This follows up on my Dec. 10 post on immigration. On Dec. 11, the New York Times published the analysis I have just cited. It’s long and it’s meaty. If you want to know what’s actually going on, I highly recommend it.
Two things stood out for me.
Thing One: The Immense Scope of the Immigration Surge Under Biden
The Times writes,
Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people. That’s a faster pace of arrivals than during any other period on record, including the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States. Even after taking into account today’s larger U.S. population, the recent surge is the most rapid since at least 1850.
And, by the way,
About 60 percent of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization, according to a Goldman Sachs report based on government data.
The combined increases of legal and illegal immigration have caused the share of the U.S. population born in another country to reach a new high, 15.2 percent in 2023, up from 13.6 percent in 2020. The previous high was 14.8 percent, in 1890.
Thing Two: The Effect on Working Class Wages
According to the article,
The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that wage growth for Americans who did not attend college will be lower than it otherwise would have been for the next few years because of the recent surge. On the flip side, higher immigration can reduce the cost of services and help Americans, many with higher incomes, who do not compete for jobs with immigrants.
Bernard Yaros Jr., a lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, a research firm, described the recent increases as “something that we really haven’t seen in recent memory.” Mr. Yaros said that they had “helped cool wage growth.”
Posted by Ron Davis, Dec. 14, 2024
Facing MAGA 