American men drop out of economy as immigrants claim jobs: Study

Americans clamoring for more immigrants to fill out the workforce are ignoring a labor source already here — people, mostly men, who have given up on the economy, according to a new study by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Roughly 1 out of every 6 U.S.-born men aged 20 to 64 is not part of the labor force, meaning they don’t have a job and aren’t looking for one.

It’s far worse for men who never made it beyond high school. Nearly a quarter of them aren’t in the workforce. That figure was less than 18% in 2000, and as low as 9% in 1970.

And those are exactly the people who are most likely to compete with new immigrants, who also tend to be less educated, said Steven A. Camarota, the researcher who wrote the new study.

“If the argument is that we don’t have enough of those workers, what that ignores is all the people on the economy’s sidelines who themselves are overwhelmingly people who don’t have a college education,” he told The Washington Times.

There are other potential factors too. Generous welfare benefits and changing social norms may each have enticed some men to drop out of the job market.

Mr. Camarota figured that if U.S.-born men participated in the labor force today at the same rate they did in 2000, there would be 4.4 million more workers available to take jobs.

Their absence isn’t just an economic problem, he argued. Those who aren’t in the labor force are more likely to suffer a litany of social ills, from poverty to mental health issues, higher levels of obesity, drug overdoses, suicides and reckless alcohol consumption.

It then becomes a dangerous cycle, with those problems preventing men from jumping back into the workforce. But it also offers a potential way out, Mr. Camarota said.

“The social problems contribute to what happens to these men,” he said. “If we could get more of them back into the labor force, especially ones in their 20s, that would help head off a lot of these problems, or mitigate them.”

Jobless men aren’t a new problem. Some historians argue that a surge in younger male siblings helped spur the Crusades, and in more recent decades the lack of opportunities in Muslim countries has been suggested as a reason why jihadists can recruit successfully.

But Mr. Camarota’s link to immigration in the U.S. sparks feverish pushback.

Some immigrant rights advocates call the suggestion that migrants are competing for jobs a xenophobic argument.

Other critics battle over the numbers.

“Immigrants are not only major participants in the U.S. workforce, representing one in six U.S. workers, they are significant contributors to our economy and help keep critical social programs alive,” argues America’s Voice, a leading immigration group.

The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank affiliated with some of the country’s largest labor organizations, says the U.S. needs — and benefits from — foreign labor.

The Biden administration’s migrant surge helped keep inflation from running even hotter, EPI said, adding that the effect on U.S. workers’ wages is “neutral” at worst and “slightly positive” at best.

“Immigration to the U.S. provides many economic benefits, and those benefits would increase substantially if immigration policy was improved to guarantee equal and enforceable labor and workplace rights,” EPI says.

But Tom Homan, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming border czar, said the negative feedback loop between jobs and migration is clear.

In an interview with the Immigration Reform Law Institute, Mr. Homan recounted his experience with a roofing contractor. The man said he tried to pay his U.S. workers $20 an hour, but he kept getting undercut by other outfits who paid migrant laborers $7.

“He had to end up laying off 20 U.S. citizen employees because he couldn’t win any jobs,” said Mr. Homan, a former immigration official. “That happens every day across this country, a thousand times.”

Mr. Camarota said the fact that so many are still sitting out despite the recent record-low unemployment shows they won’t be coaxed back without some external pushes.

He was also realistic about limitations, saying it will require changes to welfare and disability systems to cajole people off those supports, as well as job training and other programs to help them get into the market. And he said paying higher wages will probably have to be a part of it, and that means reducing immigration.

“We’re not getting everybody back in the labor force,” Mr. Camarota said. “The question is can we do better, and I think we can, but we never will as long as we have the immigration.”

It’s not just immigrants who have picked up the slack. Women are also in the labor force at historically strong rates.

In the early 1960s, nearly half of women ages 18-64 weren’t holding or seeking jobs. By this year it was only slightly more than a quarter.