Fewer Immigrants Mean More Jobs? Not So, Economists Say
The Trump administration on Wednesday embraced a proposal to sharply reduce legal immigration, which it said would preserve jobs
and lead to higher wages — the same argument advanced by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations half a century ago.
“The story that ‘when labor supplies go down, wages go up’ is a cartoon,” said Michael A. Clemens, an economist at the Center
for Global Development who has studied the end of the Mexican guest-worker program, which was known as the Bracero program.
“It’s mostly Asian, Indian, Chinese people who are coming to do mid- and high-level professional jobs.”
George J. Borjas, the Harvard immigration economist whose work is the only evidence
that the administration has cited as justifying its proposals, said in an interview on Wednesday that there was no economic justification for reducing skilled immigration.
“The average American worker is more likely to lose than to gain from immigration restrictions,”
said Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis.
The Trump administration is proposing sharp reductions in the number of skilled
and unskilled workers who are allowed to become permanent residents, halving annual immigration from the current level of roughly one million people a year.
“This legislation demonstrates our compassion for struggling American families who
deserve an immigration system that puts their needs first,” President Trump said.