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<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n New York \n President Donald Trump has promised to unleash an economic boom that will turbocharge growth, fatten paychecks and chip away at America\u2019s mountain of debt.\n <\/p>\n \n However, a new analysis from Trump\u2019s alma mater<\/a> suggests that his immigration crackdown \u2013 a centerpiece of his second term<\/a> \u2013 could do the exact opposite.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump\u2019s policy of mass deportations<\/a> would shrink most worker paychecks, erode gross domestic product (GDP) and spike the already-massive federal government budget deficit, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis shared exclusively with CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere is no question the US economy will get smaller as you deport a lot of the workforce,\u201d Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Wharton School, said in an interview. \u201cYou simply have fewer bodies to produce. Fewer people means a smaller economy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n During the 2024 campaign, Trump vowed to wage the biggest domestic deportation program in American history and <\/strong>eventually expel millions of people.\n <\/p>\n \n The Penn Wharton analysis found that a four-year policy in which 10% of the nation\u2019s unauthorized immigrants are removed per year would increase federal deficits by $350 billion, reduce GDP by 1% and dent the average worker\u2019s wages.\n <\/p>\n \n The higher deficits are driven by a combination of lost revenue and new spending required to make mass deportations possible \u2013 on top of the funding for border security, interior enforcement and deportations provided by the tax and spending cuts package Trump signed into law this month.\n <\/p>\n \n If the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, the cost to the federal government would rise to $987 billion, GDP would shrink by 3.3% and wages would tumble by 1.7%, researchers found.\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s not to say all workers would be harmed by the mass deportations.\n <\/p>\n \n Penn Wharton concluded that authorized, lower-skilled workers \u2013 including US-born ones \u2013 would get a pay bump due to less competition.\n <\/p>\n \n Wages for those authorized, lower-skilled workers would jump by 5% by 2034, the analysis said. However, if deportations are reversed after four years, wages for authorized low-skilled workers would eventually drop.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPart of the promise of deportation is that those left behind are supposed to be better off. In reality, it\u2019s a much more mixed result,\u201d Smetters told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Penn Wharton found that the outcome for high-skilled workers is clearer: They\u2019d be worse off.\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s because unauthorized, low-skilled workers complement higher-skilled workers, defined in the analysis as native-born citizens, permanent residents and visa-holding immigrants with at least some college education.\n <\/p>\n \n Higher-skilled workers \u201care generally harmed by deportation more than authorized lower-skilled workers are helped,\u201d the Penn Wharton analysis found, adding that higher-skilled workers have a bigger impact on paychecks and <\/strong>GDP and contribute more to taxes.\n <\/p>\n \n High-skilled workers would suffer a $2,764 loss in annual wages on average if the immigration crackdown spanned 10 years, Smetters said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf you\u2019re middle class to higher income, you\u2019re going to be hurt by deportation because you rely on lower-skilled workers to make your job easier and to make your life more comfortable,\u201d Smetters said.\n <\/p>\n \n For instance, he pointed to office workers who are helped by lower-skilled employees who clean buildings, do security and help transport people.\n <\/p>\n \n Lower-skilled workers, at times unauthorized, play central roles in various industries, including construction, restaurants and manufacturing.\n <\/p>\n \n This is especially true in agriculture.\n <\/p>\n \n Between 2020 and 2022, about 39%<\/a> of crop farmworkers were US citizens, while 19% were authorized immigrants. That means the rest \u2013 42% \u2013 held no work authorization, according to the US Department of Agriculture.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere are a lot of jobs in the US that native-born people don\u2019t want \u2013 and foreign-born people are happy to have,\u201d said Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research.\n <\/p>\n \n The White House pushed back against the Penn Wharton findings.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese sort of pedantic analyses miss the forest for the trees by not accounting for the immense costs that everyday Americans are forced to bear due to illegal immigration: violent crime, rising housing costs, eroding social trust and even the overbearing of emergency rooms,\u201d White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Desai pointed to research that finds more than one in ten young adults in the United States are neither employed, pursuing higher education nor in vocational training.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force,\u201d Desai said, \u201cand President Trump\u2019s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this administration\u2019s commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential to build America\u2019s next Golden Age while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s true that some young people are having trouble finding jobs.\n <\/p>\n \n The unemployment rate for those aged 20 to 24<\/a> stands at 8.2% as of June \u2013 more than twice as high as the national rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.\n <\/p>\n \n However, it\u2019s also true that America\u2019s aging population creates real challenges for the economy and businesses.\n <\/p>\n
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