No, Immigrants Aren’t Stealing Jobs From Black Americans

There are good reasons to secure the border, but protecting workers from competition isn’t one

By Jason L. Riley. Excerpts:

"President Trump liked to boast about record-low black unemployment, which sank to an impressive 5.3% in August 2019."

"“Black unemployment is at a record low of 4.7%,”"

"Under Mr. Trump, illegal entries declined in 2017, his first year in office. But they rose significantly in 2018 and 2019 before receding in 2020 because of Covid. Under Mr. Biden, unauthorized border crossings have returned with a vengeance, due mainly to a pronounced U.S. labor shortage. Citing Department of Homeland Security data, the New York Post reported Tuesday that “more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants have slipped into the U.S. since President Biden took office—more than three times the number recorded during the last three years of Trump’s presidency.”

It’s often asserted that illegal immigration is especially harmful to black wages and job prospects, but we now have two consecutive presidencies that seem to undermine that claim. Illegal immigration is at a record high, and black unemployment is at a record low. Maybe immigrants don’t steal jobs after all—not from black workers or from anyone else. And given that the country has experienced significant nominal wage gains among all groups, both before and after the pandemic, foreign nationals don’t seem to be driving down earnings either."

"black poverty . . . declined to record or near-record lows under the Trump and Biden presidencies even while illegal immigration has increased. The same trend occurred in the 1990s, when the size of the illegal immigrant population more than doubled, and the black poverty rate simultaneously fell by more than a third. Perhaps a growing economy is a bigger factor in the economic well-being of black workers than the size of the migrant population."

"foreign nationals tend to compete with one another for work, not with U.S. natives, as research by economists Giovanni Peri, Richard Vedder and others has demonstrated. There’s some overlap, to be sure, but legal and illegal immigrants bring different abilities to this country and a willingness to do different jobs at different wages than most Americans."