I know one data point does not make a trend but it's starting to look like foreign born workers are starting lose out in a Trump economy. The proportion of employed foreign workers has been dropping for five months straight since they peaked in February 2019.
One reason. It's all about the money. Wages for foreign-born workers are but a fraction of wages for native-born workers. The difference is stark: $21K for foreign-born workers vs. $95K for native-born workers. In other words, native-born workers earn almost five times foreign-born workers.
Obama added more than 10.1 million jobs over two terms, or roughly 105.1K jobs per month. The trouble is, Obama added almost as many jobs to foreigners as he did to native born workers. Forty-three percent of the jobs added went to foreigners.
This ratio was much worse for Obama during his first term: 1.7 million of the jobs added went to foreign born workers. The native born? They lost 537K jobs. In other words, 146% of the jobs went to foreigners.
Obama's second term was much better for native born workers: 70% of the jobs went to them. But it was too late. It was not enough to stem the anti-immigration sentiment that had been building up nationwide. When Trump had announced his candidacy on May 2015 on a vehemently anti-immigrant platform, the jobs growth was still definitely skewed to foreign born workers. They had gained almost 2 million jobs and the native born workers had just gained 237K jobs.
Trump has continued the trend, adding almost 8 million jobs in 29 months, with around 75% of the jobs going to native born workers. Nevertheless, the trend towards hiring foreign born workers continues unabated. The cumulative jobs added to foreign born workers as a percentage to their Civilian Noninstitutional Population was an astounding 10.50% as of June 2019. Native Born workers just gained 3.15% for the same period.
Half the cumulative jobs added since the start of the Great Recession have gone to foreign born workers. As of August 2018, 4,006 jobs added went to the foreign born while native born workers accumulated only additional 4,415 jobs. This happened despite the fact that foreign born workers only amount to 14.80% of the Total Civilian Non-Institutional Population - the population eligible to work.
In other words, much of the economic recovery went to the foreign born while a significant chunk of those who disappeared from the workforce are native born.
Much of this took place during the eight years of the Obama presidency when native born workers gained 6 million jobs and foreign born workers gained over 4 million jobs.
A lot of the gains for native born workers happened in the later years of the Obama presidency. Indeed, when Trump announced his presidential candidacy in May 2015, native born workers had gained around only 237 thousand jobs while foreign born workers had gained almost 2 million jobs.
Since Trump assumed the presidency in January 2017, native born workers have gained an additional 4 million jobs while foreign born workers gained over 1 million jobs.
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
