Economics

Eric Boehm | 10.17.2024 11:30 AM

During a recent interview with New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) argued that illegal immigration has contributed to a worrying decline in the number of American men who are part of the labor force.

The exchange began with Garcia-Navarro asking Vance about the potential "knock-on effects" of his plan to deport millions of undocumented workers, which could be a particularly serious blow to the construction industry. In response, Vance suggested that jobs vacated by deported migrants would be filled instead by Americans who are sitting on the sidelines.

"You would take, let's say for example, the seven million prime-age men who have dropped out of the labor force…You absolutely could re-engage folks into the American labor market," Vance said. Later in the exchange, he returned to that figure, saying that "one of the really deranged things" caused by high levels of undocumented immigration is that "it gets us in a mind-set of saying we can only build houses with illegal immigrants, when we have seven million—just men, not even women, just men—who have completely dropped out of the labor force."

"We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers," he concluded. "That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris's border policies."

This argument is worth examining closely, because it is fundamental to the economic worldview of Vance and the so-called New Right, which wants to use government force—including, but not limited to, those deportations—to help American workers, even if that aid comes with an economic cost. It's the same fundamental calculus that underpins conservative support for tariffs, industrial policy, and other forms of governmental........

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