In a conversation on X with Elon Musk, former President Donald Trump touched upon several topics, including immigration and what policies he would put in place if reelected.

Brookings Institution senior fellow in economic studies Wendy Edelberg joins Catalysts to give insight Trump's remarks over immigration and how it may impact the labor market.

"Generally speaking, the US economy does not do well with abrupt changes of any kind. Let alone massive increases in outmigration. So that would have very significant negative effects for labor supply," Edelberg says.

Edelberg gives context to the latest US jobless claims numbers and the part has immigration played in the print: "You're absolutely right that the immigration surge should fundamentally change how we interpret the employment report. So these are very significant increases in labor supply that we've seen. And the result is that if you were coming into 2023, 2024 with the kind of number in mind of like 100,000 a month in employment gains in payroll job growth is a good number. Now, double that."

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This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino