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The Fourth Wave: California’s Newest Immigrants

Thomas Muller and Thomas J. Espenshade

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Founder connections

  • Sol PriceBacked the research and praised its findings
    Robert E. Price’s biography says Sol proposed that the Weingart Foundation fund the Urban Institute study later published as The Fourth Wave. It attributes Sol’s favorable view of the findings to William Gorham’s July 23, 2012 letter to Robert. This is research support and praise, not evidence that Sol read or recommended the book.
    Source

Summary

Thomas Muller and Thomas Espenshade study the effects of immigration in California, with attention to Southern California during the 1970s and early 1980s. The research examines work and wages, public revenue and costs, and the services used by new residents.

The published Urban Institute summary separates effects on wages and employment from state and local fiscal accounts, and notes limits in counting undocumented residents. This is a historical study of a defined place and period, not a finding about all immigration or a current policy forecast.

  • SourceThe Fourth Wave: California’s Newest Immigrants — primary source · Author’s CV, printed p. 3: exact title, coauthors and Urban Institute Press, 1985.
  • SourceUrban Institute — Mexicans: California’s Newest Immigrants · Urban Institute Policy and Research Report, May 1985, reprinted with permission in U.S. Immigration in the 1980s (1988), printed pp. 176–180; preceding editor’s context p. 175 identifies it as a distillation of The Fourth Wave.

Why read it Our view

Read it to see how a public claim can be broken into separate questions about jobs, revenue, costs and who is affected. Check the period, population and data before carrying a finding into another setting. Sol Price’s support for the research and praise of its findings do not replace an assessment of the evidence.