Huddled masses. Higher work rates.

Yesterday I shared a chart showing the U.S. labor force participation rate by gender dating back to 1948.

Today, I'll drill deeper - splitting each gender's trend line into those born in the U.S.A. ("native born") and immigrants ("foreign born").

We only have data back to 2007 for this level of detail, but the chart is still eye-opening:

Source: BLS

Immigrant men have consistently had a much higher labor force participation rate than native-born men. But look closely at the post-COVID period. Both groups saw participation drop sharply during COVID, then recover. Since then, however, the two lines have diverged - immigrant men's participation has held steady, while native-born men's rate has been sliding back toward COVID-era lows.

Meanwhile, just two months ago, immigrant women's labor force participation rate eclipsed native-born women's rate - for the first time ever.

Now, a word of caution: this comparison isn't perfectly apples-to-apples. The native-born population tends to skew older than the immigrant population, which affects participation rates.

So I drilled deeper and controlled for age. What I found is that participation rates for immigrants are similar to - or even below - native-born rates across most age groups... until you get to the 55–64 range. Older immigrants participate in the workforce at a significantly higher rate than their native-born peers.

Source: BLS

Interesting, right?

Recall what I wrote yesterday: Social Security needs workers. Badly. This is math, not opinion. And yet we are actively making it as difficult as possible for the very group of people who participate more in the workforce to work in America.

I know I'm trying to apply logic to a political climate driven by greed and stripped of rationality. But that doesn't mean we should stay silent.

So I'll keep sharing the facts. You can choose to share them with others. And together, we'll chip away at this era of misinformation until something breaks through.