Immigration and the Labor Market in the Post-Pandemic Recovery

Butcher, Kristin F.; Cain, Lucas; Garcia-Jimeno, Camilo; Perry, Ryan

Newsletter

Immigration and the Labor Market in the Post-Pandemic Recovery

Abstract: Standard estimates based on the main household survey used to shed light on labor markets—the Current Population Survey (CPS)—suggest that after a significant drop during the pandemic, recent rapid growth has brought the foreign-born population in the United States back to, or above, levels predicted by the pre-pandemic trend. However, we document that the weighting factors used to make the CPS nationally representative have recently displayed some unusual movements and conclude that standard estimates of the foreign-born population may currently be too high.

Keywords: Labor and demographic economics;

JEL Classification: J11; J15; J21; J61;