ecause of mass immigration, California now has the least educated labor force of any state in the U.S., according to a new report.

In 1970, immigrants were just 9 percent of the state's population.  By 2008, immigrants were 27 percent.  A study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) in Washington, D.C. reveals that mass immigration has transformed California from a state ranked as having the 7th most educated labor force into one that is now ranked 50th.

The report, "A State Transformed: Immigration and the New California," by researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Jensenius, ranked the labor force by the percentage of Californians who have completed high school compared to other states.  "California has fallen behind the rest of the country," the report said.

"The large relative decline in education in California is a direct result of immigration.  Without immigrants, the share of California's labor force that has completed high school would be above the rest of the country," the study found.

The mass immigration flooding the U.S. consists mostly of poor and uneducated populations, the majority from Mexico and Central and Latin America.

CIS said the study's findings are based on U.S. Census Bureau data.
California is already a state with a majority non-white population, and has begun to take on some characteristics more common in Third World countries than in European-derived countries.

"California has become a state with one of the most skewed income distributions and it is among the states with high rates of welfare use and lack of health insurance. Immigrants in the state are six times more likely than natives not to have completed high school," the report said. "Productivity, standard of living, welfare use, health insurance coverage, and the tax base are heavily impacted by education levels.  The low level of educational attainment in the state is likely to create significant challenges for California in the foreseeable future."

In 1970, California was "right at the national average" in income stratification throughout its population.  It ranked 25th in equality of income distribution.  But by 2008, it had the sixth most unequal income distribution in the U.S., revealing a trend toward the severe income disparities often found in less developed economies.

California's income distribution in 2008 was more unequal than was Mississippi's in 1970, the report said.

Middle American News predicted the coming transformation of California back in September 1998 due to immigration.  That month's cover story, "Kiss California Goodbye" warned, "uncontrolled immigration, mostly from Mexico and Latin America, is rapidly transforming its character." Noting the impact of competition between low-skilled native-born American workers and the newcomers - legal and illegal --  the article said, "California's racial imbalance is exacerbated by those economic conditions as they fuel the flight of poor whites from the state.  William Frey, a demographer [then] at the Populations Studies Center at the University of Michigan, reports that poor and low-skilled white workers are leaving California in record numbers, choosing to settle in neighboring states... "

The CIS study found that "if only native born persons are considered, California would rank 25th in the nation in terms of the share of its labor force comprised of those with at least a high school education, not last." Without immigrants, the share of California's labor force that has completed high school would be above the national average.

The transformation of the state will last far into the future. "California ... will not soon close the gap with the rest of the country because immigration (legal and illegal) continues to add large numbers of unskilled workers to the state. Of adult immigrants who arrived in California in 2007 and the first half of 2008, 30.8 percent had not completed high school... [I]t seems very likely that California will remain one of the least-educated states in the country for a long time."