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Opinion
Immigrants and their children have made up 70% of US labor force growth since
1995
By
David J. Bier
May 16, 2023 03:52 PM
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Opinion
Immigrants and their children have made up 70% of US labor force growth since
1995
By
David J. Bier
May 16, 2023 03:52 PM
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Pedro Lucas (left), nephew of farm worker Sebastian Francisco Perez who died
last weekend while working in an extreme heat wave, break up earth on Thursday,
July, 1, 2021 near St. Paul, Ore. (Nathan Howard/AP Photo)

Thanks to lower childbirth rates among the U.S. population, fewer workers are
starting their careers each year than during the period following World War II.
This phenomenon has made immigration much more important in counteracting
workforce decline in the United States. In fact, from 1995 to 2022, immigrants
and their children accounted for 70% of all civilian labor force growth.

From 1995 to 2022, the U.S. labor force increased from nearly 131.6 million
workers to over 164.3 million—an increase of nearly 32.8 million workers: 16.1
million of that increase came from immigrant workers (49%) and 6.7 million were
children of immigrants (21%), according to data from the Current Population
Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Just 9.9 million were U.S.-born
citizens without a foreign‐born parent. The actual effect of cutting off all
immigration would have been even greater since the working immigrant population
would have declined without more immigration by about 4.5 million.



Immigrants have increased from about 10% of the U.S. labor force in 1995 to 18%
in 2022, and immigrants and their children have gone from 18% to 29%. The total
population of immigrant workers or workers with immigrant parents increased from
about 23 million to nearly 46 million, making this population a massive
contributor to U.S. economic growth.

Despite the increased importance of immigration, however, the U.S. labor force
growth has declined. It is just not true that immigration has meant that U.S.
workers are facing more competition from new workers. In fact, immigrants are
only partially offsetting the significant decline in new U.S. workers entering
the workforce. The labor force growth rate fell from 1.7% in the 1960s to 0.6%
in the 2010s—a decline of more than 60%.

Of course, some commentators respond that overall labor force growth is not as
important as the labor force growth rate for non‐college educated workers who
are more likely to be competing with immigrants. But the rate of growth for
non‐college educated workers is both lower and declines faster over the entire
period from 1960 to 2022 than the rate of growth for all workers. Immigrants are
even more important in filling these low‐skilled jobs precisely because U.S.
workers are entering them at the lowest rates ever. In fact, college‐educated
workers have accounted for 95% of labor force growth from 1992 to 2022.



The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that about 70% of jobs in 2031 will not
require a college degree , and that most job growth from 2021 to 2031 will come
from these lower‐skilled positions. Right now, there are about 9 million job
openings, and the U.S. government should stop interfering into the labor market
to create shortages. The United States needs workers now more than ever.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICA

This article originally appeared in the Cato at Liberty blog and is reprinted
with kind permission from the Cato Institute.


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