Just one-quarter of job growth has gone to natural-born Americans since 2019, with the vast majority of gains going towards both legal and illegal immigrants, a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found.
The CIS report provides context to what the New York Times has called a “historically strong job market” and may explain why many voters remain unsatisfied with President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy.
“It is true that the country has added millions of jobs since the height of Covid,” the analysis states. “However, most of that employment growth has gone to immigrants, both legal and illegal.”
The CIS report goes on to point out that a recent study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 971,000 more natural-born Americans were employed in May 2024 compared to May 2019. The number of employed immigrants has, however, increased by 3.2 million in the same period of time.
The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of people who are either working or actively looking for work, has declined significantly among some segments of natural-born Americans. Just 88.4 percent of U.S.-born men between the ages of 25 and 54 are currently participating in the labor force, one of the lowest levels ever recorded. The figure marks a severe drop from 96 percent in 1960.
Among U.S.-born men in that same age range whose education level is “high school diploma or less,” only 81.6 percent are participating in the labor force, just one-tenth of a percent up from the lowest level ever recorded.
“Advocates insist there are simply not enough workers without immigrants,” the CIS report points out. “This argument ignores the long-term deterioration in labor force participation among U.S.-born men.”
The figures come as Biden has presided over a record-breaking surge in illegal immigration. Officials have recorded over 9.5 million nationwide encounters and 1.7 million estimated illegal immigrant gotaway under the Democrat’s term.
The foreign-born population residing in the United States has also hit an all-time high of 51.6 million under the Biden administration marking an astonishing increase of 5.1 million since March 2022.
