Do refugees impact the local economy?

Some people worry that accepting refugees will negatively impact their local economy. For most natives, these concerns are much ado about nothing.

A recent meta-analysis of all the best evidence on this topic found that, more often than not, refugees had no impact whatsoever on local employment or wages. In the few instances when refugees had adverse effects, they tended to be short-term and were concentrated among middle-income countries as well as female, young, and informal workers. Sometimes an influx of refugees is associated with an increase in food and rent prices, but oftentimes these are offset by decreases in the price of other goods and services.

Overall, the authors estimated that the chances that a given household will suffer economically as a result of refugee settlement are lower than 20 percent. On average, households in host countries are most likely to experience an uptick in their economic well-being.