An Empirical Investigation of Some Local Public Costs of In-Migration to Cities

The net burden of in-migrants on the population of a city is calculated in this article by multiplying the income distribution of in-migrants by an income-based per capita distribution of revenues and expenditures. A measure of the burden which compensates for different revenue-expenditure patterns among cities is developed. These statistics are used for examining the costs imposed by in-migration on 94 large U.S. cities. The assumptions and implications of the methodology are examined in detail. Among the cities studied, 1955-60 in-migrants imposed in 1960 a median net burden per city of $2,500,000; the median net burden per migrant was $72 and that per city resident, $8. Considerable regional dispersion in the size of the relative burden was noted. The conclusion of the study is that significant costs of in-migration do exist. Some of these costs may be only temporary, but they are positive and represent a subsidization of migrants by nonmigrant residents of a city for a period of time immediately following migration.