Most opinion polls have shown that immigration has become a main election issue, and economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, on Friday, weighed on the merits of concerns around it.
What Happened: “Immigration is looming larger in the campaign, partly because it’s becoming harder for Republicans to run against Biden on the economy,” said Krugman in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “But there’s a strong case that immigration has been a key part of Biden’s economic success.”
To make his case, Krugman shared some data points, while suggesting that immigrants are the reason behind bringing down inflation.
“Inflation has come down so easily in part because of strong labor force growth,” he said, adding that all of that growth is attributable to foreign-born workers.
Immigrants Help Instead Of Hinder: Krugman said that immigrants have not stolen jobs from Americans as has been widely perceived. He noted that the U.S. labor market is tight and that the country has full employment. The Conference Board’s survey showed that the consumers’ assessment of the labor market was very positive in January, he said.
The number of respondents saying jobs were plentiful was 45.5% in January, up from 40.4% in December and those saying jobs have been hard to get fell from 13.1% to 9.8%.
“So employment is being constrained by supply, not demand,” Krugman said.
“Foreign-born workers expand the supply. And lots of evidence that they are complementary to native-born workers, so that they let us run the economy hotter without inflation and hence *raise* native-born employment.”
Sharing a chart by the St. Louis Federal Reserve, Krugman noted that the relative wages of foreign-born workers have fallen a bit relative to those who are native-born since the pandemic.
“All this is short-run; add in huge long-run benefits from immigration in helping us pay for Social Security, Medicare and so on,” Krugman said, adding “Immigrants are really good for the U.S. economy — and nativists really bad.”
Why It’s Important: Illegal border crossings have kicked up a storm on social media, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently slamming the Biden administration’s focus on legalizing a large number of immigrants. President Joe Biden is operating with the goal of getting “as many illegals in the country as possible” and legalizing them to “create a permanent majority – a one-party state,” he said.
A poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies in partnership with The Telegraph between Dec. 28 and Dec. 30 showed that immigration was mentioned as the second-most important electoral issue for voters in Arizona.
The results of a Monmouth University poll released in mid-December further showed that one of the reasons for Biden’s approval rating hitting a rock bottom was his immigration policy. Of those surveyed, 69% opposed him and only 26% backed him on that front.
Photo: Shutterstock
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