In the US, inflation has moderated in 2024, but economists warn that President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to mass deport undocumented immigrants could have a big impact on prices.
“There will certainly be an economic impact,” said David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. “There will be supply chain issues. There will be price increases, service cuts.”
Experts worry that deporting such a large number of undocumented immigrants at once could leave a hole in the workforce. AND A 2023 study in the Journal of Labor Economics found that 44,000 US-born workers could lose their jobs for every 500,000 immigrants removed from the labor force.
“Immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, are much more likely to work in the kinds of jobs that create goods and services where we see prices rise,” said Chloe East, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research who was also one of the researchers behind the study. from 2023
“We can’t say for sure what the effects will be,” she said. “But based on what we know from past attempts at mass deportation, it seems that goods and services where unauthorized immigrants are super-concentrated like construction and agriculture are likely to see prices rise as a result of mass deportation efforts, not fall.”
Look video above to find out what other economic effects mass deportation might impose on the US
