With the real unemployment rate in 2014 at 12.1 percent, some reports are claiming that illegal immigrants have taken more jobs than American citizens in recent years.
In a related report by The Inquisitr , President Obama claims that two million illegal immigrants were deported , but critics claims those numbers are a lie. It’s also believed that ICE has released many illegal aliens with criminal histories and there’s reports that bus loads of illegal aliens by the “tens of thousands” are being released into American neighborhoods. Recently, President Obama’s approval ratings show that the majority of Americans disagree with the White House on immigration reform, although a poll on immigration reform suggests there is growing support for increasing legal immigration levels in comparison to previous years.
When it comes to the “main” unemployment rate usually reported by the media, the numbers have actually fallen down to 6.1 percent:
“Over the past 12 months, the U.S. economy has managed to add over 2.5 million jobs – averaging 208,000 jobs each month. This is the fastest year-on-year phase recorded since May 2006. Overall, the U.S. economy shows signs of gaining back full strength and is growing at a healthy rate after having shrunk in the beginning of 2014. The gain of 288,000 jobs in June is followed by the addition of 217,000 jobs in May and 304,000 in April.”
But lurking in the shadows is the so-called real unemployment rate, which is published by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics as the U-6 unemployment rate. This number is defined as “total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.” While it was not a scientific survey, a recent poll by CNBC shows that 80 percent of people believe the U-6 rate is the most accurate while only five percent chose the “regular” unemployment rate.
The good news is that the real unemployment rate has also been dropping during the last year, when the number hovered just below 14 percent. The bad news is that the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) believes that immigrants, both legal and illegal, have been taking the majority of available jobs. While nearly six million more people are working in the U.S. now in comparison to the year 2000, the number of native-born Americans holding jobs has declined slightly, from 114.8 million to 114.7 million, while 5.7 million jobs have gone to immigrants, some of whom are potentially illegal immigrants. Overall, native-born Americans have suffered a net loss of 127,000 jobs in the past 14 years.
The report from the CIS concludes there is not an issue with labor shortage and that existing immigration laws need to be enforced:
“All of the net increase in employment went to immigrants in the last 14 years partly because, even before the Great Recession, immigrants were gaining a disproportionate share of jobs relative to their share of population growth. In addition, natives’ losses were somewhat greater during the recession and immigrants have recovered more quickly from it.”
Are you surprised the real unemployment rate is still so high? What do you think should be done about immigration reform now that you know that immigrants have been taking the vast majority of available jobs in the United States?