{"id":5252,"date":"2026-07-13T18:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T13:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=5252"},"modified":"2026-07-13T18:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T13:54:17","slug":"immigration-pushed-up-home-prices-under-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=5252","title":{"rendered":"Immigration pushed up home prices under Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"zephr-anchor\">\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">President Donald Trump blames immigrants for virtually every problem in American economic life. In the president\u2019s telling, the undocumented have been taking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/clip\/campaign-2024\/trump-on-illegal-immigrants-theyre-taking-your-jobs\/5133406\">American-born citizens\u2019 jobs<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/address-the-nation-border-security\">lowering their wages<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/2024-republican-party-platform\">driving up their costs<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanprogressaction.org\/article\/donald-trump-is-lying-about-immigrants-and-social-security-medicare\/\">bankrupting their welfare programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">These claims are largely false.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peri.umass.edu\/publication\/item\/1050-is-it-merely-a-labor-supply-shock-impacts-of-syrian-migrants-on-local-economies-in-turkey\">studies<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.su.se\/polopoly_fs\/1.123856.1360740401!\/menu\/standard\/file\/SULCIS%20WP%2020131.pdf\">suggest<\/a> that <a href=\"http:\/\/ftp.iza.org\/dp8961.pdf\">immigrants<\/a> do not typically reduce <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/2696462\">wages<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nber.org\/system\/files\/working_papers\/w13276\/w13276.pdf\">job opportunities<\/a> for the American-born \u2014 and actually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/blog\/cato-study-immigrants-reduced-deficits-145-trillion-1994\">pay <em>more<\/em> in taxes<\/a> than they receive in social welfare benefits (this is especially true of <em>undocumented<\/em> immigrants, due to their ineligibility for Social Security and Medicare).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">But there is at least <em>one<\/em> way that immigration really can hurt American-born people economically: When migrants come to a locality in large numbers, they can push up housing costs for longtime residents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The president called attention to that fact earlier this week. In a Truth Social <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116870641369607573\">post Sunday<\/a>, Trump wrote, \u201cFed Reserve working paper suggests Biden illegal immigrant wave drove up home prices 30%.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Here, the president was garbling the findings of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasfed.org\/~\/media\/documents\/research\/papers\/2026\/wp2607.pdf\">a recently published Dallas Federal Reserve study<\/a>, which mostly contradicts his narrative about immigration\u2019s economic harms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Still, that paper <em>did<\/em> find that unauthorized immigration pushed up both rents and home prices during the Biden era (albeit by much less than Trump claimed).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">This is a real problem. Yet, the solution is not to close America\u2019s borders. Throttling immigration would make America less prosperous, while doing little to make housing more affordable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Fortunately, there is a way to secure immigration\u2019s considerable economic benefits while limiting its more modest downsides: We can simply make it easier to build more homes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">What the Dallas Fed study actually shows<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The spike in unauthorized immigration under Biden was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/11\/briefing\/us-immigration-surge.html\">genuinely massive.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Between 2021 and 2024, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasfed.org\/~\/media\/documents\/research\/papers\/2026\/wp2607.pdf\">seven million<\/a> unauthorized immigrants settled in the United States. Put differently, America added 1.75 million unauthorized migrants per year during this period. For context, between 2000 and 2019, the US added an average of 0.1 million annually.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The extraordinary scale of the Biden-era wave provided researchers at the Dallas Fed with a unique opportunity to gauge unauthorized migration\u2019s material consequences. Drawing on court records that revealed where immigrants had settled, the economists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasfed.org\/~\/media\/documents\/research\/papers\/2026\/wp2607.pdf\">examined<\/a> how local economic trends varied between places with more or fewer migrants, controlling for other variables.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">As the president suggested, the immigration spike had some adverse impacts on local housing markets. Between early 2021 and early 2024, unauthorized migration pushed up the average American municipality\u2019s home prices by 6.6 percent (not <em>30 percent<\/em>, as Trump claimed) and its market rents by 4.3 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In some contexts, rising home prices aren\u2019t entirely unwelcome. Immigrants have helped spur <a href=\"https:\/\/unidosus.org\/blog\/2024\/08\/28\/immigration-helping-revitalize-mid-sized-cities\/\">the economic revival<\/a> of many declining localities, which had previously suffered large drops in population, and, thus, in tax revenues and job opportunities. When such communities become more economically vibrant, property values tend to rebound \u2014 a welcome development for local homeowners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Nevertheless, many American cities currently suffer from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/417892\/suburbs-sunbelt-housing-affordability-yimby\">perennial crises of housing unaffordability<\/a>. And the Fed\u2019s research suggests that the Biden-era immigration surge made this problem worse, accounting for 30 percent of the overall increase in home prices during the period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">That\u2019s significant, even as other factors played a collectively bigger role, among them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbre.com\/insights\/books\/2022-us-construction-cost-trends\/04-labor-market-trends\">tight post-pandemic labor markets,<\/a> the soaring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbre.com\/insights\/books\/2022-us-construction-cost-trends\">cost of construction materials,<\/a> a jump in demand for floor space <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/opub\/mlr\/2023\/beyond-bls\/remote-work-to-blame-for-rise-in-housing-prices.htm\">due to remote work<\/a> (as middle-class families sought larger homes to accommodate home offices), and America\u2019s pre-existing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/459236\/housing-shortage-yimby-zoning-abundance-labor-tariffs\">housing shortage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">This finding is consistent with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/blog\/jd-vance-correct-immigration-increases-housing-prices-thats-ok\">past research<\/a> into immigration\u2019s impact on housing costs. And it is also intuitive, given the inherent and artificial constraints on housing construction in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">After all, cities can add new residents much faster than they can build new housing. When a large number of immigrants show up in a city all at once, demand for homes will inevitably grow quicker than supply.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In a healthy housing market, this would merely be a short-term problem. Eventually, rising home values would encourage more building until prices fell back towards their pre-surge trajectory. Recent trends in Austin, Texas, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/485295\/austin-national-rents-declining-yimby\">are a case in point<\/a>. Between 2021 and 2025, rents in that city fell by 4 percent, even as its population increased, thanks to a boom in housing construction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In most US cities, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/417892\/suburbs-sunbelt-housing-affordability-yimby\">land-use rules<\/a> make it functionally impossible for housing supply to keep pace with demand. Bans on the construction of apartment buildings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22297328\/affordable-housing-nimby-housing-prices-rising-poll-data-for-progress\">large minimum lot size<\/a> requirements, and other rules effectively cap the amount of housing that can be erected, no matter how much the population rises. Under these conditions, the Trumpian vision of immigration \u2014 in which American-born people and new arrivals are locked in a zero-sum struggle for scarce resources \u2014 becomes a little more true.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">Slashing immigration is not the answer<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">It would be a mistake to respond to this by throttling immigration rather than fixing our housing markets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Immigration is still economically beneficial for Americans on the whole. In truth, the Dallas Fed\u2019s study does more to undermine nativists\u2019 arguments than to support them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">According to that paper, the Biden-era migration wave did not take a fixed set of jobs from American-born people. Rather, it added roughly as many new jobs as new workers to local economies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Which makes some sense: Immigrant workers do not just provide goods and services, but also consume them. Thus, although they increase an area\u2019s labor supply, they also boost its labor demand, sparking job growth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Further, contrary to nativists\u2019 expectations, unauthorized immigration had no statistically significant impact on local wages during the Biden era and drove <em>down <\/em>government transfer spending per capita in impacted localities, likely because undocumented immigrants are ineligible for many social welfare programs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Meanwhile, we know from previous research that immigration benefits economies in myriad ways, not least by fostering <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nber.org\/papers\/w15507\">a more efficient division of labor<\/a> and, thus, higher productivity. This is partly because immigrants are far <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/research\/immigrants-contribute-greatly-to-us-economy-despite-administrations-public-charge-rule\">more willing to move<\/a> in response to shifting economic conditions than American-born workers, which makes them uniquely effective <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2001\/01\/2001a_bpea_borjas.pdf\">at filling gaps<\/a> in local labor markets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">More critically, as the American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/a\/new-economy-future\/aging-population-slow-growth\">population ages<\/a> in the coming decades, our nation\u2019s ratio of workers-to-retirees is set to fall. That will make supporting seniors\u2019 pensions and health care cost more onerous for the young while also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/a\/new-economy-future\/aging-population-slow-growth\">depressing economic growth<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/publication\/59933\">boosting deficits<\/a>. Welcoming more working-age immigrants into America is the simplest way to mitigate these problems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In any case, choking off immigration would do little to resolve America\u2019s housing crisis. After all, even during a historic surge in unauthorized entries, 70 percent of the increase in home prices \u2014 and 80 percent of the rise in market rents \u2014 was due to factors other than immigration, according to the Dallas Fed\u2019s report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Thus, if we want to maximize Americans\u2019 prosperity, we need to find a way to reconcile robust immigration with affordable housing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">This will probably require avoiding another abrupt surge in unauthorized migration, like that which transpired under Biden. Rapid, disorderly spikes in irregular immigration are politically toxic and economically disruptive. Even in a well-functioning housing market, a sudden jump in population will generate short-term price spikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Above all, however, we must pare back barriers to homebuilding. Until we do, housing will remain unaffordable in much of America, no matter how few immigrants we take in \u2014 and policymakers may struggle to sell voters on high levels of legal immigration, no matter how many facts they have on their side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump blames immigrants for virtually every problem in American economic life. In the president\u2019s telling, the undocumented have been taking American-born citizens\u2019 jobs, lowering their wages, driving up their costs, and bankrupting their welfare programs. These claims are largely false. Most studies suggest that immigrants do not typically reduce wages or job opportunities&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2283383070.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.732984293194%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}