Will Republicans Ever Learn?

 Financial FAQs

“The stakes are enormous if Republicans succeed in removing most of the estimated 11 million undocumented worker (only half of which are from Mexico and the Latin countries), and cut legal immigration in half, as they have promised to do. Economic growth will plummet, since it is mainly based on growth of the working age population, as well as labor productivity, which has also fallen since 2000.” Huffington Post

PEWResearch

Will Republicans ever learn that immigrants have always been the life blood of our economy?

The above quote is from a Huffington Post blog I wrote in 2017, the last time Trump Republicans tried to deport most or all of the 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Nobel economist Paul Krugman has said in a recent Substack blog that the latest unemployment report showed that since January 2025 the economy is estimated to have added 359,000 jobs, down almost 900,000 from job growth the previous year. This indicates that the job market is very close to complete stagnation.

And that means the whole economy could soon be in stagflation that economists have been so worried about—because inflation is still high despite slowing job growth.

Has anything changed in his second term? Yes, President Trump has doubled down on the deportation raids, which has so decimated the jobs market that it is in danger of destroying economic growth for most Americans as well.

Trump is using the lie that undocumented immigrants take jobs away from native-born Americans in ramping up the DHS/ICE assault against almost any immigrant of color, when in fact immigrants not only create more paying jobs, but more consumers that pay taxes as well.

And Trump knows he is lying. His White Christian nationalist-centered policies are tailored to capture most of the economic growth for his oligarchs who hope the $billions they are investing in AI will require fewer human beings. AI and robots don’t pay taxes or go shopping as do the workers that are being replaced.

Barron’s economist Megan Leonhardt highlighted this fact recently, citing the economic planning firm Implan that calculated reducing the immigration population by one million in 2025 reduced GDP by $103.9 billion and eliminated 741,500 potential jobs as compared to 2024 during President Biden’s last year.

“In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s,” said PEW.

The long-term historical average one-million immigrants per year entering the U.S. have been needed just to keep economic growth at its long-term annual 2 percent real GDP average. And Trump’s State Department has now stopped processing entry visas entirely from 75 countries.

Although the number of adults in the prime working ages of 25 to 64 – 173.2 million in 2015 – will rise to 183.2 million in 2035, according to Pew Research Center projections, the total growth of 10 million over two decades will be lower than the total in any single decade since the Baby Boomers began pouring into the workforce in the 1960s.

What will happen to them? AI means replacing humans with robots that don’t contribute to our retirement systems as well. A country needs to increase its workforce just to finance the retirement benefits for fast-aging population. It’s a truth Republicans have never learned as they continue to support an autocrat who places little value on human lives or the constitution.

And where is most of the economic damage to date? To the farm belt as well as cities in the blue states. Implans reports California, New York, and Texas are most affected, with California having already lost $13.4 billion in GDP and 86,650 fewer jobs. But job losses are occurring in the red states as well. 

Will Republicans ever learn? Immigrants have always been the new blood entering our workforce that has enabled the American economy to grow and renew itself.

Harlan Green © 2026

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Immigrants the Lifeblood U.S. Economy

 The Mortgage Corner

“For most of the past half-century, adults in the U.S. Baby Boom generation – those born after World War II and before 1965 – have been the main driver of the nation’s expanding workforce. But as this large generation heads into retirement, the increase in the potential labor force will slow markedly, and immigrants will play the primary role in the future growth of the working-age population (though they will remain a minority of it).” PEW RESEARCH

PEW

I wrote in 2017 that the stakes are enormous if Republicans succeed in removing most of the estimated 11 million undocumented worker (only half of which are from Mexico and the Latin countries), and cut legal immigration in half, as they have promised to do, economic growth will plummet, since it is mainly based on growth of the working age population, as well as labor productivity, which has also fallen since 2000.

America has always had a labor shortage. It’s the reason we have needed immigrants and led in technology to keep our production levels high. And as the 2017 PEW study above highlights, immigrants have been at the core of our national workforce.

This is while the Trump administration continues to trip over itself in every economic sector, repeating the same mistakes it made during Trump’s first term. This is not only with its tariff policy—negotiating with China to lower their tariffs, though China says they are not currently in talks—but is especially true with its immigration policy that is designed to please its MAGA base.

It's pleasing no one else. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich reports on Substack that one American was detained by ICE in Arizona for 10 days until his relatives produced papers proving his citizenship, because ICE didn’t believe he was American. Meanwhile, ICE handcuffed and deported a group of German teenagers vacationing in Hawaii because they turned up without a hotel pre-booked, which ICE found “suspicious.”

The number of adults in the prime working ages of 25 to 64 – 173.2 million in 2015 – will rise to 183.2 million in 2035, according to Pew Research Center projections. That total growth of 10 million over two decades will be lower than the total in any single decade since the Baby Boomers began pouring into the workforce in the 1960s. The growth rate of working-age adults will also be markedly reduced, says the study.

The Biden administration’s record growth was based in large part because of the immigration surge that Trump is attempting to reverse, but that Trump characterized as criminals to stir up his MAGA base. There was no crime wave; records show immigrants commit fewer crimes than American citizens.

So Trump is creating a worker shortage when he wants to bring back manufacturing. Who will replace the immigrants? We need to develop more labor-saving technologies, which means developing better computer chips that Biden has already funded for more Research and Development grants and the CHIPs Act, but will take time to develop.

Trump has no plan of his own, other than slash the government programs that would create newer technologies, nor is anything being done at the congressional level, except pushing for more tax cuts. This was his only accomplishment during the first Trump administration.

It’s a sad day when Trump, Republicans and his MAGA supporters see immigrants as threats when they are the only readily available resource that will grow our economy.

Harlan Green © 2025

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

America's Concentration Camps for Children

ANSWERING THE KENNEDYS CALL 

NYTimes.com

There should no longer be any doubt that the Trump administration is pursuing policies last used in Nazi Germany—concentration camps that now house up to 13,000 young Hispanic refugees—mostly unaccompanied minors who are seeking asylum in America.

To deal with the surging shelter populations, which have hovered near 90 percent of capacity since May, according to the New York Times, mass reshuffling is underway and shows no signs of slowing. Hundreds of children are being shipped from shelters to Tornillo in West Texas each week—mostly in the middle of the night to escape publicity--totaling more than 1,600 so far.

“Roughly 100 shelters that have, until now, been the main location for housing detained migrant children are licensed and monitored by state child welfare authorities, who impose requirements on safety and education as well as staff hiring and training,” said the NYTimes.
“The tent city in Tornillo, on the other hand, is unregulated, except for guidelines created by the Department of Health and Human Services. For example, schooling is not required there, as it is in regular migrant children shelters.
“The number of detained migrant children has spiked even though monthly border crossings have remained relatively unchanged, in part because harsh rhetoric and policies introduced by the Trump administration have made it harder to place children with sponsors.”

Does the Trump administration have no shame? What made America great is the fact that we are a land of immigrants, yet President Trump and his white-nationalist supporters want to restrict immigration to 50 percent of what it was historically—“to more like those from Norway,” he has said.

“Traditionally, most sponsors have been undocumented immigrants themselves, and have feared jeopardizing their own ability to remain in the country by stepping forward to claim a child. The risk increased in June, when federal authorities announced that potential sponsors and other adult members of their households would have to submit fingerprints, and that the data would be shared with immigration authorities.”

There is a reason America and Americans have always welcomed immigrants. America has been a nation whose innovation and new industries have outdistanced its labor workforce, historically, hence been always been in need of a new influx of workers.

For most of the past half-century, baby boomers — those born after World War Two and before 1965 — have been the main driver of the nation’s expanding workforce, but now that they’re heading into retirement only two groups of workers are projected to grow over the next two decades: immigrants and those whose parents are first-generation immigrants, a new report by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., concluded. “The most important component of the growth in the working-age population over the next two decades will be the arrival of future immigrants,” it said.

Graph: PEW

Which is why it is so important to find a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented workers that fulfill jobs very few America citizens will take. And there have been several bills to give a path to those undocumented workers employed in agriculture, construction, and the hospitality industries. But, alas, congress has not been able to pass any of them.

Roughly 36 percent of plasterers and stucco masons were undocumented workers in 2014, the highest share of any occupation, according to a report released recently by the Pew Center. Some 30 percent of miscellaneous agricultural workers, 31 percent of drywall and ceiling tile installers and 28 percent of graders and sorters of agricultural products and 23 percent of sewing machine operators were also undocumented. Also 12 percent of miscellaneous personal appearance workers — manicurists and pedicurists and makeup artists — were undocumented.

Chart: PEW

More than 43.7 million immigrants resided in the United States in 2016, accounting for 13.5 percent of the total U.S. population of 323.1 million, according to American Community Survey (ACS) data.
And a recent CNBC report mentioned America’s chronic labor shortages, as the ongoing recovery from the Great Recession is now highlighting. “A report Thursday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics cast an even sharper light on what is becoming one of the most important economic stories of 2018: the difficulty employers are having in finding qualified employees to fill a record 6.7 million job openings,” said CNBC.

But chronic labor shortages have always been the case, and are part of our history. Trump’s, racist, anti-immigration policies are only making matters worse, not to speak of what can only be called his de-facto ethnic cleansing of non-Eurocentric populations.

Harlan Green © 2018

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

We Have Reached Full Employment!

Financial fAQs

The U.S. added a modest 138,000 new jobs in May and hiring earlier in the spring was weaker than initially reported, adding to evidence that the tightest labor market in years is making it harder for companies to fill open jobs. So is this as good as it gets for employment and jobs?

The unemployment rate dropped to 4.3 percent because 429,000 workers dropped out of the civilian labor force, while the number of employed fell by 233,000 in the Household survey—one of two reports put out today by the Labor Department.

This was the lowest unemployment rate since 2001, while in March the private payroll (or Establishment) jobs total was revised downward to 50,000, and April was revised downward to 174,000 for a total of 66,000 fewer jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Graph: Marketwatch

But a very good total of 2.23 million jobs were created over the past 12 months, yet there are 5.7 million unfilled jobs in April, according to the BLS JOLTS report. In fact 429,000 fewer looked for work, either because they couldn’t find the job they liked, or more women are leaving the workforce to raise families according to one survey. Jobs are going begging, in other words, which is another sign of full employment.

As recently as 1990, the United States had one of the top employment rates in the world for women, says a 2014 NYTimes Upshot article, but it has now fallen behind many European countries. “After climbing for six decades, the percentage of women in the American work force peaked in 1999, at 74 percent for women between 25 and 54. It has fallen since, to 69 percent today.”

The reason? The lack of maternity leave and other social programs that would support child raising. In a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of nonworking adults aged 25 to 54 in the United States, conducted last month in the same Upshot article, “61 percent of women said family responsibilities were a reason they weren’t working, compared with 37 percent of men. Of women who identify as homemakers and have not looked for a job in the last year, nearly three-quarters said they would consider going back if a job offered flexible hours or allowed them to work from home.”

So where do we go from here? What will draw those back into the labor force the approximately 6 million working age adults that no longer want to work at the moment? There is plenty of job growth in Health, Leisure and Hospitality, Professional and business services, and construction, since the housing market is still perking along.

Graph: Econoday

Maybe we should forget about that magical 3 percent GDP growth goal the Trump administration says we can reach with their proposed tax and regulation cuts. The US population isn’t growing as fast as during the baby boom and labor productivity is stuck in the 1 percent range, in part because businesses aren’t investing in new plants and equipment, as we said yesterday.

Harlan Green © 2017

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

Increase Industrial Production Sign Higher Growth?

Popular Economics Weekly

Industrial production in April grew at the fastest monthly rate in more than three years on the back of broad-based gains in the manufacturing sector, reports the Federal Reserve. Industrial production grew 1 percent in April led by a 5 percent increase in motor vehicle production. It was because business investment is up sharply, as is consumer spending.

Graph: Econoday

Business equipment, in a positive indication for second-quarter business investment, rose a very sharp 1.2 percent, reports Econoday, which could be a sign of a badly needed business expansion. “Production of consumer goods was even stronger, up 1.5 percent. Two negatives are hi-tech industries with a small decline and also construction supplies which posted a second straight dip that offers a reminder of this morning's disappointing housing starts report.”

There’s an obvious reason for the surge in business investment. Businesses need more automation, as they can’t find enough qualified workers to fill the 5.743 million, job openings reported in the Labor Department’s latest JOLTS report, much more plentiful than total hirings of 5.260 million in April, a gap of 483,000.

That also means an ultimate surge in badly needed Labor Productivity that has been lagging of late. From the first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2017, productivity increased just 1.1 percent, reflecting increases in output and hours worked of 2.4 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, said the BLS.

And without higher labor productivity, the US economy can’t grow more than the current 2 percent GDP growth rate. What was the rate during periods of higher growth? Until 2000, economic growth averaged more than 3 percent, while productivity averaged 2.5 percent until 2007.

 But then something happened. Average productivity plunged to 1.2 percent from 2010 onward. Why? Businesses stopped investing, for starters. This was partly due to the plunge in oil prices (from $100 to $30 per barrel last year), and consequent plunge in industrial production.

But our population also began declining, the other component to GDP growth (besides labor productivity). Until 2000, the U.S. population grew more than 1 percent, but since 2000 average population growth halved to about 0.5 percent.

Graph: CBO

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that we would need 2.8 million new workers per year to reach the 3 percent growth rate that Trump and Repubs want. Where will they come from? New immigrants, as the U.S. currently generates just 600,000 new job entrants per year, on average.

The baby boom is gone, in other words, and even the record-breaking millennial generation won’t fill the bill.  So we need more immigrants, not less, as well as higher labor productivity, if Repubs are to boost economic growth.

Harlan Green © 2017

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen