The latest jobs report came in stronger than expected this morning. The economy added 172,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. Nominal wage growth continued to decelerate, further exacerbating affordability as prices rise.
#EconSky #NumbersDay @epi.org

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:46 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Job growth was strongest in leisure and hospitality, state and local governments, and health care. Losses continued in financial activities in May.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 7:58 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Manufacturing employment rose by 7,000 in May, slowly clawing back the large losses last year.

Since January 2025 when Trump took office, the manufacturing sector has lost 68,000 jobs.

#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:00 AM · Jun 5, 2026

While there’s been little change this year, federal employment has shrunk an alarming 333k jobs since Jan 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers.
#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:08 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Nominal wage growth continued to slow in May, now 3.4% over the year. While we don’t get the May inflation data until next week, it’s very likely, given recent trends, that real wages will continue to fall and workers and their families will find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) 8:14 AM · Jun 5, 2026

Key takeaways:

• The vast majority (85%) of young college graduates work in occupations that have seen strong employment growth in recent years.

• Young college graduates, like college graduates in general, are more likely to work in AI-exposed occupations than the overall workforce—and considerably more likely than young noncollege workers.
• But both young college graduates and young noncollege workers have experienced rising unemployment over the last three years, suggesting AI is not likely to be driving labor market weakness.

In the first blog post of our Class of 2026 series, we showed that the strong labor market for young college graduates of the early 2020s had begun softening in recent years. A growing share of young college graduates are seeking employment, but because their employment rates have not kept up with this job search, their unemployment rate has risen faster than the overall rate. The second blog post in the series discussed the industries where young college graduates worked. We found that recent graduates work in growing industries, but are forced to enter a weakened labor market with less job turnover, deteriorating their ability to break in. Young college graduates work in the tech sector at a similar rate to college graduates, and there is no clear evidence that tech sector employment is significantly decreased despite warnings about the advancement of AI.

In this blog post, we delve deeper into the occupations where young college graduates are likely to work.1 We examine whether it has been relatively more difficult to secure employment in these fields as the labor market has weakened. We also scour the data for signs that exposure to AI-related occupations may disproportionately affect the prospects for young college graduates as they enter the labor market.

Most young college graduates work in occupations with strong growth

Over 60% of young college graduates work in professional and related occupations or management, business, and financial occupations. Figure A displays the share of employment in each occupation or occupation grouping for young college graduates ages 22 to 27, all college graduates, and young workers without a four-year college degree. Occupations in the figure appear in order of the share of young college graduates employed in each, from largest to smallest. Over half (62.8%) of young college graduates work in professional, management, business, and financial occupations. Workers of any age with a college degree are slightly more likely to work in those two occupations (64.5%), though more likely in management occupations than professional occupations. On the other hand, nearly half (48.3%) of young noncollege workers are in service occupations or farming, construction, installation, and production occupations.

Figure A

Figure B shows the change in employment in each occupation between 2019 and 2026 and between 2023 and 2026, arranged in the same order as Figure A for comparison. Since 2019, management, business, and financial occupations and transportation and material moving occupations experienced the most growth, followed by professional and related occupations.

The top four occupations for job growth since 2023 account for 85% of young college graduate employment. The occupations with employment losses over the last three years were more likely to employ young noncollege workers than college graduates. It doesn’t appear that the occupations where young college graduates tend to work have been hit particularly hard in the last couple of years.

Figure B

While there has been job growth among occupations that tend to be filled by young college graduates, some worry about an increase in labor market underutilization, i.e., when workers with a college degree wind up working in jobs that typically don’t require one. Using O*NET data2, the New York Federal Reserve tracks this type of labor market underutilization. While the share of recent college graduates working at a job that doesn’t require a college degree has ticked up slightly over the last three years, it remains lower than it was for workers who graduated in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Even as late as 2017, young college graduates were working at these noncollege jobs at higher rates than they are today.

While college-educated workers are in more AI-exposed occupations, this does not appear to be driving labor market weakness

Much has been written in the last few years about AI exposure and its impact on the labor market. Using data from ADP, a large payroll processing company, Brynjolfsson, Chandar, and Chen find that entry-level workers in AI-exposed occupations—particularly AI uses that automate, not augment their work—have experienced an employment decline larger than that of older workers in the same occupations and all workers in less exposed occupations, explaining some of their stagnant overall employment growth. Atkinson and Yamco also find that declines in AI-exposed occupations are tied to lack of hiring rather than layoffs, hitting harder for young people attempting to enter the labor market. The second blog post in our series noted an across-the-board slowdown in hiring—which hurts the job prospects of all young workers, not only those in the industries most affected by AI.

On the other hand, researchers at the Yale Budget Lab argue that there has only been a slight increase in the shift in the occupation mix of employment, which would be evidence of AI automating jobs. They find that high AI-exposed occupations—determined by the top quintile of AI exposure—have yet to show declining employment, so no “dissimilarity” between young and older college graduates in terms of occupation mix has materialized. Raderman also finds that there isn’t strong evidence that AI is responsible for weaker labor market outcomes for recent college graduates, using evidence from Tillerman on college majors paired with change in unemployment.

Given the variation in assessments, we wanted to take a look at the data ourselves. Gimbel, Kendall, and Kulsakdinun have done an admirable job of summarizing the literature that attempts to classify AI exposure and propose a weighted aggregate measure of AI exposure.3 We employ this measure to investigate whether young college graduates may be more likely to be at risk in AI-exposed occupations than other workers.

In Figure C, we display the AI exposure of occupations weighted by the share of the entire workforce in each occupation. Moving from the left to the right on the figure increases AI intensity. For instance, professional and office & administrative support occupations are more AI exposed (to the right), while production, transportation, and service occupations are less AI exposed (to the left). Overall, the mean AI exposure score is 0.23.4

Figure C

In Figure D, we show the distribution of select demographic groups by occupation and AI exposure. As with earlier analysis, we compare young college graduates with all college graduates and young noncollege workers, in separate panels in the figure.

According to the aggregate measure, college graduates do have higher AI exposure in the labor market than the overall workforce. It is clear there is more mass in the direction of higher exposure (to the right) and their mean exposure is 1.07, higher than that of workers writ large. But the AI exposure of young college graduates isn’t any higher than that of college graduates in general. Mean AI exposure among young college graduates is 1.00.

Figure D

What is striking is that the AI exposure among young college graduates (1.00) is considerably higher than that of young noncollege workers (-0.61). If AI was driving labor market outcomes, we’d expect young college graduates to fare worse in today’s economy, e.g., see larger declines in employment or faster increases in unemployment. But, when we compare unemployment rates as we did in the first blog post of this series, both groups experienced similar increases in unemployment over the last two to three years. Trends in employment rates were also consistent across these groups.

Since the weakening labor market is hitting both young college and noncollege workers alike, it’s hard to argue that AI is uniquely causing job losses for new labor market entrants graduating from college now or in recent years. These findings are consistent with the literature, as there is currently no consensus about the effects of working in AI-exposed occupations on employment thus far.

1. Throughout this brief, we define young college graduates as people between the ages of 22 and 27 with only a four-year college degree. Unlike similar analyses of young workers, we do not exclude young college graduates who are currently enrolled in school, but the results here are robust either way. Unless otherwise noted, data for 2026 represent a 12-month average from April 2025 through March 2026 for the most up to date and reliable estimates, which removes seasonality and increases sample sizes.

2. O*NET or the Occupational Information Network provides the largest up-to-date database of information about workers sorted into detailed occupations. Information provided is about skills, abilities, education, training, and more.

3. We use an updated summary AI exposure PCA score (principal component analysis weighted standardized z-score) provided by the authors, May 13, 2026.

4. The PCA score scale is centered at 0, the unweighted mean across occupations.

The unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers was 4.0% in 2024 under Biden’s administration, and it has risen under Trump. With today’s jobs report, the three-month average for 2026 shows the U.S.-born unemployment rate is at 4.3% (the non-seasonally adjusted average for 2026 is 4.6%).

Claims that mass deportations have helped U.S.-born workers are simply inconsistent with the data. This is no surprise, given that economic research has repeatedly shown that increased immigration enforcement harms everyone in the labor market, including U.S.-born workers. Part of the explanation for this is that immigrants are not only workers, but also consumers, which generates demand and helps the economy grow. Another part is that immigrants and U.S.-born workers complement each other in the labor market. For example, when immigrant roofers and framers disappear, there is less work available for the native-born electricians and plumbers. And when child care workers and cleaners are detained, deported, or terrorized by the Trump administration’s reckless and indiscriminate immigration enforcement, U.S.-born mothers work fewer hours to cover increased care responsibilities at home.

U.S.-born workers are faring worse under Trump’s assault on immigrants–which has included going after not just undocumented immigrants, but also those with green cards, temporary statuses like parole and DACA, and refugees and asylum-seekers. Mass deportations, arrests, detentions, and the stripping of work permits from millions have devastated communities and failed to deliver the promised jobs boom.

Today’s jobs report was much weaker than expected. Payroll jobs fell 92k in Feb, and revisions to Dec data show a loss of 17k jobs. Average job growth over the last 3 months now under 6k.

Household survey population controls indicate a significant drop in the labor force.

#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 7:48 AM

Job losses in Feb were most acute in health care, due to striking workers who have since gone back to work. Notable losses as well in leisure and hospitality and educational services. Job were added in financial activities and social assistance. On net, 92k job losses for Feb.

#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:03 AM

Manufacturing jobs fell again, down 12,000 between January and February 2026. Since January 2025, the manufacturing sector has lost 100,000 jobs. I repeat: The manufacturing sector lost 100k jobs since Trump took office.

#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:19 AM

Attacks on the federal workforce continue. Federal employment has shrunk an alarming 327,000 jobs since January 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers. The cost of these losses are only beginning to be felt.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:19 AM

The overall unemployment ticked up slightly in February, while the unemployment rate rose for Black, Asian, and Hispanic workers. Notably volatile series, but Black unemployment is now back up at 7.7% compared to only 3.7% for white workers.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Mar 6, 2026 at 8:51 AM

Child labor violations have been on the rise nationally and in Indiana, and fundamental federal child labor standards have recently come under threat. There is no reason to eliminate Indiana’s simple, easy-to-use system for documenting youth employment, except to make it easier for employers to violate child labor laws and harder for investigators to find out about violations.

Lawmakers in at least five other states have introduced bills to weaken child labor standards this year. Florida, Missouri, and Nebraska lawmakers have proposed allowing employers to pay minors less than the minimum wage, with the Nebraska bill recently being signed into law. Virginia and West Virginia lawmakers proposed bills to weaken hazardous work protections for minors who participate in work-based learning programs. Advocates in Virginia and West Virginia are working to amend both bills to limit their harm and ensure these programs do not come at the expense of youth education and safety.

Bill would eliminate employer registration system that replaced Indiana’s youth work permit process

In 2020, lawmakers eliminated Indiana’s youth work permit process and replaced it with the new Youth Employment System (YES), which requires certain employers of five or more minor workers to register key details about that employment in an online database, with penalties of up to $400 for each failure to register employment of a minor. Less than five years after they were implemented, lawmakers are now seeking to eliminate these requirements through House Bill (HB) 1302. If signed into law, there will no longer be any state oversight system in place for ensuring legal, age-appropriate work for minors or for state agencies to use in investigating suspected violations.

The legislation being considered is especially concerning because Indiana lawmakers have already made some of the country’s most extreme changes to child labor protections in recent years. Lawmakers made other substantial changes to Indiana child labor law in 2020, including eliminating rest breaks for minor workers and extending maximum weekly hours for 16- and 17-year-olds.

State systems for documenting youth employment are key to preventing child labor violations

Recent research shows that requiring the documentation of youth employment—like youth work permits—play an important role in preventing child labor violations, but Indiana got rid of work permits in 2020, and now they are hoping to get rid of the system that replaced them. In an analysis of federal child labor violations between 2008 and 2020, states with work permit mandates had 13.3% fewer violation cases and 31.8% fewer minors involved in these violations. That’s because youth work permits ensure employers know the law and create a paper trail to aid in enforcement when state investigators suspect violations. According to the new study, requiring that work permits clearly state permitted working hours reduces the number of minors involved in violations by 24.0%.

Often, employers that violate mandated documentation requirements are also violating other child labor standards. For example, a recent audit of a major Burger King franchisee in Wisconsin found over 1,600 child labor violations affecting nearly 1,400 young workers, the largest in the state’s history. In addition to employing minors without a work permit, violations included failing to provide mandated rest breaks, employing minors beyond permissible working hours, and failing to pay overtime.

Sadly, lawmakers’ desire to eliminate the YES system may be precisely because the system has been working as intended. Last year, the Indiana DOL assessed over $250,000 in penalties on employers that failed to register youth employment. Indiana’s youth employment registration system allowed investigators to identify employers out of compliance with the registration law and may have played a role in deterring future, more serious violations.

As violations increase, lawmakers should seek to strengthen—not weaken—youth employment standards

Child labor violations have risen significantly in recent years across the U.S. and in Indiana, where a 2025 IndyStar analysis found an uptick in violations in recent years, particularly driven by instances of illegal hazardous child labor and illegal employment of children under age 14. According to state fiscal analysts who assessed HB 1302’s impact, the change “will likely reduce the efficiency of on-site employer inspections for compliance with child labor laws.” In other words, the legislature’s own analysts acknowledge that this bill will make it harder to protect Indiana children from illegal and potentially dangerous, exploitative, and abusive employment conditions.

There is no rationale for eliminating basic documentation requirements that prevent child labor violations and aid in enforcement, except to make it easier for unscrupulous employers to get away with breaking the laws that keep kids safe on the job. Coming on the heels of multiple bills that weakened Indiana’s child labor standards in the past few years, HB 1302 represents another shameful step backward for the state. But it is not too late for Indiana to reverse course. If the bill is sent to the governor, Indiana Governor Mike Braun can break with his party to veto the bill, just like Ohio Republican Governor Mike DeWine did when he vetoed a bill to extend working hours for minors late last year. At a time when federal child labor standards are under threat, state lawmakers have an opportunity and responsibility to resist efforts to weaken child labor protections and, instead, consider any of the numerous, proven options to strengthen them.

Today’s #JobsReport highlights:
– payroll job growth 130k in January, but benchmark revisions show 2025 much weaker than originally reported
– unemployment rate at 4.3%, up from 4.0% last January
– federal government continues to lose jobs
#EconSky @epi.org #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Feb 11, 2026 at 7:54 AM

Jobs continue to be added in health care and social assistance in January 2026 while the federal government experienced another set of losses. Manufacturing gained 5,000 jobs but is still down 83,000 jobs since last January.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Feb 11, 2026 at 8:12 AM

Attacks on the federal workforce have been astounding. Federal employment has shrunk an alarming 324,000 jobs since January 2025. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers. The cost of these losses are only beginning to be felt.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Feb 11, 2026 at 8:12 AM

Over the last year, the unemployment rate increased from 4.0% to 4.3%. In addition, the labor market has weakened for U.S.-born workers: unemployment rose to 4.7% in Jan, up from 4.3% a year earlier. (Seasonally adjusted data aren’t available by immigration status)
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Feb 11, 2026 at 8:21 AM

The big story in today’s jobs report is about the final benchmark revisions. With the downward revisions to prior data, the labor market added only 181,000 jobs total in 2025, just 15,000 per month on average.
#EconSky #NumbersDay @epi.org

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Feb 11, 2026 at 8:46 AM

In 2025, Black women’s employment rate fell by 1.4 percentage points to 55.7%. This is one of the sharpest one-year declines in the last 25 years (see Figure A). The decline among Black men and white women was no more than 0.5 percentage points each while employment rose slightly for Hispanic (+0.6 percentage points) and AAPI (+0.4 percentage points) women. At 55.7%, Black women’s employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was well below the most recent peak of 57.8% in 2023, reflecting employment losses that started in 2024 and accelerated in 2025. These estimates are also available in EPI’s State of Working America Data Library.

Figure A

The decline in Black women’s employment over the last year included exits from the labor force and rising unemployment among remaining jobseekers. Their labor force participation rate dropped from 60.6% in 2024 to 59.7% in 2025 as the unemployment rate rose from 5.8% to 6.7%.

A closer look reveals that college-educated Black women experienced the greatest drop in employment and labor force participation rates. As shown in Figure B, the EPOP for Black women with bachelor’s degrees fell by 3.5 percentage points over the last year—a much larger decline than any other education category, including those who are not college graduates. Similarly, the labor force participation rate declined most for Black women bachelor’s degree holders—down 2.3 percentage points in 2025.

Figure B

Large employment losses and labor force departures among college graduates were a direct consequence of the Trump administration implementing massive federal layoffs and buyouts over the last year, a sector where nearly half of Black workers have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) microdata further supports this as a driving factor. Figure C presents changes in the number of Black women employed by self-reported sector and industry of employment between 2024 and 2025. Notably, it shows that the overall net loss in employed Black women was driven entirely by public-sector losses, with most job losses in federal government.

While Black women saw a net increase in private-sector employment in 2025—primarily in the growing education and health services industry—there were net losses in six of the 12 major private-sector industries. Among the net losses, 33% occurred in other services, followed by 25% in manufacturing, 21% in financial activities, and 15% in professional and business services. The other services industry includes establishments primarily engaged in repair and maintenance and personal and laundry services, as well as work for private households and religious, grantmaking, civic, and professional organizations.

To put a finer point on the dominant influence of Black women’s employment losses on rising Black unemployment in 2025, Figure C also shows that Black men reported a net gain in the total number employed. Black men had a much smaller decline in federal government employment and relatively fewer industry-specific private-sector losses.

Figure C

While this analysis offers more details about the decline in Black women’s employment, the biggest looming question remains unanswered: Why do federal and private-sector employment losses seem so targeted to Black women? Whether those losses are an early indication of more widespread job losses to come—or casualties of anti-equity backlash in action—could become clearer in the months ahead.

Today’s #JobsReport tells us the economy is decidedly weaker than a year ago:
-unemployment rate is 4.4%, up from 4.1% last Dec
-payroll employment up 50k; total gain this year only 585k compared to 2.0 million in 2024
-federal employment is down 277k since Jan, a loss of 9.2% federal jobs
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Jan 9, 2026 at 7:47 AM

The slowdown in job growth this year is stark compared to 2024. The average monthly gain was only 49,000 in 2025 compared to 168,000 in 2024. Over the last three months, average job growth was actually negative, meaning there are fewer jobs now than in September.

#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Jan 9, 2026 at 8:05 AM

Leisure and hospitality gained 47k jobs in Dec after falling in Nov. Health care and social assistance continue to add jobs. Retail jobs fell along with construction, professional and business services, and manufacturing. Manufacturing has lost jobs every month over the last 8, down 72k since April.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Jan 9, 2026 at 8:20 AM

Attacks on the federal workforce were astounding in 2025. Federal employment has shrunk an alarming 277,000 since January. The vital services federal employees provide cannot be done without these essential workers. The cost of these losses are only beginning to be felt.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Jan 9, 2026 at 8:29 AM

The unemployment rate is higher than at the start of the year (4.4% vs 4.0%). Black unemployment (7.5%) is far higher than any other group and up since in Jan (6.2%). Unemployment rise was worst for Black women (7.8% in Dec vs 5.4% in Jan). See www.epi.org/blog/whats-b… for more context.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Jan 9, 2026 at 8:49 AM

The unemployment rate for U.S. born workers is up over the last year as well, from 3.7% in December 2024 to 4.1% in December 2025, evidence against the myth that the slowdown in the labor market in 2025 was limited to immigrants.

— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Jan 9, 2026 at 9:03 AM

Today the BLS releases two months of payroll data and one month of household data. A little jarring to see the first gap in data on the unemployment rate in the history of the survey. Second thing to note is that the unemployment rate is now 4.6% a significant rise from 4.0% in January.
#NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 7:36 AM

On the payroll side, there were net job losses in three of the last six months. Job growth averaged only 17,000 over the last six months, a significant slowdown.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 7:50 AM

Downward revisions for August and September plus large losses in October—due to an enormous drop in federal workers at the end of September—has meant a significant slowing in the pace of job growth. The three-month moving average of job growth fell from 232k in January to 62k in November.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 8:03 AM

Attacks on the federal workforce reached a fever pitch in October as federal employment fell by a whopping 162,000. Federal employment has shrunk an alarming 271,000 since January. The shutdown furloughs have no impact on these data. The cost of these losses are only beginning to be felt.
#EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 8:16 AM

Health care employment continued to rise, adding 46,000 jobs in November. Construction added jobs as well, but manufacturing and transportation and warehousing sectors continues to lose jobs, 58k losses in manufacturing and 60k losses in transportation and warehousing since January.
#NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 8:29 AM

While federal cuts drove large losses in October, it’s important to note that private-sector employment grew an average of only 44k per month over the last six months, down from an average growth rate of 130k in 2024. Employment is undeniably slowing this year and it’s not just about federal cuts.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 8:46 AM

The Trump administration has consistently prioritized aggressive and arbitrary immigration enforcement, with the ultimate goal of deporting 1 million people every year of his term—regardless of their contributions to their communities and the U.S. economy. While the Department of Homeland Security’s pace currently falls short, increased enforcement would curtail business operations and reduce employer demand for both immigrant and U.S.-born workers. Over four years, 1 million annual deportations could cause total employment in the United States to fall by 5.9 million jobs, with particularly severe losses in construction and child care industries.

The direct care sector is also highly vulnerable to these enforcement actions. Amanda Kreider and Rachel Werner’s recent research indicates that job losses will significantly affect workers who provide long-term care in home- and community-based settings. The direct care sector—which includes home health aides, personal care aides, orderlies, psychiatric aides, and some nursing assistants—relies heavily on immigrant labor. Immigrants constitute nearly 30% of the direct care workforce, compared with 20% of overall employment. Among home health aides who assist with daily living and healthcare tasks, four in 10 workers are immigrants.

Kreider and Werner found that previous increases in immigration enforcement caused the direct care sector to shrink. If these patterns hold under the current enforcement regime, four million deportations over four years could cause direct care employment to fall by 394,000 (see Figure A).

Figure A

The majority of this employment decline—274,000 jobs—will result from the loss of immigrant workers. However, in addition to removing a supply of labor, deportations also make the labor market more precarious for immigrant workers. When immigrants face heightened risk of arrest, detention, or deportation, their ability to change jobs becomes severely constrained. With reduced labor market leverage, employers can worsen working conditions and suppress wages for all workers in the sector, not just those directly affected by deportations.

Contrary to the misconception that deportations will increase job opportunities for U.S-born workers, existing research consistently demonstrates that increased immigration enforcement reduces the employment for both immigrant and U.S.-born workers. Deteriorating pay and conditions for direct care workers would make U.S.-born workers unlikely to step in to replace the shortfall of immigrant workers, consistent with what studies have found when immigration enforcement decreased the size of the construction and child care sectors. In direct care, about 30% of the employment decline—the equivalent of around 120,000 jobs—will affect U.S.-born workers.

While employment reductions will be widespread, they will hit certain states particularly hard due to the geographic concentration of noncitizen immigrants in the direct care sector (see Table 1). New York faces especially severe challenges. Immigrants comprise two-thirds of the state’s direct care workforce, and more than one-third of all noncitizens working in direct care nationwide live in New York. If the Trump administration achieves its deportation goals, New York’s direct care sector could shrink by 45%.

Table 1

These large employment losses would translate directly into reduced availability of direct care services. Kreider and Werner found that past escalations of immigration enforcement led to substantial increases in the number of older adults living without any help at home. Among the Medicaid population, formal nonfamily caregiving declined while family-based caregiving increased, reflecting the contraction of the formal direct care sector.

This shift from formal to family-based care suggests that job losses in the direct care sector will have large spillover effects across the economy, greatly increasing their potential harm to even U.S.-born workers. As direct care supply becomes constrained due to deportations, some family members may need to leave their jobs or reduce their work hours to assume new caretaking responsibilities. Indeed, other research has shown that increases in immigration enforcement caused U.S.-born mothers to work fewer hours due to declining availability of household services like cleaning and child care. Family members may well be forced to choose between their careers and caring for aging and disabled relatives.

The Trump administration’s deportation agenda threatens to trigger a cascading crisis in senior and disability care that will harm families across the economic spectrum. Even in the absence of deportations, caretaking needs will accelerate as the older population grows tremendously, especially in the next five years. If the direct care workforce contracts by nearly 400,000 workers due to deportations, millions of older adults and people with disabilities will be left without the professional assistance they need to remain safely in their homes. Rather than creating jobs for U.S.-born workers as proponents claim, mass deportations eliminate employment opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike while dismantling a care infrastructure that seniors, people with disabilities, and families depend on.