Compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, all of the employment growth in the American workforce has gone to migrants — legal and illegal — while the number of U.S.-born citizens has not returned to the pre-COVID level, according to a new Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report released Tuesday.
Further, the share of U.S.-born men without a four-year degree not in the labor force continued its decline in 2023, according to the study.
The fingerprints of the Biden administration are all over the data, according to analysis by the Washington Examiner.
The post-COVID rebound belongs to migrants here legally and illegally, to the tune of 2.9 million more working in the U.S. in 2023 compared to the same point in 2019, while 183,000 fewer U.S.-born citizens are in the workforce, according to CIS.
Further, the participation rate of all U.S.-born adults was at 77% at the end of last year, roughly matching the pre-COVID rate but still shy of 2006 (78.1%) and 2000 (79.2%).
However, CIS points out that at 75.6%, "the labor force participation rate of U.S.-born men without a bachelor's (18 to 64) has still not returned to the 76.3 percent it was in the fourth quarter of 2019."
"Immigration has added significantly to the number of workers without a bachelor's degree. Of the 2.9 million increase in immigrant workers, 1.7 million (60%) are adults 18 and older without a bachelor's degree," CIS said.
In the 1960s, 90% of less-educated U.S.-born men were in the labor force.
But compounding the record numbers of migrants the Biden administration allowed through the southern border in 2023, President Joe Biden has paid the American worker to stay home, according to the Washington Examiner.
"Most other workers who had no better excuse stayed home because the government incentivized them by expanding provisions for subsidies like Obamacare and constant stimulus checks that paid better than the median wage," the Examiner said in its analysis.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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