is five percent wider in cities such as Los Angeles and New York than in low-immigrant cities (Ottaviano and Giovanni 129). The wage gap between the highly skilled locals and immigrant workers is relatively wider in high-immigrant cities (Ottaviano and Giovanni 129).
Outside of the labor market, immigration inflows can affect the quality of life in metropolitan areas. One significant example in this aspect is the housing market. The immigrant arrivals normally have some effects on housing prices and rent, thus triggering variations in the welfare of locals (Bachmeier 1300). Another channel through which the immigration inflow influences urban life in the United States is through peer or neighborhood effects. A strong indication points to the fact that renters and homeowners place a high value on the characteristics of the residents of their neighborhoods. Additionally, parents tend to place value on the characteristics of other students in schools. Such preferences have been the major cause of racial, ethnic, and income segregation that characterizes neighborhoods and schools throughout the United States (Bachmeier 1300). New immigrants are usually perceived as undesirable peer groups because they are not white. Existing research studies on the issues of attitudes and mobility trends of immigrants suggest that schools and neighborhoods with a larger percentage of either group are considered less lucrative. For instance, most studies that have undertaken the examination of this issue indicate that whites exhibit an enhanced likelihood of leaving the neighborhoods with higher fractions of non-white residents (Bachmeier 1305). Some of these studies indicate that whites residing in metropolitan areas such as Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco highlight the willingness to pay premiums for neighborhoods with lower fractions of Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asians (Bachmeier 1305).
Immigrants tend to exhibit lower incomes and less education in comparison with the natives, which renders them less favorable to exist as neighbors and parents of the students enrolled in local educational institutions. This urges them to purchase houses within neighborhoods which have highly educated residents (Bachmeier 1305). Therefore, there is the existence of a premium for regions with high-income neighborhoods. Parents prefer to pay more for abodes near public schools because of convenience. Since parental education and income are significant elements of student performance in test scores, these preferences imply that native families will tend to regard immigrant children as bad peers (Bachmeier 1305). The placement of a general estimation of the costs of peer group influence by immigrants is largely difficult. The difficulty in this context shows the fact that the variable is dependent on the levels of discrimination between immigrants and locals in schools and neighborhoods in a given city (Bachmeier 1305).
Data and Methods
This research used data from American Community Survey United States of 2012. The survey results are extensive, and its analytical tables display the population in the United States. Family structure, race, employment, and age are all factors that are presented in the ACS results. The United States characteristics of the economy are shown by the ACS. It also shows the economy of the selected houses for that particular year. The census of that year gives an identification of 3,219 countries. These countries are aggregated into 366 metropolitan areas. In this research, the ACS gives a report for margin errors because there is a difference between both decennial censuses, and for that reason, it only gives the estimation of the population and not the counts of the population. In this research, every person residing in a household is interviewed with a total of 50 questions regarding his/her race, status of marriage, employment, and age (Beckhusen 309).
One variable will be created to measure and test my hypothesis of families and their levels of poverty and those who get assistance from the public and drive people in the middle class. They make close to the median income of that area (Beckhusen 307). There will also be another variable indicating those who receive help from the public. The calculation of the percentage of those who receive help from the public is done in this manner; the number of households who get help from the public is divided by the total number of households who obtained financial help from the total number of households in the whole metropolitan area.
The median household is another variable to be used. This variable is taken from the ACS of the year 2012 but, however, it ensures the identification of the income of households in the year 2011. I will also analyze a scatter plot to find out the relationship of the factors that vary between immigration and the living cost of areas in Metropolitan (Bachmeier 1296). The hypothesis for this research is that areas with immigration will have lower income than metropolitan areas without immigration.

Figure 1 Median Household Income and Percentage Foreign Born Data Source: 2012 American Community Survey
Results
The relevance of immigration is particular to Americans of Asian origin because the highest proportion of immigrants is included and compared to the residents in that area. Asian immigrants make the largest population of the immigrants who adapt very quickly because they live in areas with relatively high standards of living. The immigrants who fail to adapt to new environments reduce the living standard in their residential areas (Bachmeier 1295).
The population of the current survey conducted on a monthly basis consists of up to 50,000 households. The survey is conducted by the Bureau of Census. The current population survey is the basic source of obtaining data on the characteristics of immigrants and the effect they have on the cost of life in the metropolitan areas where they settle. The selection of the sample is scientifically done. The sample gives a representation of the non-institutional population of immigrants. The CPS gives indications on unemployment, earnings, working hours, and the living standards (Beckhusen 305).
The commentary on Metro Trends includes earnings and the affordability of housing using the supplement of food security to give an analysis of indicators of insecurity in food. The determination of this is done by taking the samples of all the immigrants and analyzing the way they live to find out the level of their expenditure. It is grounded on some questions regarding experiences and behaviors that suggest food insecurity. The figure below shows how income distribution of the immigrants are scattered across the total population (Bachmeier 1294).
Discussion
In the past, the living cost in American metropolitan areas has increased such that buying commodities is a great expense in the living cost. It causes the price of commodities to rise and increase the local GDP. The immigration to the United States impacts on the composition of the workforce in metropolitan areas because the immigrants are usually less skilled in comparison with the natives. Consequently, the large number of immigrants reduces the average skills of the local populations, though the effect on the structure of wages is minimal. One significant example in this aspect is the housing market. A strong indication points to the fact that renters and homeowners place a high value on the characteristics of the residents of their neighborhoods. Such preferences have been the major cause of racial, ethnic, and income segregation that characterizes neighborhoods and schools throughout the United States.
Parents prefer to pay more for abodes near public schools because of convenience. Since parental education and income are significant elements of student performance in test scores, these preferences imply that native families will lean towards regarding immigrant children as bad peers. The results for American Community Survey are extensive, and its analytical tables display the population in the United States. The population of the current survey conducted on a monthly basis consists of up to 50,000 households. The survey is conducted by the Bureau of Census. The current population survey is the basic source of obtaining data on the characteristics of immigrants and the effect they have on the cost of life in the metropolitan areas where they settle. The selection of the sample is scientifically done.

Works Cited
Bachmeier, James D. “Cumulative Causation, Coethnic Settlement Maturity and Mexican Immigration to US Metropolitan Areas, 1995-2000.” Social forces 91.4 (2013): 1293-1317.
Beckhusen, Julia, et al. “Living and working in ethnic enclaves: English Language proficiency of immigrants in US metropolitan areas.” Papers in Regional Science 92.2 (2013): 305-328.
Ottaviano, Gianmarco IP, and Giovanni Peri. The effects of immigration on US wages and rents: A general equilibrium approach. London: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2012. Print.

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