Paul Kiernan

President Trump and his allies have long said that reducing immigration would bring higher wages and more jobs to American-born workers.

We did a broad review of Labor Department data on wages and job growth and unemployment, and we just didn't really find a whole lot of evidence of that.

The economic rationale that we occasionally hear from President Trump and his allies is that the immigration crackdown will improve labor market conditions for workers who were born in the U.S., for American citizens.

If President Trump's hypothesis was holding true, you would probably see faster wage growth for American-born workers.

That's not what we're seeing.

We're seeing wage growth kind of coming down for U.S.-born workers.

And you would probably also expect to see fast wage growth in the industries that rely on a lot of immigrants who are in the country illegally.

So things like meatpacking, food services and restaurants.

And in those sectors, wage growth is mostly below what's happening in the rest of the economy.

So in the broader private sector, average hourly earnings rose 3.8% in February from a year earlier than

And in the 41 industries that we identified that rely on lower-skilled immigrants, they only rose 3.5%.

They highlighted construction and trucking as sectors where wages have grown.

And wages are up in those sectors, but they're not really up meaningfully more than they are in the broader economy.

The White House also pointed to real wages.

So that's how much did your wages rise after inflation.

And inflation-adjusted wages are up.

And the White House also argues that labor force participation among people who are in their prime working years is quite strong.

It doesn't look like it's risen meaningfully over the Trump administration.

It was basically at the same level at various points under President Biden, but it is quite strong.

Thanks a lot, Alex.