LawyersUSA

The government's plan to crack down on illegal workers could cost employers more than $1 billion a year and legal workers billions of dollars in lost wages, according to the results of a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Those costs are enough to trigger a federal law that would require the Homeland Security Department to analyze more thoroughly the effect of its proposal, said Richard Belzer, a consultant hired by the Chamber to do the study, which was obtained by the Associated Press.

The department's proposed "no match" rule would require employers to fire workers who can't resolve mismatches between their name and Social Security number. The Chamber opposes the proposal. (For a more detailed story about the possible impacts of the proposed rule, see "Lawyers predict fallout from new 'no-match' rules for immigrant workers," Lawyers USA, Sept. 10. 2007. Search terms for Lawyers USA Archives: bracing and fallout.)

Belzer's study was among public comments submitted to the Homeland Security Department on the proposal. The department could adopt the proposal after reviewing the comments, which were accepted through April 25.

The Homeland Security Department issued average costs for employers based on how many employees they have and what percentage of them might be unauthorized workers. It determined there would not be a heavy cost to employers.

Belzer, a former economist with the Office of Management and Budget, looked at overall costs and multiplied the average costs by the number of employers in each category. He also used Homeland Security's estimates that 2 percent of legal workers would lose their jobs each year because they can't resolve the Social Security mismatch.

That adds up to between 37,000 to 137,000 people losing work. Belzer estimated their lost wages would be from $8 billion to $37 billion.