According to a recent analysis of the November labor market data by the Center for Immigration Studies, an estimated 1.9 million more legal and illegal immigrants are working in the United States than before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Understanding this data is pivotal in disproving the big-business argument that immigration must be increased to make up for slowed arrivals during the Covid-19 pandemic; the insinuation that immigrants are now “missing” from the workforce – creating a “worker shortage” – is blatantly false.
The CIS analysis reports, to whatever extent workers are ‘missing’ from the labor force, the cause is explained by a decades-long decline in the labor force participation rate among working-age U.S.-born workers – not a single-year decline in immigration numbers.
For context, the analysis adds that “if the participation rate of the working-age returned even to the level in 2000, it would add 6.5 million to the labor force.”
Steven Camarota, the Center’s director of research and the report’s lead author, explains:
The decline in labor force participation is linked to numerous negative outcomes, including substance abuse, welfare dependency, crime, family breakup, and early death. Allowing in immigrant workers rather than encouraging Americans back into the job market means turning a blind eye to all the social problems that the low labor force participation creates.
CIS highlighted the key findings of their analysis of the November 2022 government’s household survey:
The highlights conclude with an examination of the overall foreign-born population currently in the U.S. labor force. The overall foreign-born:
You can read the complete report, including comprehensive data and graphics, at the Center for Immigration Studies’ website.
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