From Wolf Street, December 19:
Total Employment to be substantially revised higher early 2025 when the BLS incorporates these up-revisions into its household survey employment data.
The Census Bureau released its updated population estimates with data through July 2024 today, which corrected its vastly underestimated figure of immigrants for the past few years.
The prior Census Bureau data had so inadequately measured the tsunami of immigrants in 2021 through 2024 that it left policy makers, such as the Fed, in the dark about the supply of labor, employment, etc. To provide some insights, the Congressional Budget Office released its own estimates of population growth earlier this year, by incorporating data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Today’s data by the Census Bureau confirms that it was truly a tsunami of immigrants that washed over the land. And now it’s official.
The US population surged by 8 million people in the three years from July 2021 through July 2024, to 340.1 million, according to the updated estimates from the Census Bureau today.
The 3.3 million net increase over the 12 months through July 2024 was the largest in decades. And the biggest portion of increases came from net-immigration (those that came in minus those that left or were removed):
- 2022: +1.92 million, incl. 1.69 million net immigration
- 2023: +2.80 million, incl. 2.29 million net immigration
- 2024: +3.31 million, incl. 2.79 million net immigration
In terms of the 2.79 million net immigration in the 12 months through July 2024, the Census Bureau said in its note about the improved methodology that this was “significantly higher than our previous estimates, in large part because we’ve improved our methodology to better capture the recent fluctuations in net international migration,” by among other things using “newly available administrative data [including from the Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs and Refugee Processing Center; and from Homeland Security] to adjust the usually survey-based estimates of foreign-born immigration.”
“Improved integration of federal data sources on immigration has enhanced our estimates methodology,” The Census Bureau said.
All immigration figures here are regardless of legal status.
In percentage terms, the population increased by nearly 1% over the 12 months through July 2024, the biggest percentage increase since 2001.
Over the three years through July 2024, the population increased by 2.4% (by 8.0 million people):
Coming Up-Revisions of Total Employment & Labor Force.
Early next year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will incorporate these new population data into its employment-related data obtained from the household survey and substantially revise up its figures for labor force, total employment, and unemployment, and the metrics derived from those....
....MUCH MORE
If I had to take an over/under bet I would guess the new Census Bureau number is still low by at least 5 million and maybe as many as 10 million people.
