Survey: Immigration having more negative than positive effect

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Survey: Immigration having more negative than positive effect
By DAVID OLSON
The Press-Enterprise
About half of Californians don't believe immigration has had a major impact on the state's quality of life, but those whose personal financial situation is deteriorating are most likely to see a negative effect, a new poll finds.
The statewide survey, released today by The Field Poll and UC Berkeley, found that nearly four in 10 poll respondents said immigration is making life worse. People whose economic circumstances had declined in the previous year were much more likely to say immigration is reducing the quality of life in California, the poll found.
Only 12 percent of respondents said their financial well-being had improved during the previous year, and 38 percent reported it was worse. Half said there was no change. Karthick Ramakrishnan, an associate professor of political science at UC Riverside, said studies during the recession of the early 1990s did not find the same link between negative attitudes on immigration and respondents' declining personal finances.
"What might be different this time around is how prolonged a downturn this is," he said.
Even if people do not lose their jobs because of immigration, they may perceive it is happening to themselves or others, Ramakrishnan said.
The poll found that even 32 percent of Latinos and 34 percent of Asians and "others" see more of a negative than positive impact from immigration, suggesting that economic concerns are trumping cultural connections, he said.
The poll found that people 65 and older are twice as likely as adults under 30 to believe immigration is worsening the quality of life in California.
Ramakrishnan said that may be because young people are more likely than older residents to be friends with immigrants and people of different ethnicities, and because a higher percentage of young voters are themselves Latino or Asian.
Poll respondent Clark Cravey, 64, of Wonder Valley, which is east of Twentynine Palms, doesn't believe immigration has made a significant difference in the quality of life.
Excessive state spending and corporate greed are hurting the state far more, he said.
But Delmer Lock, 76, of Banning, said that, although he can't blame immigrants for seeking a better life in the United States, he believes they are costing the state too much in education, medical and other expenses.
OPTIMISM FADING
In a separate question, pollsters asked whether California is "one of the best places to live."
Only 39 percent of respondents said it is, one of the least positive evaluations of the state in 44 years of polling on the question and a finding that may be related in part to the economy but also to a long-term souring of the California dream among many.
Twenty-eight percent of respondents said California is "nice, but not outstanding," 20 percent rated it "about average" and 10 percent scored it as "poor."
AMONG THE BEST
In polls from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, 70 percent or more of Californians said the state was among the best places.
"This was an era when opportunities for people seemed unlimited," Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said.
"There was just this feeling of optimism."
The low point was in 1992, during a severe recession, when only 33 percent of Californians rated the state highly. After that, the number never rose above 54 percent, even during economic expansion.
"What's really going on is we have a much larger population, and that's putting a strain on public services," he said.
The poll, conducted for The Press-Enterprise and other California media subscribers from Feb. 28 to March 14, surveyed 898 voters.
Some questions were asked of random subsamples of either 454 or 444 voters each.
The survey's overall margin of error is 3.4 percentage points. The margin of error for the subsamples was plus or minus 4.8 percentage points.
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