CV NEWS FEED // A recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article analyzed how an unprecedented surge of illegal migrants – an overwhelming percentage of whom are working age – has “remade” the composition of the United States’ labor force.
“The U.S. is experiencing its largest immigration wave in generations,” wrote WSJ economics reporter Paul Kiernan in a piece published Wednesday.
“Immigrants are swelling the population and changing the makeup of the U.S. labor force in ways that are likely to reverberate through the economy for decades,” Kiernan continued. “Since the end of 2020, more than nine million people have migrated to the U.S. … nearly as many as the number that came in the previous decade.”
The reporter pointed out that these migrants are “younger and more likely to be of working age than U.S.-born Americans.”
“Of foreigners who arrived since 2020, 78% are between the ages of 16 and 64, compared with 60% of those born in the U.S., according to the monthly census data,” he explained:
Of recent immigrants age 16 or older, 68%—the participation rate—are either working or looking for a job, compared with 62% for U.S.-born Americans. In raw numbers, that likely amounts to more than five million people, equal to roughly 3% of the labor force.
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“Recent immigrants’ participation rate is likely to climb further in coming years,” Kiernan wrote.
“Labor-force participation for foreigners who arrived from 2004 through 2019 is a lofty 73%, according to census data,” he indicated:
And while 5% of working-age Americans are unable to work—often because of chronic illness, disability, drug addiction or the need to care for family members—less than 1% of post-2020 immigrants report being unable to work.
In June, CatholicVote reported that, per data from the Biden-Harris administration’s Labor Department, “the number of employed native-born workers decreased by 663,000 while the number of employed foreign-born grew by 414,000.”
Earlier in March, CatholicVote reported that an executive at the meat and poultry giant Tyson said the company “is considering hiring at least 40,000 migrants to work in its factories.”
“Shortly after the news surfaced, the meat and poultry giant stated that it was ‘misinformation’ and that the company is ‘strongly opposed to illegal immigration,’” CatholicVote’s report at the time added.
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CatholicVote Director of Governmental Affairs Tom McClusky discussed the migrant surge’s potential implication on the country’s public assistance programs this week.
“Just wait until all of these immigrants have complete access to our welfare rolls,” McClusky said. “Some already access parts of it, but there’s a flood about to hit and these programs will be struggling with solvency once that five-year block for parolees ends. That will hurt the poorest in America most.”
“As a reminder, this is why Goldman Sachs said Kamala Harris would be ‘good’ for the economy and Donald Trump would be ‘bad,’” McClusky said, pointing out that uncontrolled immigration is “artificially suppressing wages.”
Readers with a WSJ subscription can find Kiernan’s full article here.
Further reading: Harris tax plan heavily scrutinized
