Former President Donald Trump continued his aggressive rhetoric on illegal immigration at a campaign rally in Nevada in early June, where he claimed that nearly all the new jobs under President Biden have gone to illegal aliens. However, this claim is false, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The data shows that the number of US-born workers has actually increased by about 3.5% since May 2021, shortly after Biden took office. Additionally, while the number of foreign-born workers has increased at a faster rate of 20% during Biden’s presidency, it does not mean that native-born workers are not getting jobs. Economists credit the influx of immigrant workers as a main reason the US labor market has remained strong.
Trump’s claims about undocumented immigrants impacting American jobs have long been a theme of his campaigns. However, the data shows that 130.4 million native-born people were employed in May, an increase of nearly 4.5 million since May 2021. Roughly 30.9 million foreign-born people held jobs in May, an increase of 5.1 million from May 2021. The economy has added about 230,000 jobs a month this fiscal year.
While native-born workers have seen a decrease in employment over the past year, foreign-born workers have seen an increase. However, the share of employed foreign-born men has consistently been higher than native-born men since 2007. Labor economists attribute the decline in the share of working men to various factors such as the decline in factory jobs and changes in technology and globalization.
In conclusion, Trump’s claim that almost all new jobs under President Biden have gone to illegal aliens is not supported by the data. The economy has seen growth in employment for both native-born and foreign-born workers, with foreign-born workers playing a significant role in job growth.
