Immigration Helps US Jobs Grow Faster Than Powell’s Speed Limit
- Migrants are boosting pace of job gains without wage pressures
- Employment growth is projected to have slowed a bit in March
The Congressional Budget Office more than doubled its estimate of immigration last year to 3.3 million people.
Photographer: Dustin Chambers/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The US jobs market probably will be able to run significantly hotter again this year than Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has reckoned is sustainable in the long run thanks to increased immigration.
At the heart of the issue is what’s known as neutral payrolls growth — a speed limit, of sorts, for how fast payrolls can grow without tightening the labor market and stoking wage pressures. Economists contend that immigration is boosting that monthly breakeven rate, which they estimate at anywhere from 160,000 to 265,000 this year.