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The US job market is growing, and even better than before the pandemic. According to data platform Statista, 167 million people were working or looking for work in 2023, up from 160 million in 2020.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 18.6 percent of the workforce is immigrants, the CNBC website wrote. This corresponds to roughly 30 million immigrants, which the aforementioned office defines as persons who operate on US territory but did not have US citizenship at the time of birth. They are, for example, refugees, legal immigrants, but also undocumented immigrants or temporary residents such as students and workers with a temporary visa.
The United States has been observing the trend of the growing number of workers without US citizenship for many years. In 2006, the share of immigrants in the total labor force was about 15 percent, and it has been increasing since then.
Immigrants are no longer just cheap labor. In services, maintenance and construction work or in transport, compared to American citizens, they are ahead in numbers, but they are increasingly penetrating into other areas as well. In 2022, more than a third of immigrants worked in the US in business, management or science. Native Americans account for almost half of the total number of employees in this area.
On average, immigrants earn slightly more than Americans. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the average immigrant household earns about $75,500 per year (converted to about 145,000 kroner per month for one household), which is slightly more than a household made up of American citizens. She earns 74,600 dollars (about 143 thousand crowns per month).
At the same time, immigrants are more likely to be poor. Compared to 12 percent for Americans, the probability rate is 14 percent. This is influenced by a number of factors. Immigrants’ starting salaries tend to be lower than native-born Americans, and studies show it takes longer to work their way up to higher wages. As a rule, it is even more difficult for them to enter the labor market at all, or to change professions, which is why they are more likely to end up in poverty than American citizens.
Although immigrants face more difficult conditions to enter the US labor market, if they do get a job, their wages rise over time, especially as they acquire English. According to the Census Bureau, in 2022 the poverty line in the US was an income of $29,700 per year for a four-person household (converted to about 57,000 crowns per month).
Migrants in the US also contribute to social security
The US economy is set to grow over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Gross domestic product could increase by as much as seven trillion dollars. Among other things, the US could owe a stronger labor market and increased production to immigrants.
“We don’t have enough workers in the labor market, and our birth rate was down two percent last year from 2022 to 2023,” Jennie Murray, CEO of the non-profit immigration advocacy organization National Immigration Forum, told CNBC. More than 3.5 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, up from 3.6 million the year before, according to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.
According to Murray, employing immigrants is an effective way to reduce negative factors. “These people don’t take jobs. They help us to strengthen and to build. They supplement the workforce with the necessary workers,” she added.
By earning in the US, where they pay taxes, immigrants also contribute to strengthening Social Security and health care, which are financed by income taxes, as reported by CNBC.
In 2022, the United States recorded over 46 million immigrants. Most often, foreigners travel to California. In 2022, the number of immigrants there will reach almost 10.5 million people. In other heavily populated states, for example in Texas, Florida or New York, around five million immigrants resided individually.
The majority of immigrants are people between the ages of 18 and 64, according to the US Migration Policy Institute. About half of working immigrants are Hispanics and people of Latin American origin, and about a quarter are Asians. Immigrants from Europe and Africa also make up a significant part.
Last year, around 60,000 refugees sought refuge in the United States, mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria or Afghanistan. Thus, almost half of the allowed number of refugees accepted, which was set by President Joe Biden for the duration of his mandate, was fulfilled.
The acceptance of immigrants is traditionally a subject of discussion even in political campaigns. Some experts see Biden’s migration policy as a political calculation ahead of the upcoming presidential election. According to BH Securities U.S. capital markets analyst Timur Barotov, using immigrant labor can help reduce unemployment and inflation, which could help the current president.
But according to Barotov, Biden is overlooking a number of issues. “The U.S. now has an illegal immigration problem, and the current U.S. administration refuses to effectively combat the problem. She already had enough time to tighten border controls or introduce other measures. But nothing happened for a very long time,” said the analyst.
