A prominent Washington think tank has refuted Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent claim that immigrants who crossed the southern border under President Joe Biden are taking “black jobs.”
The libertarian Cato Institute told the Washington Examiner this week that there was no proof to support the former president's claim. In addition, black employment is at its highest levels in history.
“There is no evidence for any job displacement. Black employment is at a record high, as is the black prime-age employment rate,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at Cato, in an email Tuesday.
Trump made headlines this summer as he claimed during his debate with Biden that immigrants who were released into or had snuck into the country by way of the Mexico border were taking “black jobs.”
In July, Trump touted again during his GOP convention speech that “millions of people pouring into our country” were taking the jobs of the “black population and the Hispanic population.”
On July 31, Trump attended the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago and was asked to define a “black job.” Trump stated that “a black job is anybody that has a job.”
The comments have offended some and been called racist for how they portray an entire demographic as working low-skilled or blue-collar jobs.
But the merits of Trump’s claim, according to Cato, do not stack up with economic reality.
The number of black or African American people employed in the United States peaked at 20.9 million in 2023 and has remained at its highest levels in national history under the Biden administration, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
That figure has fallen by 200,000 jobs between March 2023 and July 2024.
One reason for the decline is an aging population. A 2020 study by the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living found that the country's black population is increasingly reaching retirement age and leaving the workplace.
"In 2019, there were 54.1 million Americans age 65 and older and 6.6 million age 85 and older. The population age 65 and older is expected to increase to 94.7 million in 2060," the HHS report concluded.
Black unemployment remains lower than at any time over the past five decades, hanging at 6.3% in July, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
However, a 2010 report commissioned by the Obama administration and published by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concluded that wages and employment of African Americans were hurt by illegal immigrant labor in the country.
"Among its findings, the Commission notes that the illegal workers are estimated to account for as much as one-third of total immigrants in the United States, and that illegal immigration has tended to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor available," the report stated. "The Commission found also that about six in 10 adult black males have a high school diploma or less, and are disproportionately employed in the low-skilled labor market in likely competition with immigrants."
"Evidence for negative effects of such competition ranged from modest to significant, according to the experts who testified, but even those experts who viewed the effects as modest overall found significant effects in occupations such as meatpacking and construction," the commission added.
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Under Biden, more illegal immigrants have been arrested at the southern border than any two-term White House administration. Nearly 10 million immigrants have been encountered by federal police since February 2021.
More than 5.3 million illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border illegally have been allowed by the federal government to remain in the country pending court proceedings. Another 1.9 million immigrants have been observed by federal law enforcement illegally entering the U.S. but were not arrested.
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