Immigration helped the US economy outpace peers

What happened?

The U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.2% last quarter, the sixth straight quarter of growth. "When you poke your head up and look around the world, that's pretty good," Marketplace said. And one "big reason" the U.S. surpassed expectations and its economic peers is a "rebound in immigration," The New York Times said.

Who said what?

America's "absolutely astronomical" immigration has been "instrumental" in its best-in-class post-pandemic rebound, said Pia Orrenius, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, to The Washington Post. "You can't grow like this with just the native workforce. It's not possible." At the same time, "the biggest pull for migrants is the strength of the labor market," said University of California Merced economist Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes. "More than any immigration policy."

What next?

The Congressional Budget Office projects that net immigration gains over the next decade will add $7 trillion to the economy. Immigration "remains an intensely polarizing issue in American politics," The Washington Post said, but "whoever wins the [2024] election will take the helm of an economy that immigrant workers are supporting tremendously — and likely will keep powering for years to come."

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