If former President Donald Trump’s claim that the flood of immigrants to the United States are taking jobs from Black workers were true, the evidence should be clear in New York City — where more than 210,000 migrants have arrived in the past two years as the city struggled to recover from the pandemic recession.

Instead, according to a new analysis published Tuesday by the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, the percentage of New Yorkers born in the U.S. who are employed and in the workforce is at a record high and for the first time ever close to the national number. In addition, unemployment among Black and Hispanic workers has declined — both signs that migrants are not taking jobs from New Yorkers of color.

“NYC’s economy has been under tremendous pressure in recent years — first with Covid and our recovery from it, most recently with an increase in asylum seekers ing through the city,” said Lauren Melodia, director of economic and fiscal policy at the Center and the author of the report. “And yet even here, in an incredibly diverse city where over a third of workers are immigrants, we find that the Trump-Vance campaign is wrong.”

Trump, who according to polling is drawing more from Black voters than any Republican in recent presidential elections, has been emphasizing what he says is the migrant threat to Black employment since his debate with President Joe Biden in late June.

He reiterated his position in his highly scrutinized appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention last week.

“Coming from the border are millions and millions of people who happen to be taking Black jobs,” Trump said. “They’re taking the employment from Black people.”

Economists with a national perspective have been dismissing Trump’s claims since he began making them.

“This is a strange moment for the ex-president to be making this argument,” said David Dyssegaard Kallick, director of Immigration Research Initiative. “After decades in which wages were stagnating for so many workers, there is finally significant growth in wages for Black workers. And, at a time of increased immigration, Black workers are seeing some of the lowest unemployment rates in decades.”

‘Looking for Scapegoats’

The Center’s study is the first time anyone has analyzed New York City data on the issue since Trump has been touting the idea.

If immigrants were taking jobs from American-born Black or Hispanic workers, notes the Center, the rate of native-born New Yorkers in the labor force would be falling. That metric, the labor force participation rate, tracks people with jobs or looking for jobs. When jobs are hard to find, people stop looking for work and are no longer counted as participating in the workforce.

Instead, the labor force participation rate for native-born New Yorkers has risen from 80% at the nadir of the pandemic recession to 84%, essentially equal to the national rate for the first time.

The unemployment rates tell a similar story. After peaking above 16% in 2020, the Black jobless rate has fallen to 6.0%, according to the Center’s analysis. The Hispanic rate has declined from just under 15% to 6%, as well. Meanwhile, the non-citizen rate has risen in the last year.

All that has occurred among a flood of immigrants, especially asylum seekers, coming to New York City. The most recent city figures show that 211,000 migrants have come to the city in the past two years since buses began arriving from Texas. More than 64,000 remain in the city’s shelter system including 900 new arrivals who came last week.

Last month, the mayor’s office noted that the city’s asylum help center had submitted some 58,000 applications for work authorization, temporary protected status and asylum status. Because applications take as much as two years to process (although asylum seekers can begin working after six months), many immigrants can’t be seeking legal work, notes Debipriya Chatterjee, an economist at the Community Services Society. That’s reflected in the rising jobless rate for non-citizens, she said.

The New York State Republican Party did not reply to a request for comment on Trump’s claims and the Center’s study, but City Council member and Trump er Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) dismissed the report in defending the Queens-born presidential candidate’s claims.

“A quick google of the topic prior to Trump speaking on it shows a wealth of research on immigration, jobs and employment by reputable sources like NBER [National Bureau of Economic Research],” he told THE CITY. 

While immigrants may not be the problem, inequality in the workforce in New York City remains a serious problem, as THE CITY has detailed in stories over the past two years. The Black and Hispanic unemployment rate here at 6.0% is three times the white jobless rate.

New Yorkers of color work disproportionately in two sectors, retail and government, where jobs have not rebounded from the pandemic recession. When they lose jobs in those areas they are having difficulty pivoting to other sectors where they lack networks and face discrimination, says Melodia of the Center.

Adds immigration expert Kallick: “Unemployment is systematically higher among New Yorkers who are Black. The solution is to address discrimination and structural exclusions, not to start looking for scapegoats among immigrants.”