Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has promised that his economic plan would raise the U.S. GDP by 4 percent annually, a Herculean feat that hasn’t been accomplished in decades.
Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that Bush’s plan depends on opening the floodgates to millions of new immigrants a year, which would reduce the income of low-skilled Americans, but raise the overall GDP of the country.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor told Bloomberg that increasing immigration does not guarantee improved living standards, since more people share a larger economic pie.
“Definitely, growing the population does a lot for GDP! But not much for GDP per capita (probably lowers it),” Autor said in an e-mail.
“Immigration is not incidental to Bush’s growth strategy. It’s fundamental,” Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg wrote.
University California at Davis economist Giovanni Peri estimated that in order for Bush’s economic plan to succeed, he would have to increase legal immigration from the 1.7 million in 2014 to over 4 million.
