How Immigration Remade the U.S. Labor Force

The U.S. is experiencing its largest immigration wave in generations, driven by millions of people from around the world seeking personal safety and economic opportunity. Immigrants are swelling the population and changing the makeup of the U.S. labor force in ways that are likely to reverberate through the economy for decades.

Since the end of 2020, more than nine million people have migrated to the U.S., after subtracting those who have left, coming both legally and illegally, according to estimates and projections from the Congressional Budget Office. That’s nearly as many as the number that came in the previous decade. Immigration has lifted U.S. population growth to almost 1.2% a year, the highest since the early 1990s. Without it, the U.S. population would be growing 0.2% a year because of declining birthrates and would begin shrinking around 2040, the CBO projects.

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The surge in immigration has been controversial, because most migrants didn’t come through regular legal channels. Less than 30%, or 2.6 million, are what the CBO counts as “lawful permanent residents,” which includes green-card holders and other immigrants who came through legal channels, such as family or employment-based visas. In addition, the CBO estimates the nonimmigrant foreign population, which includes temporary workers and students, has grown by about 230,000 since the end of 2020.

The CBO refers to most of the other 6.5 million as “other foreign nationals.” The bulk of that group crossed the southern border without prior authorization, turned themselves over to American border officials and requested asylum. They were assigned court dates, sometimes years in the future. While the newcomers wait, some in government-provided shelters at first, most of them work.

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According to immigration-court data, about 80% of recent immigrants’ spoken language is Spanish. {snip}

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