President Donald Trump’s deportation plans could cost nearly 6 million jobs, according to an analysis released Thursday.
If successful, Trump’s goal of deporting 4 million people over four years will cost jobs held by both immigrants and U.S.-born workers, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
EPI’s analysis found California, Florida, New York and Texas will have the highest number of job losses, because of larger immigrant populations in those states.
The construction industry will see the biggest drop in employment, with an estimated 861,000 U.S.-born and 1.4 million immigrant jobs lost, according to the analysis. The child care sector is expected to lose half a million jobs.
Immigrants are a crucial component of the American economy, representing nearly 20% of the nation’s workforce last year, according to federal data.
Because jobs held by U.S.-born and immigrant workers are often complementary and economically linked, the shrinking supply of immigrant labor can adversely affect employer demand for jobs held by both groups of workers, the Economic Policy Institute report said.
Immigrant workers are also consumers, meaning that group will spend less in local economies as their earnings and employment decline.
“Regardless of the exact mechanisms, deportations can cause a sharp and abrupt enough fall in labor supply that some employers will respond by shutting down operations entirely,” the analysis said.
The major spending and tax bill Trump signed July 4 allocated $170 billion for immigration enforcement and border protection measures. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the country, at nearly $30 billion through September 2029.
Already, the number of jobs being performed by foreign-born workers is declining, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
And those losses are not leading to more U.S.-born workers in the workforce, labor economist Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy, told Forbes this week.
That contradicts Republican claims, said Ben Zipperer, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“While Trump and other conservatives claim that increased deportations will somehow magically create jobs for U.S.-born workers, the existing evidence shows that the opposite is true: they will cause immense harm to workers and families, shrink the economy, and weaken the labor market for everyone,” Zipperer said in a Thursday news release.
–Kevin Hardy, Stateline
Justsayin says
How did we survive under Obama with all his deportations
JimboXYZ says
Consumption of essentials (food & fresh water) should decline & therefore pollution should also be reduced ?
Pogo says
@What if
…the stupidity and dishonesty in social media comments is contagious — and transmissible by reading it?
Sherry says
@justsayin. . . why do you keep asking that same stupid question? If you would just do a tiny bit of “Google” research you would find that President Obama actually focused deportations on violent criminals and those caught in the action of crossing the border “illegally” without any evidence of danger to them in their home countries. Those newly arrived were deported in just a matter of days and weeks. Therefore, they did not impact our economy.
But, justsayin, you don’t really want to know that President Obama did not send ICE after those immigrants who have been productive members of US economy and society with children born in the US, do you? “You”. . . along with other Magas lie launderers. . . just want to “imply” that President Obama compares poorly to trump regarding deportations, which is “factually” wrong!
Of course, you are most welcome to post “credentialed facts” that prove otherwise. LOL!