The economics of deportation

The Trump administration is threatening to deport >10 million people. These are people who, regardless of their immigration status, are contributing to the economy and jobs by purchasing goods and service (“job creators”) and contributing to social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Indeed, if they are undocumented, they will never see benefits to the programs they subsidize, since they use fake SS numbers.

How will Trump’s deportation hurt working class Americans? From the link:

“Higher prices

“Deporting millions of undocumented workers would mean that businesses will need to replace those laborers. With historically low unemployment, finding people willing to work for low pay could be difficult, and companies may need to advertise higher wages to attract workers to replace deported laborers.

“Job growth will slow

“If huge populations of migrants are deported — or at the very least population growth slows as a result of tighter immigration policies — there will be less consumption of goods, which could hurt the labor market.

“Businesses would likely crack down on hiring due to a drop in revenue. Decreased consumer spending and demand could also lead to layoffs, as companies reassess their 2025 budgets . . .

“Lower pay

“Even as some people who fill the jobs left by deported laborers could get higher pay than the people they replace, in aggregate, deportations can lower paychecks for US-born workers.

“Between 2008 and 2015, wages for US-born workers decreased 0.6% after the deportation of 454,000 unauthorized immigrant workers

“Social safety nets will take a hit

“If a large number of unauthorized workers are deported, it would cause funding problems for key federal programs. The American Immigration Council estimated in 2022 that unauthorized immigrants contributed $46.8 billion in federal taxes, with $22.6 billion going to Social Security and $5.7 billion going to Medicare.

Unauthorized immigrants also paid $29.3 billion in state and local taxes.”

Not to mention that rounding up >10 million people and housing and feeding them before deportation is expensive. But hey, deficits don’t matter in GOP administrations.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/11/business/deportation-immigration-trump-cost-americans/index.html