(July 8, 2022, Washington, D.C.) — A new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds that calls to increase already record levels of immigration would only add to existing economic woes like decreased labor force participation and growing income disparities, while doing nothing to curb soaring inflation.
Proposals currently being pushed by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and far-left mass immigration advocates would further harm American workers struggling to cope with 40-year high inflation. The study reveals that an even greater influx of new immigrants would drive down their wages even as prices continue to rise across the board.
“The so-called labor shortage is largely the product of poor policymaking by the White House – from massive economic shut-downs triggered by COVID to reckless spending,” said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “The same folks who created these ruinous policies and made poor decisions now propose to solve non-existent or unrelated problems with even more ruinous immigration policies.”
With a focus on the period between the height of COVID and March 2022, Mass Immigration Won’t Stimulate Post-COVID Recovery: Debunking America-Last Economic Myths finds that:
| Labor force participation rates have been steadily increasing since bottoming out in April 2020, and are likely to continue rising. The U-6 unemployment rate (workers who are unemployed, underemployed, or discouraged from even seeking jobs) stood at 6.9 percent at the end of the examined period and remains stagnant, dropping slightly to 6.7 percent last month. When combined with those who left the labor force due to COVID but haven’t yet rejoined it, there are around 14 million available American workers to fill some 11 million job vacancies.An end to massive government stimulus programs (a key cause of inflation) means that more sidelined American workers are seeking to return to the labor market.An even greater infusion of immigrant workers would not lower inflation. It would merely inflict more economic pain on middle- and lower-income Americans as the law of supply and demand drives down wages that are already inadequate to keep up with rising costs. |
“If mass immigration were a panacea for inflation and spot shortages in the labor market, these problems would have already solved themselves. Between September 2020 and March 2022, the foreign-born population of the U.S. has grown by 2.5 million and now totals some 49 million, largely due to disastrous open borders policies of the Biden administration,” noted Stein.
“There is more than an ample supply of labor in this country. What is lacking? Sound policymaking to properly tame inflation while encouraging idled American workers to fill available jobs. As is typical of the Biden administration and a cheap labor lobby with access to lawmakers in both parties, their proposal is to compound these problems by putting already failed immigration policies on steroids,” concluded Stein.
The full report, Mass Immigration Won’t Stimulate Post-COVID Recovery: Debunking America-Last Economic Myths, can be found here.
