An economic aide to Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent explained how the deportation policies of President Donald Trump will lead to wage gains for U.S. workers, in an interview with Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck.
Joseph Lavorgna tackled the argument from skeptics that illegal alien low-wage labor is not a significant drag on U.S. wages.
‘There’s no below-market-based rate, so the economics are pretty solid. … You should see nominal wage growth accelerate.’
“Speak to somebody who [doesn’t] believe the talking point that illegal immigration actually suppressed U.S. wages,” said Beck.
“Well, it’s very simple. … If a worker comes in illegally, that allows the employer to pay [him or her] a below-average wage rate. And in turn, that resets the market lower for everybody else,” Lavorgna explained.
“Put another way, if a firm does not have access to abundant — and we can even call it ‘exploitative’ — labor, then those wages economically, [the] microeconomics are such, you have to pay more,” he added. “You’re not kind of [flouting] the law. And what that allows then is for wages to be naturally higher, and what happens is U.S. workers then get paid a fair … market-based rate.”
Raising U.S. wages has been a focus of the Trump administration. On Tuesday the Treasury Department reported that real wage growth had made enormous gains in the first five months of Trump’s second term.
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Blue collar wage growth is at a nearly 60-year HIGH. Are Trump’s deportations to thank? @SecScottBessent‘s counselor @Lavorgnanomics explains: “If a firm does not have access to abundant – exploitative – labor…US workers then get paid a fair, market-based rate.” pic.twitter.com/DvpVvy925O
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) June 18, 2025
“There’s no below-market-based rate. So the economics are pretty solid, and Sec. Bessent has highlighted that,” Lavorgna continued.
Some economists argue that migrants, both legal and illegal, benefit the economy by driving prices down through their low-wage labor.
In an interview on a New York Post podcast, Bessent made the case that wage growth during the Biden administration was suppressed because of illegal aliens streaming in.
“Biden opened the border, and it was flooded,” said Bessent. “And for working Americans, that’s a disaster because it’s pressure on their wages.”
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