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Saturday, February 20, 2016

How Trump Became Triumphant: His Nativist Anti-Immigration Rhetoric Has Struck a Chord with Many Americans

The Civilian Unemployment Rate is low:



Obama has added 10.3 million jobs since the start of his term.  He ranks just below President Clinton and President Reagan in terms of absolute number of jobs created.



This is a considerable feat, given what he had to start with since he was ushered into power right in the middle of the steepest recession since WWII.





Despite all this, people are angry.  They want to vote for a guy like Donald Trump anti-immigration rhetoric that began with his Presidential Announcement last June has inspired the resurgence of white nationalists all over the country.



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Normally, these type of comments would sound the death knell for any politician.  But these are not normal times and Donald Trump is not your normal politician. Donald Trump has continued to maintain a commanding lead in the Republican primaries.



So what gives? Why are people so angry? Why has the likes of Donald Trump struck a chord with so many American voters?

One simple reason: Foreign Born Workers.

Foreign Born Workers are an ever increasing part of the Civilian Non-Institutional Population (the working age population:




Although Foreign Born and Native Born workers have similar unemployment rates:



And the proportion of unemployed Foreign Born workers has remained pretty constant:




Foreign Born workers have significantly higher labor force participation rates:


This means that more of them want jobs.  Therefore they are an increasing percentage of the Total Civilian Labor Force (those who have jobs and those who don't have jobs and are looking for work.





And more of them are finding jobs at a higher rate than Native Born Workers:





As a result, Foreign Born workers are an ever increasing percentage of those with jobs.




So most of the job growth since the start of the December 2007 recession has gone to Foreign Born workers.  




As a result, wages continue to stagnate:



Sources: St. Louis Federal Reserve, Calculated Risk, BLS.GOV, Pew Research, Washington Post, Real Clear Politics

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