Native-born American men have been fleeing the workforce in droves in a decades-long trend that coincides with a rise in immigration, according to a new analysis sounding the alarm on the issue.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a study this week showing the share of working-age (16 to 64), U.S.-born men not participating in the labor force has soared since the 1960s, going from 11.3% neither working nor looking for work in April 1960 to 22.1% as of April of this year.
“This is relevant to the immigration debate because one of the arguments for allowing in so many legal immigrants, or even tolerating illegal immigration, is that there are not enough workers,” CIS said in a blog post detailing its findings. “But this ignores the enormous increase in the number of working-age people not in the labor force.
“Further, being out of the labor force is associated with profound social problems such as crime, overdose deaths, and welfare dependency,” the authors wrote. “Policy-makers should consider encouraging work among the millions on the economic sidelines rather than ignoring the problem by bringing in ever more immigrants.”
The report said the total number of U.S.-born men and women of working age who are not in the labor force was 43 million as of April 2024, which is an increase of 8.5 million since 2000.
According to the data, the number of working-age U.S.-born men not in the labor force increased by 13.2 million from 1960 to 2024.
Over the same time period, the number of working-age immigrant men participating in the labor force increased by 14.1 million.
The trend of U.S.-born workers leaving the workforce while foreign-born workers replace them does not show any signs of stopping.
According to The Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the net job growth in America over the past year can be attributed entirely to laborers born outside the U.S.
“There are now 1.1 million fewer native-born Americans employed than a year ago,” Antoni wrote on X. “[A]ll net job growth has gone to foreign-born workers, totally just over 400k since Nov ’23.”
Immigration has soared in the U.S. in recent years. A recent analysis of Congressional Budget Office data by The New York Times confirmed the Biden administration oversaw the highest net immigration numbers in U.S. history, more than half of which is due to illegal immigration.