Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) has long expressed hostility to immigration, even legal immigration, in the face of declines in birth rates in the United States. Since being elevated to serve as Donald Trump’s running mate, his hostility has manifested in more aggressive ways, most notably in his recent elevation of baseless claims that immigrants in a small town in his state — again, legal immigrants — are eating other people’s pets and otherwise making life in the area worse.
The political goal is unsubtle, certainly. Even when presented with the fact that no evidence of the alleged pet-eating in Springfield, Ohio, exists, Vance encouraged his and Trump’s supporters to continue hyping the claim anyway. Elevating the idea that immigrants are scary or harmful is central to Trump’s politics, particularly this year.
But it also means that Vance ends up meandering into some dubious territory. As when he was asked during an interview on CNBC whether he didn’t acknowledge that there are also positive economic aspects to immigration.
“If the path to prosperity was flooding your nation with low-wage immigrants,” Vance replied, “then Springfield, Ohio, would be the most prosperous country — the most prosperous city in the world. America would be the most prosperous country in the world, because Kamala Harris has flooded the country with 25 million illegal aliens.”
The claim that “Harris has flooded the country with 25 million illegal aliens” is false for multiple reasons. First, that Harris is not centrally responsible for the administration’s immigration policies (overheated rhetoric about being “border czar” notwithstanding). Second, the total is wildly inflated, counting people stopped at the border among the “flood.” The actual number of immigrants entering the country — many of whom are given permission to stay while asylum claims are adjudicated — is far lower. Though, again, the immigrants at issue in Springfield, most of whom are from Haiti, are here legally and permitted to work, making them more obvious contributors to the economy than those without work permits.
But the most clearly ludicrous claim from Vance is his assessment that America isn’t the most prosperous country in the world. It is. And immigration plays an obvious role in that.
Data from the World Bank demonstrates the United States’ ongoing leadership on the metric of gross domestic product, the numeric proxy for “prosperity.” This country has the highest GDP by far and has had it for some time.
Vance, a former venture capitalist, might be expected to know this. And as he continued his answer, he moved the goal posts a bit, suggesting that while eggheads or people who work at a “Wall Street bank” might think America is prosperous, the Biden administration has overseen “skyrocketing inflation, lower take-home pay” and dissatisfaction with the economy. (That last complaint is heavily partisan and driven by claims like Vance’s, so we can set it aside.)
Inflation has risen since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s true. It is also true that this is not unique to the United States. And it is the case that the country’s median, inflation-adjusted annual income jumped to more than $80,000 in 2023, recovering to levels last seen before the pandemic hit. Vance refers to “take-home pay,” which is a way to double-dip on the inflation critique, since rising wages are moderated by rising prices. That said, income increases have been outpacing inflation for some time.
What’s critical to note here is that American prosperity is intertwined with historic immigration patterns — and that, moving forward, immigration will be essential to continued prosperity.
The most obvious reason is that America is getting older. The youngest baby boomers turn 60 this year; the oldest turn 78. America is getting grayer, with more people relying on taxpayer-funded programs for seniors, even as a smaller percentage of the population is paying taxes. Vance wants way more American-born babies to fill that working-age population hole. But immigration remains a central U.S. advantage in increasing our population and meeting that need.
As for his assertion that it was somehow ludicrous to think that immigration and prosperity were linked, we can again look at the numbers. There is no correlation between the most-prosperous countries in the world and the percentage of their populations that is foreign born, it’s true. The chart below, contrasting GDP (vertical axis) with foreign-born populations (horizontal) just shows countries all over the place.
But if we adjust for population size, a correlation emerges. Countries with the higher percentages of foreign-born workers among the most prosperous countries are also those with the most GDP per resident. (Notice that the countries form more of a line, though the United States is still an outlier.)
The causation here doesn’t necessarily run in that direction; more prosperous countries are more appealing places for immigrants to seek out, as the United States has seen over the past half-century. But it is the case that immigration and prosperity overlap.
Vance is a politician, one running as part of a ticket predicated on presenting immigration as a central problem for the country and a central failing by his and Trump’s opponents. As such, Vance once again ends up wandering into dubious territory, this time suggesting that the country is not the wealthiest and most economically powerful in the world.
Not every American is wealthy, sure, even on a global standard. But it is broadly true that Americans enjoy more prosperity than residents of other countries — and that immigrants to the United States contribute to that prosperity.
