“If you look at not just last year but the last three or four years, a lot of the job growth from the Biden administration went to foreign-born people,” Vance said on Fox News' “Sunday Morning Futures.” ” he said. “And of course, many of them are illegal aliens.”
He contrasted it with the “Trump economy,” which he argued will “increase productivity, raise wages for American workers, expand manufacturing, and ultimately lead to better-paying jobs for American workers.” . By contrast, under President Biden, “much of economic growth has gone to foreign-born and undocumented immigrants, while American workers struggle to feed their families and buy homes.” .
It's a clever move, worthy of the sauce. Transforming the jobs report from a frustratingly positive number for the president (and for Republicans) into a way to talk about immigration and the border again.
Job growth under the Biden administration has been largely driven by increases in people born outside the United States. From February 2017 to February 2020 (just before the pandemic), 71 percent of jobs added in the United States went to American-born people. From February 2021 to February 2024, 52 percent did so.
However, in some ways this was a reversal of existing patterns. The density of U.S.-born Americans in the labor force has been declining since 2010, as has the density of U.S.-born Americans in the population. Unrevised employment data for March is generally in line with what we expect. About trends from 2011 to early 2020.
Indeed, the rate of change is much more rapid. Part of what happened with jobs under the Biden administration is that the economy took longer to recover from the pandemic. This would have been a fairer way to condition the job growth seen from 2021 onwards. Where would we have been if the pandemic had not interrupted and the trends since 2011 continued? We are anyway.
why? Because in his 20 years after World War II, the number of babies being born has increased significantly, and the babies are rapidly retiring by more than 10 years. According to the latest data from the Census Bureau, only about 58 percent of the mainland-born population is of working age (i.e. from age 18 to age 64). More than three-quarters of the foreign-born population falls into that age group.
As a result, foreign-born U.S. residents make up only about 4 percent of the population under age 18, but more than 17 percent of the working-age population. This is higher than the 14 percent of the population aged 65 and over.
In other words, they are expected to form a majority in the labor force relative to the total population.
You can see that reflected in the charts aired during Vance's show. The number of mainland-born Americans retiring is far greater than the number of foreign-born residents. This is because the mainland-born American group is older.
It should also be noted that Vance's language that these workers are in the country illegally is questionable, especially given the intended implication that they arrived under the Biden administration. Two-thirds of foreign-born residents living in the United States last year arrived before 2010, and more than half were naturalized citizens, according to Census Bureau data.
The pattern we are seeing in employment was predictable and expected. A 2017 report assessing the impact of immigration on the economy found that the growth in the labor force over the past decade was due to first- and second-generation immigrants, and compared to the baby boomer generation seen 50 years ago. It was predicted that this would be the first change since the rapid increase. .
Demographers see this as a central advantage of the American economy. As China's population shrinks due to strict immigration regulations, the population growth that comes with immigration allows the U.S. to fill positions left open by retirees.
Mr. Vance, who wrote a book about class, used to look at American demographics and politics. He is now a politician and aims to share Donald Trump's support base. So it's important to note that Vance's efforts to marginalize foreign-born workers (and Biden by shooting banks) are inherently political efforts. It's also worth noting that two years ago, he expressed disdain for immigrants more broadly.
“You can't compare the positive effects of children to the positive effects of immigration,” Vance said in an interview with right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. “I think people are great. I love it when people want to come to a country. But so many people come to this country when our own families aren't recreating themselves. I can not do it.”
If you did not do it If people come to our country, America will lack the workers it needs to fill the jobs it needs to support retirees and pay the system. But Mr. Vance has a covert answer here. A key part of his problem is not that immigrants get jobs. Immigrants will immigrate.