Less than five months later, President Donald Trump reversed a trend that was building under former President Joe Biden, with most new jobs now going to foreign-born workers who had recently arrived in the U.S.
Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that since Trump assumed office in late January, all new job growth has been attributed to Indigenous-born Americans.
“The president has effectively created hundreds of thousands of jobs since taking office—over half a million jobs—and they all benefit native-born Americans,” I said.
Looking back to last May when Biden was still president, nearly 14 million Americans found work this May, marking a complete turnaround in labor trends.
Moreover, BLS statistics show that around 1 million foreign-born workers exited the U.S. workforce from March to May this year.
“This represented the largest two-month drop in the foreign-born workforce since the early days of the pandemic,” noted the Wall Street Journal. “Some economists suggest this decline points to more unauthorized workers leaving the job market.”
Interestingly, as Trump’s immigration policies took effect, wages also increased, mirroring trends from his first semester. For instance, in May, U.S. wages rose 0.4%, bringing the average hourly wage to $36.24.
On the flip side, Biden’s economy seemed to be saturated with foreign-born workers, resulting in a surplus of labor that kept wages stagnant, where nearly all new job growth was attributed to newly arrived migrants from the southern border.
Despite the fact that immigrants secured more than 4.7 million jobs under Biden, a study by the Center for Immigration Research revealed that only 645,000 jobs were created for Indigenous-born Americans.
To put it differently, Biden’s policies resulted in 7.3 immigrant jobs being created for every one that Americans obtained.
Yet, Eji Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, believes the Trump administration has a path to fully reverse the economic trends that favor immigration.
“The employment of foreign-born workers has reverted to historical patterns, with a net increase of 3.9 million over six years, compared to only 2.3 million for native-born Americans, still falling short of the previously dominating trends of millions.”
