It’s The Immigrants, Stupid? | ZeroHedge

While the Biden administration insists Americans shouldn't believe their lying bank accounts amid 'strong growth and low unemployment,' guess who's actually been benefiting? (Regular ZeroHedge readers already know)

You guessed it – 'the controlled influx of immigrants into the US across the southern border,' as Trend Macrolytics CIO Donald Luskin pens in a WSJ op-ed – though his conclusion was not well received by readers.

The figures, contained within the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly household survey, are collected through door-to-door census of 60,000 households in which respondents are asked whether they're native or foreign born (but not whether they're here illegally!). Luskin notes that illegal aliens are probably less likely to answer a knock at the door, so BLS probably undercounts them.

Even so, foreign-born individuals represent 80% of the 4.1 million increase in America's adult population since July 2022, and 71% of the 2.5 million new jobs. In short, without new foreign-born workers, total US job growth under Biden during this period would have been roughly 86,000 less each month – or 724,000 jobs added vs. 2.52 million. So without illegal immigrants, the economy would have grown less than a third as much since July 2022.

According to Luskin;

As we noted in March, there has been virtually zero job creation for native-born workers since the summer of 2018…

… and that since Joe Biden was sworn into office, most of the post-pandemic job gains the administration continuously brags about have gone foreign-born workers.

Luskin suggests, therefore, that the new, foreign-born adults are diluting the productivity of the US economy by arriving with few skills and poor English, however "the economy needs many low-skill workers, and they rapidly acquire skills on the job, so they will surely contribute to productivity growth in the future."

So, "It would seem that in purely economic terms, and at least for the moment, the Biden administration’s loose border policy is a feature, not a bug."

That said, the Biden administration isn't exactly bragging about this influx of future Democrat voters.

The comments section ain't buyin' it…

In response to Luskin, WSJ readers had some choice words:

Perhaps Lusk needs to go back to the drawing board.

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