6 Million Jobs At Risk: The Biggest Threats To Labor Market Warns Economist | Heidi Shierholz
Summary
Economic Impact of Immigration Policies: The podcast discusses the potential loss of nearly 6 million jobs if the US administration deports 1 million immigrants annually, highlighting the ripple effects on both immigrant and US-born workers.
Current Economic Slowdown: Economist Heidi Shierholz notes signs of an economic slowdown, with GDP growth declining and unemployment rates rising, suggesting a potential recession scenario.
Inflation and Tariffs: The discussion covers the impact of tariffs on inflation, emphasizing that while tariffs can lead to price increases, they are unlikely to cause inflation spikes similar to those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deficit Concerns: Shierholz warns about the ballooning deficit due to tax cuts favoring the wealthy, which could harm economic growth and increase inflation and interest rates.
Labor Market Dynamics: The podcast highlights the importance of raising the minimum wage and supporting unionization to boost wage growth, particularly for low-wage workers.
Data Integrity and BLS Staffing: Concerns are raised about the impact of staff cuts at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on data accuracy, with large revisions attributed to reduced staffing and economic slowdown.
Immigration Reform: Shierholz advocates for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship and smarter border control, to support economic growth and prevent labor market disruptions.
Global Talent and US Competitiveness: The podcast concludes with a discussion on the importance of attracting global talent to maintain US economic preeminence, warning against policies that make the US less appealing to immigrants.
Transcript
If the administration achieves its goal of deporting 1 million immigrants annually, the US will lose nearly 6 million jobs as a result of it over Trump's term. More than 2.5 million of those losses will be amongst USborn workers. When you're headed into a a slowdown, those revisions tend to be larger. It's not an absolute we're falling off a cliff yet, but the way I would say it is that if we were entering a recession, this is what it would look like. The US economy is navigating some key changes, including recent leadership changes at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh a new big beautiful bill budget that we can analyze with our next guest. Had Sherholes, president of the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Department of Labor under President Obama. will be getting her outlook for economic growth and policy changes. Welcome to the show, Heidi. Good to see you. It's a delight, it's a delight to be here. Thanks for being here. Um, I want to just get your outlook and your analysis of current economic trends before we get into some of the recent news. So, as you know, quarterly uh change for GDP in Q1 was only 1.2%. The annual change is 1.4% from Q2. Um, so a big uh growth from a year ago. Uh, the unemployment rate currently at 4.2%. uh the monthly change uh is slightly um yeah the below it's still below the long-term average of 5.6%. Uh but it is picking up and as you know inflation is also picking up. consumer spending um from Q1 uh currently $58 billion um is slightly higher um and the uh leading economic indicator from the conference board um is uh been trending down monthly change negative 3% uh.3% rather decline from May. where it's a little bit of conflicting data. If you just take a look at the surface, GDP on the one hand is growing considerably uh while at the same time uh consumer confidence is slightly up and like I said the LEI is slightly down. Um how are you interpreting what's going on right now? Uh it seems really clearly like a slowdown. Uh and so when you look at the GDP numbers, second quarter was strong but first quarter was largely negative large and negative. And so there were some sort of statistical artifacts causing that swing. And so it's important to look at the the overall growth rate of the first half of the year together. And when you do that, it just shows a big decline from 2024 and then the jobs numbers, right? The unemployment rate at 4.2%. That's still low, but the problem is the direction. It is rising. And what we are seeing at least in the last 3 months is we are not seeing job growth that is fast enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. That's the scary thing. So over the last 3 months, we added just 35,000 jobs per month on average. That coming out was the thing that made Trump get so angry that he actually fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accusing them of putting, you know, baselessly, accusing them of of cooking the books. Um, so it is a slowdown, but we don't, you know, I don't actually I I should I should I should qualify that in saying we could still pull out of this. It's not an absolute we're falling off a cliff yet, but the way I would say it is that if we were entering a recession, this is what it would look like. This kind of we're seeing the slowdown in GDP, we're seeing the slowdown in job growth, we're seeing the pickup in the unemployment rate. Those are the kinds of things that it would be looking like if we were headed into a recession. um too early to know for sure, but it does what we can say unambiguously is that in recent months things are growing substantially more slowly than they had been. Americans have been concerned uh about inflation. Uh although recently if you take a look at some of the surveys uh the expectation for inflation has been coming down slightly. I just want to point out something um Heidi. So in Trump's first term uh throughout 2017 to 18 when he first implemented tariffs uh the CPI uh as as released by the BLS as you can see here uh didn't significantly spike up. It wasn't until after we got the pandemic that we had this huge spike to 9.1%. I wonder if uh fears of a return to of of high inflation this time in a second term are warranted given that first the first time we had tariffs. nothing really substantial happened to the overall CPI print. Yeah, I think that that big spike during during COVID that was about the impact of COVID and also the impact of war the UK uh the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Um we are unlikely to see anything nearly that close to that with tariffs but we are very likely to see a price increase as a result of tariffs. It is that, you know, when tariffs come in, it is a tax on import. It is an increase in tax that importers pay and it's just like any other tax, right? They pay it to the um customs and border patrol, but then it goes into the US Treasury just like any other tax. Um it is technically paid by the importer, but what a whole bunch of evidence shows us is that it just gets passed on to consumers essentially. Um, and so we will expect to see prices rise. I do want to caveat all that by saying I'm not opposed to tariffs in in all situations. Like tariffs when they are used as a narrow part of a broader strategic plan like one piece of a broader strategic plan to support a domestic industry that you know we want to support strategically like say okay prices for consumers are going to be a little higher but it actually matters for us to support strategically support this industry so we're going to do tariffs like that can be a very very good use of tariffs that not what the vast majority of the Trump tariffs are. They're really high, broad, sort of across the board. And they are then as a result pretty much just doing things like disrupting supply chains and increasing prices. And we haven't we haven't seen that all show up yet, but we're starting to see the the we're starting to see that creep in. Um we I expect to see in you know increases in prices going forward but it's not going to be anything like I mean I don't have a crystal ball but I do not believe it will be anything like the spike in inflation that we saw during the pandemic. One thing that was interesting to note uh is that even though tariff revenues have dramatically increased this year uh the deficit has still widened. Um why is that? I mean, shouldn't in theory, shouldn't the offset from higher revenues and tariffs be enough to counter rising spending from the federal government? Yeah, I'm not sure about the specifics right now, but what we know is that the overall Trump agenda is going to dramatically increase the deficit. like with the the reconciliation bill they put in, you know, there's absolutely draconian cuts to Medicaid, to food stamps. Tens of millions of people or 15 million people will lose health insurance. Tens of millions of people will lose um support and purchasing groceries. Like, it's just a real attack on the most vulnerable families. And that bill is the the the tax cuts in that bill that will go primarily to the richest households are so big that even with the draconian cuts to the most vulnerable, it's still going to raise the deficit by trillions. So that is like I'm not I I can't speak to the the the changes in the deficit over these short periods, but if you look over the long haul, we are going to see an absolutely ballooning deficit. And that is because of the um going to be largely because of the huge tax cuts that will go primarily to the very wealthy that were in the rec reconciliation bill. What is uh per your research and your experience been the relationship between rising deficits or shrinking deficits for that matter and economic growth and ultimately prosperity for the middle class? Yeah, I think this I'll I'll talk about this one in particular. So I think the economic impact of the increase in the debt that we're going to see as a result of the reconciliation bill it one thing it's going to play out gradually. We're not going to see it all hit all at once. I mean, part of that is due to the fact that the bill in many cases was was sort of designed under pretty cynical political type type timelines. Like some of the tax breaks go into effect right away. Some of the like most egregious um uh and and least popular cuts to benefits go in go into effect after the midterms. Um but what we will see so that the impact will will play out gradually and I do want to be clear I am not a deficit hawk right like I am that is not the space I operate I I inhabit in the world but the explosion of debt in this bill will be really harmful and I think it's useful to think of that in for two reasons one purpose matters like if you're increasing the debt to respond to a national emergency or to make like transformative investments in things like climate or healthcare or education that will actually make our country richer and more productive in the future. I would absolutely be singing a different tune. But this debt is being taken on for the sole purpose of making the rich richer. So it's just economically indefensible. And then so that's one purpose matters and then two context matters. like the debt is already way too high in part because we recently did have to respond to a national emergency, the pandemic, and also because of the huge Bush and Trump one tax cuts. And then right now, both inflation and interest rates are too high. So that means increasing the debt further will likely lead to some combination of either higher inflation and or higher interest rates. So those things will erode workers paychecks, increase borrowing costs for families. It's just a uh um it's not good for the economy at a time like this to be increasing the deficit for no reason other than to make the rich richer in this country. Okay, let's talk about the labor market, a topic that you are an expert in. So, I'll take So, I'll take the screen uh to show you here. Uh Heidi, this is the uh wage growth tracker by the Atlanta Fed. And as you can see, it's been trending down ever since it peaked in 2022, although it is still higher than the historical average. Now, if you were still chief economist at the Labor Department, how would you reverse this trend? Well, first of all, would you even advise that to be a priority given that it's still higher than the historical average? I think that that historical average, the the median wage has been growing much more slowly, you know, over the long arc over the last four and a half decades than it should or could be. Um, the things that I would do to increase wage growth, like the this this chart that you have up here shows the median wage. The first thing I thought of though was increasing wage growth for those at the bottom. We should increase the minimum wage. The minimum wage, the federal minimum wage is an unbelievable 725 an hour. It has not been increased in over 15 years. It's just outrageous that we have a federal minimum wage that low. So, that's one thing I would immediately do. The other thing we know if you look at the really solid evidence is that unionization is incredibly important for raising the wages of the middle class. So we know good research shows that uh you workers who are in unions make more and they have better benefits than similar workers who are not in unions. So union workers who have the same characteristics like the same occupation, the same geographic area, the same industry, the same gender, race, age, experience, education level, you control for all those things. People in unions do better than people who aren't in unions. And then the other do better on wages and benefits. Um and then the other thing is in places where union density is high, in industries where union density is high, that has strong spillover effects because unions actually kind of set standards more broadly. And so that means the unions don't just raise the wages for the workers who are union members, but also for nonUN workers, workers who aren't for whatever reason able to get any union. um you that their sort of unionized brothers and sisters actually still raise their wages. So it really makes an important difference. And then the the third there's many many sort of levers to pull to to close that wage gap. But the other one that I would say is um we need to make sure unemployment remains low. Like high unemployment is very bad. Not just because people lose their jobs. It is bad because it hurts the wage growth of those with jobs. And the logic is absolutely straightforward. It's just your employer does not have to pay you as much as they otherwise would when they know you don't have outside options. Employers just do not have to pay as much to get and keep the workers that they need when unemployment is really high. Um, and that actually matters. It matters. That is true across the wage distribution. So for lowwage workers, middlewage workers, and highwage workers, but it is more true the farther down the wage distribution you go. So it's it's true for high wage workers, it's more true for middle wage workers, it's the most true for lowwage workers. So in order to, you know, get wages growing more quickly for working people, um, that's another thing that I would do. protect the economy, keep the unemployment rate from rising. Um, and what we see is that Trump policies are sort of going in the other direction. How would you respond to the argument, the counterargument that perhaps if we were to raise the minimum wage further, that could risk people getting laid off because employers can't afford to pay them more. And so that would actually increase the unemployment rate, especially at the bottom tier of income distribution. um instead we should let the free markets decide what to do and if we have a competitive labor market naturally the wages should be higher. Yeah, that is a really really important question. Um and you sort of get at the crux of it when you said you know if we have a competitive labor market then it should work itself out. The wages will be set at the market level. Um there is in labor economics there I would I would go so far as to say there is no other topic that is as studied as the impact of raising the minimum wage on employment levels and that's because we have 51 well 50 states and the District of Columbia and they're all and and cities and counties like there's like people different jurisdictions are raising their minimum wages all the time and so you have these natural experiments It's like this county raised its minimum wage and the adjacent county did not. And so you can actually really look to see what happened to wages and employment in those two counties that are essentially the same but for their minimum wage increases. And those studies that do that very carefully show that the minimum wage increases that we have seen have not caused substantial job loss. They have raised wages, but they have not caused substantial job loss. And the reason, this loops back around to your comment about in a competitive labor market, it should work itself out, right? What we know is that perfect competition is not actually a plausible approximation to how most labor markets actually work. I think economists, the economics field used to feel that, you know, Let me back up and say some of the assumptions of a competitive labor market will kind of blow your mind when you hear them. It's like so I I'll tell you a few of them. So one assumption of a competitive labor market is that employers have zero say over what wages they pay their workers. They have to pay the exact going wage. And if they pay their workers one cent less than that, that worker will be able to immediately go find another job where they are paid fairly. And that and in fact, all of their employees would actually quit and go find another job where they are paid fairly. And that employer that paid them less than, you know, that suppressed their wages would immediately go out of business. So it's just absolutely crazy assumptions, right? But but that's how economic models are. They're not always crazy assumptions, but they're stylized, right? And I think it used to be that in the economics field, most economists believed that that set of assumptions was a reasonable approximation to how the labor market works. That's no longer the case. um econ economists, the sort of broader economic field, economics field really gets that. That's a you know that's a specific case. But in most cases, particularly in the low-wage labor market, employers really do have power to set wages lower than the market clearing wage to suppress workers wages. Um and that's why when you raise the minimum wage, you don't see job loss because you're they are a they are suppressing workers wages. So when you're raising the minimum wage, you're actually getting the wages closer to an efficient wage. Um so it's so but that's regardless of the theory, that's how the empirics play out that minimum wage increases um you know, if you look at the weight of the evidence, it's really really clear they've increased wages without causing significant job loss. Well, let's talk about the data itself. As you're aware, uh Trump fired the uh BLS commissioner Erica Mccantaner last week or a week and a half ago over what he claims was rigged data. So, revisions came in. It was the biggest downward revision in I believe 50 years. Um I know revisions are a natural part of the process, but this one was exceptionally large. Trump claimed that the data was, in his words, rigged. Was it rigged? It was not rigged. It was It was absolutely not rigged. Um, one of the ironic I guess things about this is one of those reasons, one of the reasons those revisions were so large was in my mind undoubtedly because of Trump's actions to cut staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Like they have been cutting staff left and right, which mean I mean I'll just give you one example um for how this can play out. So, uh, the the data come in, the um jobs numbers come in and what I will say is that this is a survey, right? Like those these numbers, they're not mandated by law. Other countries actually have it be mandated that you have to fill out these surveys. The United States does not. These countries voluntarily um provide their data on a monthly basis to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but turns out they don't all get it in on time. So when they when the when they're when the data are supposed to come in, if there is enough staff to go run down, right, and heckle the people who have the firms that haven't gotten their data in, then we have better data, right? But you fire BLS staff and we don't have anyone or we have way fewer people to run down the people who haven't gotten their data in yet in a timely way. And so then when the data do finally start rolling in, we have much bigger revisions. So that is one one reason why we saw I'm sure I one reason why we saw unusually large revisions. Um and then the other thing I think I think it's probably both of these things combined um is that when an economy is heading into a slowdown revisions tend to be larger and that is because this also gets at the for example sometimes um businesses are slow in getting their um data in and so if there's you know if they've said I'm going to respond to the survey I just haven't gotten it in Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually just imputes their data for the first the second until they have the final that you know they they always revise two months back. They they don't get all the data in and on time and so they have to impute the numbers. And so it is absolutely natural that when you're imputing the numbers, you sort of guess that I'm going to guess that what you did this month was pretty similar to what you have turned in the last few months. And when you're in a downturn, that's not necessarily good assumption or not necessarily downturn when you're in any kind of changing period in the labor market. Either it's going way down or it's going way up. that assumption that business's employment is going to be what it was last month is much less of a good assumption because there's a turning point. Um, and so that's likely also another thing that happened that as the the better data as the true data started coming in over the months when we you know you didn't have it and then as the months go by you get the data in and then the earlier data are revised totally natural appropriate process. When you're headed into a a slowdown those revisions tend to be larger. Well, you've called Trump's actions undemocratic and economically dangerous. So, uh, for our viewers watching right now, why should regular citizens who aren't economists care who's running the BLS and whether or not they're getting fired? Yeah, it's a good question and it it does point to it feels like most of the people in this country don't know what the Bureau of Labor Statistics is. Nobody would be able to name a Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, right? like there it's just sort of goes under the radar because it's absolutely independent nonpartisan. They It's 2,000 data geeks. And I say that with utmost respect. 2,000 data geeks who work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not political. What they are doing is just trying to get the best measure of our giant complex economy. And that is a really hard job and they are committed to it like like so unbelievably committed to it. That's one of the reasons that I'm confident that the data have not been manipulated yet because I have zero doubt that if somebody does try to manipulate the data, we will have 2,000 whistleblowers. like that is the kind of commitment to the integrity, the credibility, the nonpartisanship of the numbers that you see among the civil servants at BLS. Um, and so, and I actually forgot your question because I started going off onto No, you kind of answered it. I think the question was whether or not this ultimately has any political and/or grandstanding economic implication. I'm talking about the firing of the chief ultimately. Why should we as citizens who aren't get data geeks so to speak, why should we care that this happened? Yeah. Okay, that thank you for reminding me. So it is um so having that independent nonpartisan just we are just measuring the data kind of organization which we had like BLS absolutely the envy of the world in terms of its ability to put out timely accurate statistics. Um, when you don't have that, your economy is going to run less well because our e economy runs on reliable data. Period. So, the Federal Reserve and other macroeconomic policy makers use the data to make really impactful decisions about our about macroeconomic policy. Private businesses use it to make decisions about hiring and expansion to know which way things are going. you know, state and local governments use it to make plans to to plan to make plans about about where things are heading. It just everyone needs accurate nonpartisan data in order to make their plans. And when we don't have that, reasonable, responsible economic decision-m becomes impossible. It becomes So your argument is that the firing was partisan. It wasn't due to the fact that Trump Well, forget the fact that he called it rigged. Trump called it rigged. Let's just take that aside. Maybe the argument here is that maybe he fired uh the commissioner because there is a belief that there needs to be reform at the BLS. The quality of the data gathered recently is not up to par and so therefore we've had these large revisions making the data unreliable. So she deserved to be fired due to incompetence is the argument. How would you say how how would you respond to that? Yeah, that's just wrong. She's just, you know, had bipartisan support. She's very very much in the line of the entire history of BLS commissioners. The very large revision that we saw had to do with those two things I mentioned. One, the cuts at BLS meant there is just less staff to try to pull together this giant like we're trying to measure what's going on in all the businesses in the US economy. It is just a giant undertaking and it has to happen really fast. So there's just fewer people that you know we've cut staff, fewer people who are available to do that work. Um and you know when when you're heading into a downturn which we may be revisions tend to be larger. So I think it is not about uh Erica the the the um Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner that was just fired. It is about the actions that Doge took to try to to try to you know shrink the Bureau of and they are successfully shrinking the Bureau of Labor Statistics staff and the direction of the economy itself. Well, would you let's say if you were, you know, head of the u chief economist of the labor uh labor department again, would you help to design a system for surveying that could be a little more efficient and perhaps provide incentives for people to participate in these surveys so there the data is even more extensive or more timely? Basically, would you reform the process at all? Yes, I think and I think if you were um talking with any BLS person, they could talk at length about things that could be done to improve data collection, to improve data production, to improve timeliness. Like they are a bunch of professionals. When you're putting out a product, you always know what can be done to be to make it better. One of the things those things to make it better cost money. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been starved most recently by Doge to a huge extent, but it didn't start there. Like the Bureau of Labor Statistics has lost funding or had, you know, flat funding or not as big of increases as would be needed to keep up with like rising prices, etc. for a very long time. So, it's just an agency that's been absolutely running on a shoestring, but 100% if you were taking good faith folks about is there anything that could be done to improve the quality of data, you could have a fantastic, you know, like brainstorming session that maybe just one thing. What what's one thing that comes to your mind? Um, I mean, one this is not doable in this country, but one thing that comes to my mind. Yeah, I I'll I'll I'll say that, but then I'll go on to something for real. One thing that comes to mind is um mandating it. Have Congress mandate that people have to fill out the surveys. But then another thing would be better engagement of businesses. Like if we have businesses out there at the forefront saying, "People, you absolutely need to fill out these surveys, that could really help." you know, you have the big banks out there with with PSAs about how businesses need to be filling out. You can see so that kind of outreach could make a difference. Um, and that's just one very small example. Like there are just a lot of things that could be done. I'm in no way saying that BLS is perfect. Um, but they are the envy of the world. like they do a they can always improve like any large organization can that's that's doing a lot of work. Um okay but they are the envy of the world. Perfect. Uh before we close off, I want to just touch on this report uh that uh the economic policy institute institute published about uh the deportation of unauthorized immigrants in the economy and in the country rather and the effect of that on the economy. It's a rather extens extensive piece of research. Um a few FAQs so to speak that maybe you can address. First is that if we deport unauthorized immigrants, it automatically opens up jobs to Americans, thereby increasing labor force participation. Can you comment on that? Yeah, that's not what's going to happen overall. Um, so in the reconciliation bill, there's extreme immigration provisions. I think there's something that people don't know is that it increased the ICE budget so that ICE is nearly three times the size of the FBI. It makes the reconciliation budget made ICE larger than the military budgets of all but 15 countries on Earth. It's just a remarkable increase. It's like authoritarian style immigration regime, interament camps, massive deportation operations, you know, the whole thing. Um, it I I personally believe that is a moral catastrophe, but it will also be an economic one. It will cost jobs. So, if the administration achieves its goal of deporting 1 million immigrants annually, the US will lose nearly 6 million jobs as a result of it over Trump's um over Trump's term. And this is another thing. More than two and a half million of those losses will be amongst usborn workers. And those numbers are big because deportations they don't just affect those who are being deported. They and they don't just affect immigrant communities, right? They ripple up and down supply chains. They ripple throughout the entire economy. So one way to think of this is when there are fewer immigrant roofers and framers, fewer homes get built. So electricians and plumbers and painters and everyone else loses work too. And so you that's the like sort of classic example of this ripple effect. And then deportations also reduce consumer demand. We obviously lose the spending of those who are being deported, but those who fear deportation also spend less and on and on and on. It has ripple effects. So, it will be a massive drag on the economy. So, I mean that that that makes sense Heidi, but what is the middle ground here? So, on the one hand, if we massport everybody all at once, that will have, as you've pointed out, an immediate impact on the labor force. But on the other hand, uh you know, we can't have undocumented immigrants in the country. So what should be done? Uh so I think we need to to to sort of have we need comprehensive immigration reform. We need comprehensive immigration reform that will have a path to citizenship for people who are already here and much tighter, smarter borders. Like that combination of things is the path forward to for the country. And it has to happen on all on all sides. Like one of the things that that we are seeing that the Trump administration is doing and and hoping to do is to deport, you know, millions of workers and then bring in workers on temporary guest worker visas. These and that is that kind of policy is terrible. That is a bad bad approach to immigration. And one of the reasons why is many of those workers who are on temporary visas, they have zero power. They have in many cases if they comp if they're not being treated well at work, if they complain in any way, if they lose they can if they their if their employer then fires them, they can just be deported. So they have zero power and that hurts not just their like wages and work working conditions. It hurts the wages and working conditions of US-born workers that are working alongside them. So that is like we need to make sure that we have a path to citizenship immigrants with full rights in our economy because otherwise you know having a class of exploitable workers hurts not just those workers it hurts it that's it has huge ripple effects through the economy. So having a path to citizenship for people here, not beefing up the temporary guest worker visas and then being really smart about border control. Uh I'm going to end on this uh note here. the um founder of Singapore uh one of the founding fathers Lee Kong Yu had uh made a famous quote that he said the US will likely stay preeminent because of the fact that immigrants come into the country top talent from around the world. I wonder just dovetailing off of that quote I wonder how the recent changes to immigration policy could impact long-term uh the future of immigration into the US. Yeah, that's a scary thought because I think that is absolutely right. Like the US has been the beneficiary of brain drains in the rest of the world, right? Like not in the entire rest of the world but in in for many many countries. Um and the loss of that will reduce our growth, will reduce our productivity growth, will just make us poorer over the long run. I hope that um what Trump is doing will be able to be reversed. Um when will there be a loss of proper immigration because of these policies? Will that be affected? I yes I think I I think the answer is absolute yes and then the question is to what degree like how much will it actually end up hurting us going forward and that depends on I think how soon we are able to undo what's been happening I mean one of the things that I just saw with the this is a little bit of a different question but um it kind of gets at this overall uh the idea that you know we have a big military presence in Washington DC right now as a result of you know Trump calling in the National Guard into DC. Um so you know the claim is we're making it safer where like what you see if you look at restaurant spending it has absolutely plummeted in Washington DC. People are scared to be out in Washington DC right now. And so that's a little bit different, but it sort of gets at when you do these kinds of measures, people don't want to go to where you are. People want to go somewhere else where they feel safe. And so I think we are absolutely going to be seeing that. And the question will be just how soon will we be able to reverse these policies um will help dictate how long-term the damage this country is. Well, just one final note before we go. Uh Heidi, uh proponents of Trump's immigration policies would say, "Well, where would they go? I mean, America is still the dominant center for innovation, for technology, for higher education. The land of opportunity is still the US. I mean, what are the alternatives, right? Yeah, there's a lot of other countries. It is that that is one of the reasons that we've been a big draw. But you make this country not safe, not palatable to people around the world, and they're going to go elsewhere. they're going to go to other peer countries of the US um and bring their ingenuity, their their like potential for productivity growth. They're going to going to take it elsewhere. Excellent. Thank you very much. Where can we learn more from you, Heidi, and your work? You can go to epi.org. We'll put the link down below. So, make sure to follow the EPI there. We'll speak again soon. Heidi, welcome to the show. Take care. Thank you so much. Been my pleasure and thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.
6 Million Jobs At Risk: The Biggest Threats To Labor Market Warns Economist | Heidi Shierholz
Summary
Transcript
If the administration achieves its goal of deporting 1 million immigrants annually, the US will lose nearly 6 million jobs as a result of it over Trump's term. More than 2.5 million of those losses will be amongst USborn workers. When you're headed into a a slowdown, those revisions tend to be larger. It's not an absolute we're falling off a cliff yet, but the way I would say it is that if we were entering a recession, this is what it would look like. The US economy is navigating some key changes, including recent leadership changes at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh a new big beautiful bill budget that we can analyze with our next guest. Had Sherholes, president of the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Department of Labor under President Obama. will be getting her outlook for economic growth and policy changes. Welcome to the show, Heidi. Good to see you. It's a delight, it's a delight to be here. Thanks for being here. Um, I want to just get your outlook and your analysis of current economic trends before we get into some of the recent news. So, as you know, quarterly uh change for GDP in Q1 was only 1.2%. The annual change is 1.4% from Q2. Um, so a big uh growth from a year ago. Uh, the unemployment rate currently at 4.2%. uh the monthly change uh is slightly um yeah the below it's still below the long-term average of 5.6%. Uh but it is picking up and as you know inflation is also picking up. consumer spending um from Q1 uh currently $58 billion um is slightly higher um and the uh leading economic indicator from the conference board um is uh been trending down monthly change negative 3% uh.3% rather decline from May. where it's a little bit of conflicting data. If you just take a look at the surface, GDP on the one hand is growing considerably uh while at the same time uh consumer confidence is slightly up and like I said the LEI is slightly down. Um how are you interpreting what's going on right now? Uh it seems really clearly like a slowdown. Uh and so when you look at the GDP numbers, second quarter was strong but first quarter was largely negative large and negative. And so there were some sort of statistical artifacts causing that swing. And so it's important to look at the the overall growth rate of the first half of the year together. And when you do that, it just shows a big decline from 2024 and then the jobs numbers, right? The unemployment rate at 4.2%. That's still low, but the problem is the direction. It is rising. And what we are seeing at least in the last 3 months is we are not seeing job growth that is fast enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. That's the scary thing. So over the last 3 months, we added just 35,000 jobs per month on average. That coming out was the thing that made Trump get so angry that he actually fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accusing them of putting, you know, baselessly, accusing them of of cooking the books. Um, so it is a slowdown, but we don't, you know, I don't actually I I should I should I should qualify that in saying we could still pull out of this. It's not an absolute we're falling off a cliff yet, but the way I would say it is that if we were entering a recession, this is what it would look like. This kind of we're seeing the slowdown in GDP, we're seeing the slowdown in job growth, we're seeing the pickup in the unemployment rate. Those are the kinds of things that it would be looking like if we were headed into a recession. um too early to know for sure, but it does what we can say unambiguously is that in recent months things are growing substantially more slowly than they had been. Americans have been concerned uh about inflation. Uh although recently if you take a look at some of the surveys uh the expectation for inflation has been coming down slightly. I just want to point out something um Heidi. So in Trump's first term uh throughout 2017 to 18 when he first implemented tariffs uh the CPI uh as as released by the BLS as you can see here uh didn't significantly spike up. It wasn't until after we got the pandemic that we had this huge spike to 9.1%. I wonder if uh fears of a return to of of high inflation this time in a second term are warranted given that first the first time we had tariffs. nothing really substantial happened to the overall CPI print. Yeah, I think that that big spike during during COVID that was about the impact of COVID and also the impact of war the UK uh the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Um we are unlikely to see anything nearly that close to that with tariffs but we are very likely to see a price increase as a result of tariffs. It is that, you know, when tariffs come in, it is a tax on import. It is an increase in tax that importers pay and it's just like any other tax, right? They pay it to the um customs and border patrol, but then it goes into the US Treasury just like any other tax. Um it is technically paid by the importer, but what a whole bunch of evidence shows us is that it just gets passed on to consumers essentially. Um, and so we will expect to see prices rise. I do want to caveat all that by saying I'm not opposed to tariffs in in all situations. Like tariffs when they are used as a narrow part of a broader strategic plan like one piece of a broader strategic plan to support a domestic industry that you know we want to support strategically like say okay prices for consumers are going to be a little higher but it actually matters for us to support strategically support this industry so we're going to do tariffs like that can be a very very good use of tariffs that not what the vast majority of the Trump tariffs are. They're really high, broad, sort of across the board. And they are then as a result pretty much just doing things like disrupting supply chains and increasing prices. And we haven't we haven't seen that all show up yet, but we're starting to see the the we're starting to see that creep in. Um we I expect to see in you know increases in prices going forward but it's not going to be anything like I mean I don't have a crystal ball but I do not believe it will be anything like the spike in inflation that we saw during the pandemic. One thing that was interesting to note uh is that even though tariff revenues have dramatically increased this year uh the deficit has still widened. Um why is that? I mean, shouldn't in theory, shouldn't the offset from higher revenues and tariffs be enough to counter rising spending from the federal government? Yeah, I'm not sure about the specifics right now, but what we know is that the overall Trump agenda is going to dramatically increase the deficit. like with the the reconciliation bill they put in, you know, there's absolutely draconian cuts to Medicaid, to food stamps. Tens of millions of people or 15 million people will lose health insurance. Tens of millions of people will lose um support and purchasing groceries. Like, it's just a real attack on the most vulnerable families. And that bill is the the the tax cuts in that bill that will go primarily to the richest households are so big that even with the draconian cuts to the most vulnerable, it's still going to raise the deficit by trillions. So that is like I'm not I I can't speak to the the the changes in the deficit over these short periods, but if you look over the long haul, we are going to see an absolutely ballooning deficit. And that is because of the um going to be largely because of the huge tax cuts that will go primarily to the very wealthy that were in the rec reconciliation bill. What is uh per your research and your experience been the relationship between rising deficits or shrinking deficits for that matter and economic growth and ultimately prosperity for the middle class? Yeah, I think this I'll I'll talk about this one in particular. So I think the economic impact of the increase in the debt that we're going to see as a result of the reconciliation bill it one thing it's going to play out gradually. We're not going to see it all hit all at once. I mean, part of that is due to the fact that the bill in many cases was was sort of designed under pretty cynical political type type timelines. Like some of the tax breaks go into effect right away. Some of the like most egregious um uh and and least popular cuts to benefits go in go into effect after the midterms. Um but what we will see so that the impact will will play out gradually and I do want to be clear I am not a deficit hawk right like I am that is not the space I operate I I inhabit in the world but the explosion of debt in this bill will be really harmful and I think it's useful to think of that in for two reasons one purpose matters like if you're increasing the debt to respond to a national emergency or to make like transformative investments in things like climate or healthcare or education that will actually make our country richer and more productive in the future. I would absolutely be singing a different tune. But this debt is being taken on for the sole purpose of making the rich richer. So it's just economically indefensible. And then so that's one purpose matters and then two context matters. like the debt is already way too high in part because we recently did have to respond to a national emergency, the pandemic, and also because of the huge Bush and Trump one tax cuts. And then right now, both inflation and interest rates are too high. So that means increasing the debt further will likely lead to some combination of either higher inflation and or higher interest rates. So those things will erode workers paychecks, increase borrowing costs for families. It's just a uh um it's not good for the economy at a time like this to be increasing the deficit for no reason other than to make the rich richer in this country. Okay, let's talk about the labor market, a topic that you are an expert in. So, I'll take So, I'll take the screen uh to show you here. Uh Heidi, this is the uh wage growth tracker by the Atlanta Fed. And as you can see, it's been trending down ever since it peaked in 2022, although it is still higher than the historical average. Now, if you were still chief economist at the Labor Department, how would you reverse this trend? Well, first of all, would you even advise that to be a priority given that it's still higher than the historical average? I think that that historical average, the the median wage has been growing much more slowly, you know, over the long arc over the last four and a half decades than it should or could be. Um, the things that I would do to increase wage growth, like the this this chart that you have up here shows the median wage. The first thing I thought of though was increasing wage growth for those at the bottom. We should increase the minimum wage. The minimum wage, the federal minimum wage is an unbelievable 725 an hour. It has not been increased in over 15 years. It's just outrageous that we have a federal minimum wage that low. So, that's one thing I would immediately do. The other thing we know if you look at the really solid evidence is that unionization is incredibly important for raising the wages of the middle class. So we know good research shows that uh you workers who are in unions make more and they have better benefits than similar workers who are not in unions. So union workers who have the same characteristics like the same occupation, the same geographic area, the same industry, the same gender, race, age, experience, education level, you control for all those things. People in unions do better than people who aren't in unions. And then the other do better on wages and benefits. Um and then the other thing is in places where union density is high, in industries where union density is high, that has strong spillover effects because unions actually kind of set standards more broadly. And so that means the unions don't just raise the wages for the workers who are union members, but also for nonUN workers, workers who aren't for whatever reason able to get any union. um you that their sort of unionized brothers and sisters actually still raise their wages. So it really makes an important difference. And then the the third there's many many sort of levers to pull to to close that wage gap. But the other one that I would say is um we need to make sure unemployment remains low. Like high unemployment is very bad. Not just because people lose their jobs. It is bad because it hurts the wage growth of those with jobs. And the logic is absolutely straightforward. It's just your employer does not have to pay you as much as they otherwise would when they know you don't have outside options. Employers just do not have to pay as much to get and keep the workers that they need when unemployment is really high. Um, and that actually matters. It matters. That is true across the wage distribution. So for lowwage workers, middlewage workers, and highwage workers, but it is more true the farther down the wage distribution you go. So it's it's true for high wage workers, it's more true for middle wage workers, it's the most true for lowwage workers. So in order to, you know, get wages growing more quickly for working people, um, that's another thing that I would do. protect the economy, keep the unemployment rate from rising. Um, and what we see is that Trump policies are sort of going in the other direction. How would you respond to the argument, the counterargument that perhaps if we were to raise the minimum wage further, that could risk people getting laid off because employers can't afford to pay them more. And so that would actually increase the unemployment rate, especially at the bottom tier of income distribution. um instead we should let the free markets decide what to do and if we have a competitive labor market naturally the wages should be higher. Yeah, that is a really really important question. Um and you sort of get at the crux of it when you said you know if we have a competitive labor market then it should work itself out. The wages will be set at the market level. Um there is in labor economics there I would I would go so far as to say there is no other topic that is as studied as the impact of raising the minimum wage on employment levels and that's because we have 51 well 50 states and the District of Columbia and they're all and and cities and counties like there's like people different jurisdictions are raising their minimum wages all the time and so you have these natural experiments It's like this county raised its minimum wage and the adjacent county did not. And so you can actually really look to see what happened to wages and employment in those two counties that are essentially the same but for their minimum wage increases. And those studies that do that very carefully show that the minimum wage increases that we have seen have not caused substantial job loss. They have raised wages, but they have not caused substantial job loss. And the reason, this loops back around to your comment about in a competitive labor market, it should work itself out, right? What we know is that perfect competition is not actually a plausible approximation to how most labor markets actually work. I think economists, the economics field used to feel that, you know, Let me back up and say some of the assumptions of a competitive labor market will kind of blow your mind when you hear them. It's like so I I'll tell you a few of them. So one assumption of a competitive labor market is that employers have zero say over what wages they pay their workers. They have to pay the exact going wage. And if they pay their workers one cent less than that, that worker will be able to immediately go find another job where they are paid fairly. And that and in fact, all of their employees would actually quit and go find another job where they are paid fairly. And that employer that paid them less than, you know, that suppressed their wages would immediately go out of business. So it's just absolutely crazy assumptions, right? But but that's how economic models are. They're not always crazy assumptions, but they're stylized, right? And I think it used to be that in the economics field, most economists believed that that set of assumptions was a reasonable approximation to how the labor market works. That's no longer the case. um econ economists, the sort of broader economic field, economics field really gets that. That's a you know that's a specific case. But in most cases, particularly in the low-wage labor market, employers really do have power to set wages lower than the market clearing wage to suppress workers wages. Um and that's why when you raise the minimum wage, you don't see job loss because you're they are a they are suppressing workers wages. So when you're raising the minimum wage, you're actually getting the wages closer to an efficient wage. Um so it's so but that's regardless of the theory, that's how the empirics play out that minimum wage increases um you know, if you look at the weight of the evidence, it's really really clear they've increased wages without causing significant job loss. Well, let's talk about the data itself. As you're aware, uh Trump fired the uh BLS commissioner Erica Mccantaner last week or a week and a half ago over what he claims was rigged data. So, revisions came in. It was the biggest downward revision in I believe 50 years. Um I know revisions are a natural part of the process, but this one was exceptionally large. Trump claimed that the data was, in his words, rigged. Was it rigged? It was not rigged. It was It was absolutely not rigged. Um, one of the ironic I guess things about this is one of those reasons, one of the reasons those revisions were so large was in my mind undoubtedly because of Trump's actions to cut staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Like they have been cutting staff left and right, which mean I mean I'll just give you one example um for how this can play out. So, uh, the the data come in, the um jobs numbers come in and what I will say is that this is a survey, right? Like those these numbers, they're not mandated by law. Other countries actually have it be mandated that you have to fill out these surveys. The United States does not. These countries voluntarily um provide their data on a monthly basis to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but turns out they don't all get it in on time. So when they when the when they're when the data are supposed to come in, if there is enough staff to go run down, right, and heckle the people who have the firms that haven't gotten their data in, then we have better data, right? But you fire BLS staff and we don't have anyone or we have way fewer people to run down the people who haven't gotten their data in yet in a timely way. And so then when the data do finally start rolling in, we have much bigger revisions. So that is one one reason why we saw I'm sure I one reason why we saw unusually large revisions. Um and then the other thing I think I think it's probably both of these things combined um is that when an economy is heading into a slowdown revisions tend to be larger and that is because this also gets at the for example sometimes um businesses are slow in getting their um data in and so if there's you know if they've said I'm going to respond to the survey I just haven't gotten it in Yet the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually just imputes their data for the first the second until they have the final that you know they they always revise two months back. They they don't get all the data in and on time and so they have to impute the numbers. And so it is absolutely natural that when you're imputing the numbers, you sort of guess that I'm going to guess that what you did this month was pretty similar to what you have turned in the last few months. And when you're in a downturn, that's not necessarily good assumption or not necessarily downturn when you're in any kind of changing period in the labor market. Either it's going way down or it's going way up. that assumption that business's employment is going to be what it was last month is much less of a good assumption because there's a turning point. Um, and so that's likely also another thing that happened that as the the better data as the true data started coming in over the months when we you know you didn't have it and then as the months go by you get the data in and then the earlier data are revised totally natural appropriate process. When you're headed into a a slowdown those revisions tend to be larger. Well, you've called Trump's actions undemocratic and economically dangerous. So, uh, for our viewers watching right now, why should regular citizens who aren't economists care who's running the BLS and whether or not they're getting fired? Yeah, it's a good question and it it does point to it feels like most of the people in this country don't know what the Bureau of Labor Statistics is. Nobody would be able to name a Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, right? like there it's just sort of goes under the radar because it's absolutely independent nonpartisan. They It's 2,000 data geeks. And I say that with utmost respect. 2,000 data geeks who work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not political. What they are doing is just trying to get the best measure of our giant complex economy. And that is a really hard job and they are committed to it like like so unbelievably committed to it. That's one of the reasons that I'm confident that the data have not been manipulated yet because I have zero doubt that if somebody does try to manipulate the data, we will have 2,000 whistleblowers. like that is the kind of commitment to the integrity, the credibility, the nonpartisanship of the numbers that you see among the civil servants at BLS. Um, and so, and I actually forgot your question because I started going off onto No, you kind of answered it. I think the question was whether or not this ultimately has any political and/or grandstanding economic implication. I'm talking about the firing of the chief ultimately. Why should we as citizens who aren't get data geeks so to speak, why should we care that this happened? Yeah. Okay, that thank you for reminding me. So it is um so having that independent nonpartisan just we are just measuring the data kind of organization which we had like BLS absolutely the envy of the world in terms of its ability to put out timely accurate statistics. Um, when you don't have that, your economy is going to run less well because our e economy runs on reliable data. Period. So, the Federal Reserve and other macroeconomic policy makers use the data to make really impactful decisions about our about macroeconomic policy. Private businesses use it to make decisions about hiring and expansion to know which way things are going. you know, state and local governments use it to make plans to to plan to make plans about about where things are heading. It just everyone needs accurate nonpartisan data in order to make their plans. And when we don't have that, reasonable, responsible economic decision-m becomes impossible. It becomes So your argument is that the firing was partisan. It wasn't due to the fact that Trump Well, forget the fact that he called it rigged. Trump called it rigged. Let's just take that aside. Maybe the argument here is that maybe he fired uh the commissioner because there is a belief that there needs to be reform at the BLS. The quality of the data gathered recently is not up to par and so therefore we've had these large revisions making the data unreliable. So she deserved to be fired due to incompetence is the argument. How would you say how how would you respond to that? Yeah, that's just wrong. She's just, you know, had bipartisan support. She's very very much in the line of the entire history of BLS commissioners. The very large revision that we saw had to do with those two things I mentioned. One, the cuts at BLS meant there is just less staff to try to pull together this giant like we're trying to measure what's going on in all the businesses in the US economy. It is just a giant undertaking and it has to happen really fast. So there's just fewer people that you know we've cut staff, fewer people who are available to do that work. Um and you know when when you're heading into a downturn which we may be revisions tend to be larger. So I think it is not about uh Erica the the the um Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner that was just fired. It is about the actions that Doge took to try to to try to you know shrink the Bureau of and they are successfully shrinking the Bureau of Labor Statistics staff and the direction of the economy itself. Well, would you let's say if you were, you know, head of the u chief economist of the labor uh labor department again, would you help to design a system for surveying that could be a little more efficient and perhaps provide incentives for people to participate in these surveys so there the data is even more extensive or more timely? Basically, would you reform the process at all? Yes, I think and I think if you were um talking with any BLS person, they could talk at length about things that could be done to improve data collection, to improve data production, to improve timeliness. Like they are a bunch of professionals. When you're putting out a product, you always know what can be done to be to make it better. One of the things those things to make it better cost money. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been starved most recently by Doge to a huge extent, but it didn't start there. Like the Bureau of Labor Statistics has lost funding or had, you know, flat funding or not as big of increases as would be needed to keep up with like rising prices, etc. for a very long time. So, it's just an agency that's been absolutely running on a shoestring, but 100% if you were taking good faith folks about is there anything that could be done to improve the quality of data, you could have a fantastic, you know, like brainstorming session that maybe just one thing. What what's one thing that comes to your mind? Um, I mean, one this is not doable in this country, but one thing that comes to my mind. Yeah, I I'll I'll I'll say that, but then I'll go on to something for real. One thing that comes to mind is um mandating it. Have Congress mandate that people have to fill out the surveys. But then another thing would be better engagement of businesses. Like if we have businesses out there at the forefront saying, "People, you absolutely need to fill out these surveys, that could really help." you know, you have the big banks out there with with PSAs about how businesses need to be filling out. You can see so that kind of outreach could make a difference. Um, and that's just one very small example. Like there are just a lot of things that could be done. I'm in no way saying that BLS is perfect. Um, but they are the envy of the world. like they do a they can always improve like any large organization can that's that's doing a lot of work. Um okay but they are the envy of the world. Perfect. Uh before we close off, I want to just touch on this report uh that uh the economic policy institute institute published about uh the deportation of unauthorized immigrants in the economy and in the country rather and the effect of that on the economy. It's a rather extens extensive piece of research. Um a few FAQs so to speak that maybe you can address. First is that if we deport unauthorized immigrants, it automatically opens up jobs to Americans, thereby increasing labor force participation. Can you comment on that? Yeah, that's not what's going to happen overall. Um, so in the reconciliation bill, there's extreme immigration provisions. I think there's something that people don't know is that it increased the ICE budget so that ICE is nearly three times the size of the FBI. It makes the reconciliation budget made ICE larger than the military budgets of all but 15 countries on Earth. It's just a remarkable increase. It's like authoritarian style immigration regime, interament camps, massive deportation operations, you know, the whole thing. Um, it I I personally believe that is a moral catastrophe, but it will also be an economic one. It will cost jobs. So, if the administration achieves its goal of deporting 1 million immigrants annually, the US will lose nearly 6 million jobs as a result of it over Trump's um over Trump's term. And this is another thing. More than two and a half million of those losses will be amongst usborn workers. And those numbers are big because deportations they don't just affect those who are being deported. They and they don't just affect immigrant communities, right? They ripple up and down supply chains. They ripple throughout the entire economy. So one way to think of this is when there are fewer immigrant roofers and framers, fewer homes get built. So electricians and plumbers and painters and everyone else loses work too. And so you that's the like sort of classic example of this ripple effect. And then deportations also reduce consumer demand. We obviously lose the spending of those who are being deported, but those who fear deportation also spend less and on and on and on. It has ripple effects. So, it will be a massive drag on the economy. So, I mean that that that makes sense Heidi, but what is the middle ground here? So, on the one hand, if we massport everybody all at once, that will have, as you've pointed out, an immediate impact on the labor force. But on the other hand, uh you know, we can't have undocumented immigrants in the country. So what should be done? Uh so I think we need to to to sort of have we need comprehensive immigration reform. We need comprehensive immigration reform that will have a path to citizenship for people who are already here and much tighter, smarter borders. Like that combination of things is the path forward to for the country. And it has to happen on all on all sides. Like one of the things that that we are seeing that the Trump administration is doing and and hoping to do is to deport, you know, millions of workers and then bring in workers on temporary guest worker visas. These and that is that kind of policy is terrible. That is a bad bad approach to immigration. And one of the reasons why is many of those workers who are on temporary visas, they have zero power. They have in many cases if they comp if they're not being treated well at work, if they complain in any way, if they lose they can if they their if their employer then fires them, they can just be deported. So they have zero power and that hurts not just their like wages and work working conditions. It hurts the wages and working conditions of US-born workers that are working alongside them. So that is like we need to make sure that we have a path to citizenship immigrants with full rights in our economy because otherwise you know having a class of exploitable workers hurts not just those workers it hurts it that's it has huge ripple effects through the economy. So having a path to citizenship for people here, not beefing up the temporary guest worker visas and then being really smart about border control. Uh I'm going to end on this uh note here. the um founder of Singapore uh one of the founding fathers Lee Kong Yu had uh made a famous quote that he said the US will likely stay preeminent because of the fact that immigrants come into the country top talent from around the world. I wonder just dovetailing off of that quote I wonder how the recent changes to immigration policy could impact long-term uh the future of immigration into the US. Yeah, that's a scary thought because I think that is absolutely right. Like the US has been the beneficiary of brain drains in the rest of the world, right? Like not in the entire rest of the world but in in for many many countries. Um and the loss of that will reduce our growth, will reduce our productivity growth, will just make us poorer over the long run. I hope that um what Trump is doing will be able to be reversed. Um when will there be a loss of proper immigration because of these policies? Will that be affected? I yes I think I I think the answer is absolute yes and then the question is to what degree like how much will it actually end up hurting us going forward and that depends on I think how soon we are able to undo what's been happening I mean one of the things that I just saw with the this is a little bit of a different question but um it kind of gets at this overall uh the idea that you know we have a big military presence in Washington DC right now as a result of you know Trump calling in the National Guard into DC. Um so you know the claim is we're making it safer where like what you see if you look at restaurant spending it has absolutely plummeted in Washington DC. People are scared to be out in Washington DC right now. And so that's a little bit different, but it sort of gets at when you do these kinds of measures, people don't want to go to where you are. People want to go somewhere else where they feel safe. And so I think we are absolutely going to be seeing that. And the question will be just how soon will we be able to reverse these policies um will help dictate how long-term the damage this country is. Well, just one final note before we go. Uh Heidi, uh proponents of Trump's immigration policies would say, "Well, where would they go? I mean, America is still the dominant center for innovation, for technology, for higher education. The land of opportunity is still the US. I mean, what are the alternatives, right? Yeah, there's a lot of other countries. It is that that is one of the reasons that we've been a big draw. But you make this country not safe, not palatable to people around the world, and they're going to go elsewhere. they're going to go to other peer countries of the US um and bring their ingenuity, their their like potential for productivity growth. They're going to going to take it elsewhere. Excellent. Thank you very much. Where can we learn more from you, Heidi, and your work? You can go to epi.org. We'll put the link down below. So, make sure to follow the EPI there. We'll speak again soon. Heidi, welcome to the show. Take care. Thank you so much. Been my pleasure and thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.