The economic legacy of the Biden immigration surge

The historic immigration surge that reshaped the U.S. population after the pandemic left a big imprint on the economy: boosting growth with surprisingly little disruption to native-born workers — but also adding to rent inflation. Why it matters: Those findings — unveiled in new research presented at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity last week — offer the most detailed economic postmortem yet of one of the largest immigration waves in modern U.S. history. The new paper arrives as America's economy deals with the opposite shock: Net migration has since fallen to near zero or below amid tighter immigration policies and stepped-up enforcement. By the numbers: Roughly 6.5 million migrants entered the U.S. outside usual legal pathways from 2021 to 2024, equivalent to at least 2% of the U.S. population at the start of the period, economists Jennifer Hunt, Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny write in the paper. The researchers estimate that each additional migrant added roughly 0.4 jobs over the period. The influx accounted for about 1.6 million additional jobs across the major metros they examined — or roughly 18% of employment gains from 2021 to 2024. The immigration surge also raised GDP in the average metro area by an estimated 1.5%, the paper says. Zoom in: The researchers say the sharp rise in immigration left native-born workers' employment rates unchanged and raised their wages by an estimated 0.9% between 2021 and 2024. But they estimate that the surge raised rents modestly as housing supply failed to keep pace with the additional population. What they're saying: "I was surprised that we didn't find more negative effects on natives — in particular native workers," Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, told reporters at a briefing. Orrenius said one possible explanation is that immigrant and native-born workers complement each other rather than compete for the same jobs. "If you hire one immigrant, you pair it with a native, and you actually get improved efficiencies and better productivity than you would if you didn't have the immigrant." The intrigue: The immigration surge coincided with a time when the U.S. had an insatiable appetite for workers. The economy was roaring back from the pandemic and employers were struggling to fill jobs — particularly in industries like leisure and hospitality and construction. "It was a really good time economically for the labor market to absorb a large influx of migrant workers, and it successfully did so," Zavodny said. Zoom out: The wave of migrants helped propel immigration to the center of the 2024 presidential campaign. Vice President Vance has repeatedly argued, for instance, that the influx worsened the housing affordability crisis by adding millions of people competing for a limited supply of homes. Yet the new research finds a measurable but relatively small housing effect from the migrant surge. The authors estimate the surge raised rents by 1.4%-1.6% from 2021 to 2024. Zavodny told reporters that many of the migrants were initially staying in shelters, emergency housing or with friends and family.

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