‘Immigration work permits’ may out-number new jobs each month

The government jobs report today estimated that {text}new ones were created in the U.S. during March. Over the last three months, the average has been above 180,000 a month.

That sounds pretty good . . . until you consider that our federal government seems to be much more intent on adding more foreign workers monthly than helping tens of millions of non-working Americans get into the labor market.

Every month, the government issues around {text}lifetime work permits to new immigrants – about half the number of new jobs.

And a quick look at births to immigrants over the last couple of decades suggests that {text}U.S.-born children of immigrants enter working age every month. Although they are American workers, our economy would not have to be pushing its new jobs to them if not for federal immigration policies in previous years.

Add to the those two numbers, the {text}of temporary work permits that are handed out to foreign workers each month, and you can see why the monthly job creation is primarily about keeping up with all the foreign workers added by immigration and temporary worker programs each month.

I’m admitting that I’m making this point with very rough numbers today. We’ll get back to you with more precise numbers soon. But while some people in the White House are currently working fervorishly on a plan to INCREASE foreign workers even faster, I think it is important to put in perspective the incredible size of these additions even under current policies, related to the size of job growth.

When the President reviews the plan to increase immigration, he needs to ask himself whether the goal is to add as many jobs as possible or to put as many Americans to work as possible while allowing their wages to rise.

Is the goal to make the economy as big as possible or for the economy to provide a good living for as many members of our national community as possible?

These are serious questions that get to the fundamental principles of this presidency.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA