Due to the border crisis and a rebound in legal immigration, the foreign-born population has increased by 3.4 million since President Joe Biden took office. With many of those arriving entering the labor force, economic theory predicts they will put downward pressure on wages for workers who compete with them for jobs. For years, immigration activists countered that any negative wage impact due to immigration was inconsequential — until now. A number of prominent economists and advocacy groups, many of which previously argued that immigration has little or no wage impact, are now calling for more immigration to reduce wages to lower inflation.
Former Walmart CEO Bill Simon has complained that the company now has to pay $14 an hour. He has also called for more immigration to reduce wages and lower inflation. There are a number of problems with the increase-immigration-to-reduce-inflation argument. But what is perhaps most striking is that advocates now openly admit that immigration reduces wages for the working class, an idea they used to dismiss. . . .