Despite efforts by President Joe Biden’s administration to pack the United States workforce with more foreign labor, there remain about 16.4 million Americans who are jobless but want a full-time job and millions more who are underemployed.
In April, 9.8 million Americans were unemployed. About 12.3 percent of those unemployed were teenagers who are most likely to take minimum wage, entry-level work. In addition, about 9.7 percent of those unemployed are black Americans, while 7.9 percent are Hispanics, 5.7 percent are Asian Americans, and 5.3 percent are white Americans.
Similarly, 6.6 million Americans were not in the labor force, all of whom want a full-time job. These Americans include 1.9 million who are classified as “marginally attached to the labor force” because they had looked for a job in the last 12 months but had not looked in the last four weeks.
About 565,000 Americans who are out of the labor force are considered “discouraged workers” because they do not believe that there are jobs available for them.
In addition to those millions of jobless Americans, about 5.2 million Americans remain underemployed. These Americans are working part-time jobs but want full-time employment with good wages and competitive benefits.
The nation’s actual labor shortage is being spurred by ongoing increased unemployment benefits, not a shortage of available Americans who can fill jobs, according to Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney:
That’s because many business owners believe that enhanced unemployment benefits, which pay an extra $300 per week, are creating a labor shortage. But that labor shortage is likely to be temporary because the American Rescue Act, passed in March, extended the enhanced benefits only through September.
That means that it is likely that in just a few months, there will be millions of more Americans willing to work for less than they will work for today.
It’s not people do not want to work or do not understand that in the long-run they are better off employed than on the dole. It’s just that right now, the enhanced unemployment benefits pay so much that workers rationally choose to take the higher income for a few more months, quite reasonably expecting they will be able to find work when the enhancement expires.
The jobless totals come as Biden, cheered on by a lobbying campaign by former President George W. Bush, has implemented an immigration agenda that seeks to pack the labor market with as many foreign workers, whether illegally in the U.S. or legally on visas, as possible.
For example, tens of thousands of border crossers have been released into the U.S. interior since Biden took office, the overwhelming majority of which are provided with one-year work permits.
Biden has also restarted a number of legal immigration pipelines that funnel a continuous flow of foreign workers into U.S. jobs. For instance, Biden ended a travel ban for countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism, ended a halt on a number of green card categories. He restarted a series of work visa programs, and most recently he vowed to bring up to 62,500 refugees to the U.S.
Likely voters, meanwhile, have continued to oppose businesses importing foreign workers rather than hiring unemployed Americans. The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 64 percent of voters say businesses should entice Americans into available jobs rather than importing foreign workers and 60 percent say the labor market has enough skilled Americans to fill jobs.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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