The Immigration Crackdown Was Supposed to Boost Wages But the Data Has a Different Story
Unemployment among U.S.-born workers ticked up to 4.3% in March from 4.2% a year earlier. Foreign-born unemployment actually moved the other direction, slipping to 4.3% from 4.4%. Median weekly earnings for U.S.-born full-time workers grew 3.9% last year, the slowest pace in four years. The WSJ looked at 41 industries that rely heavily on non-citizens with a high school degree or less. Across those sectors, hourly earnings rose by a weighted average of 3.5% in February, below the 3.8% increase for all workers, and a slowdown from the pace before Trump took office. As Brookings economist Wendy Edelberg put it: “If turning off the immigration spigot was going to meaningfully boost wages or spark labor shortages, it should be jumping out at us in the data. The effects aren’t there.”
The wage picture by industry is worth sitting with. Construction earnings were up 4.0% year-over-year. Trucking came in at 3.9%. Food services at 3.4%. Supermarkets and grocery retailers posted just 1.9%. Building services, one of the most immigrant-dependent sectors, came in at only 1.6%. Employers didn’t need to bid up wages to find people. When I can’t fill positions for clients, wages move. These numbers aren’t moving.
The economists cited in the WSJ piece offer a few reasons the predicted shortages didn’t materialize. AEI’s Stan Veuger named the key economic concept: “The idea that there’s a fixed number of jobs, and if you remove some workers, there’s more jobs for everyone else — that doesn’t work. You’re removing demand as well as supply.” A deported worker is also a former renter, a former grocery shopper, a former restaurant patron. Remove them from the labor supply, and you also remove them from the consumer side of the ledger. Tariffs, adding hiring uncertainty at the same time, further muddied the signal. And rising productivity per worker, from AI, automation, and operational consolidation, has allowed the economy to absorb labor reductions without the shortages that many expected. Employment in those 41 immigrant-reliant industries fell by 90,400 year-over-year in February, while overall employment grew by 298,000. Something absorbed the work, and it probably wasn’t a surge of American workers switching careers to wash dishes in Dallas.
For employers planning workforce needs over the next 18 months: if the economy can shed 90,400 jobs in immigrant-reliant sectors with unemployment barely moving, the productivity story is doing quiet heavy lifting. That’s the data point worth sitting with.
The Median Full-Time Worker Earned $1,235 a Week in Q1 2026 – The Gaps Underneath That Number Are Wide
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released Q1 2026 earnings data yesterday, and the headline number is genuinely positive: median weekly earnings for the nation’s 121 million full-time workers hit $1,235, up 3.4% from a year earlier. The Consumer Price Index rose 2.7% over the same period, meaning the typical full-time worker’s paycheck bought slightly more in Q1 2026 than it did a year ago. Real wage growth is modest, but it’s real.
The gaps underneath that median are where the story gets sharper. Women earned $1,098 per week, 80.6% of the $1,362 median for men. Among racial groups, Asian workers led at $1,589, White workers came in at $1,263, while Black and Hispanic workers both sat just under $985. The range from Hispanic women ($901 per week) to Asian men ($1,847) represents nearly a 2-to-1 earnings ratio across full-time workers doing jobs in the same economy.
The demographic combinations matter for anyone running compensation analysis. Black men earned 72.6% of what White men earned. Hispanic men earned 75.3%. The gaps narrow for women; Black women earned 85.4% of White women’s median, and Hispanic women earned 80.5%. Asian men and women out-earned their White counterparts in every comparison.
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Weekly Claims Tick Up to 214,000, The State Mix Is the Real Story
The DOL’s weekly claims report for the week ending April 18 showed initial claims rising 6,000 to 214,000, a tick up from the prior week’s revised 208,000, with the 4-week moving average at 210,750. For context, claims are running below where they were a year ago, 210,816 in the comparable 2025 week versus 205,306 unadjusted this week. The insured unemployment rate held at 1.2% for the third straight week. Continuing claims rose to 1,821,000, up 12,000, but still below the year-ago level of 1,840,000.
The headline number is calm. The state-level composition isn’t telling the same story. New York added 8,145 initial claims in a single week, with layoffs flagged across transportation and warehousing, accommodation and food services, and public administration. That’s not one sector having a bad week; that’s a cross-industry pattern in the largest metro economy in the country. Georgia added 1,288 claims citing manufacturing, administrative support, health care, and professional services simultaneously. Virginia and Texas both cited manufacturing. When white-collar and blue-collar sectors show up on the same layoff list in the same week, it’s worth paying attention.
On the other side, Oregon dropped 3,773 and Illinois dropped 2,112. The national number averages these out into a tidy headline. The talent pool is loosening in certain markets even while the national figure looks steady. For employers actively hiring, that regional divergence is your signal: if you’ve been waiting for candidates in specific metro markets, the window may be opening.
Frequently Asked Questions
The data so far says no. A WSJ analysis of Labor Department figures found that hourly earnings in 41 immigrant-reliant industries rose just 3.5% year-over-year in February, below the 3.8% increase for all workers and a slowdown from pre-crackdown levels. Removing immigrant workers also removed consumer spending, which economists say offset much of the expected labor shortage effect.
According to BLS Q1 2026 data, women working full-time earned a median of $1,098 per week, 80.6% of the $1,362 median for men. The gap varies significantly by race: Hispanic women earned $901 per week, while Asian men earned $1,847, representing nearly a 2-to-1 ratio across full-time workers.
Initial claims for the week ending April 18 came in at 214,000, historically low and below the comparable week in 2025. The national number looks stable, but several states, including New York and Georgia, reported cross-sector layoffs in the same week, suggesting regional labor markets are softening even as the headline holds steady.
The BLS reported median weekly earnings of $1,235 for full-time wage and salary workers in Q1 2026, equivalent to roughly $64,200 annually. That’s up 3.4% from a year earlier, which outpaced the 2.7% rise in consumer prices over the same period.
