Americans are becoming increasingly more concerned about border enforcement in the United States, with nearly half considering it a “crisis,” according to a poll by CBS News. Thirty percent of Americans view the border situation as “very serious.”
However, according to economic research, immigration has been a net positive to the U.S. economy, driving job growth and increasing consumer spending.
In 2023, “foreign-born” workers comprised nearly 19% of the U.S. labor force, according to analysis by nonpartisan think tank Economic Policy Institute of Current Population Survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is an uptick from 15.3% in 2006.
“The unexpectedly high level of immigration also explains some of the surprising strength in consumer spending and overall economic growth since 2022,” wrote economists Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson for the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative within the Brookings Institution. “Moreover, we expect immigration flows to further boost economic growth in 2024.”
Immigrants have contributed largely to consumer spending growth by about 0.2 percentage point last year, with a similar boost expected this year, along with an increase in gross domestic product—a measure of all the goods and services produced—by 0.1 percentage point per year since 2022, Edelberg and Watson reported.
The U.S. needs more workers to keep the economy humming. In the absence of foreign-born labor, the U.S. talent pool will continue to decline because of lower birth rates with an accompanying aging workforce of Baby Boomers looking to retire. From 2024 through 2027, 4.1 million Americans will reach the age of 65 each year, estimates the Income Institute at the Alliance for Lifetime Income. The current trends will make it hard to finance social programs such as Social Security.
Federal Reserve Bank chair Jerome Powell said to the House Financial Services Committee earlier this month about the flow of immigration’s impact on the U.S. economy, “It's just arithmetic. If you add a couple million people to an economy, a percentage of them work, there will be more output."
Powell added, “I'm not going to say anything is needed for the future or good policy indirectly or directly. I think it's just reporting the facts to say that immigration and labor force participation both contributed to the very strong economic output growth that we had last year.”
Immigration is fueling business and job creation in the U.S. According to MIT research, immigrants are 80% more likely to start a business than native-born U.S. citizens. They are also responsible for 42% more job creation than native-born founders.
A 2022 study by the National Foundation for American Policy revealed that 55% of U.S. billion-dollar startups, also referred to as “unicorn” companies, were founded by immigrants.
Foreign-born workers in the U.S. are not immune to labor challenges. Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project, said about mass immigration in a press release, “One of the most crucial forces driving the nation’s job growth and economic vitality over the last year has been immigration.” She added that immigrant workers are at the “center of a growing crisis of workplace abuse, with undocumented and temporary visa migrant workers among the most vulnerable to abuses, including wage theft, health and safety risks, child labor violations and retaliation from employers.” Employees who have suffered injuries or developed health conditions due to their work may consult with a Cook County workers comp lawyer to help them file a claim or lawsuit.
Proponents of stronger border enforcement say immigration causes issues of overcrowding, congestion and extra pressure on public services, as well as downward pressure on wages for working-class families that are already having a tough time in a high-cost and inflationary environment.
