Paul Krugman, NY Times - It has taken a while, but many observers are finally acknowledging that the United States has done extraordinarily well at recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.. And one key to that performance has been rapid growth in the U.S. labor force, which has risen by 2.9 million since the eve of the pandemic four years ..ago.
How much of that growth was due to foreign-born workers? All of it. The native-born labor force declined slightly over the past four years, reflecting an aging population, while we added three million foreign-born workers.... America in early 2024 has full employment, with consumers who say that jobs are “plentiful” outnumbering those saying jobs are “hard to get” by almost five to one. The unemployment rate among native-born workers averaged just under 3.7 percent in 2023, as low as it’s been since the government began collecting the data.
In fact, I’d argue that the influx of foreign-born workers has helped the native born... Immigrant workers often turn out to be complementary to the native-born work force, bringing different skills that, in effect, help avoid supply bottlenecks and allow faster job creation... And immigrant workers have probably been especially important these past few years, as the has struggled to resolve disruptions caused by the pandemic... So while the mess at the border needs to be fixed — and could be fixed if Republicans would help solve the problem instead of exploit it for political advantage — don’t let that mess obscure the larger reality that immigration is one of America’s great sources of power and prosperity
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