Immigration and the economy

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Roughly, growth is growth of the labor force + growth of labor productivity. How are these doing? Not very well:

The economy’s potential growth rate is constrained by two factors: the growth of the labor force (dark green bars) and the pace of productivity improvements (bright blue bars). Together, the two add up to the potential growth rate. Both are extremely weak now, and neither can be changed quickly by Washington.

Donald Trump’s top economic advisers don’t want you to know this, but the only way he can fulfill his promise to get the economy growing at 3% to 4% is to give more jobs to Mexicans. It’s a matter of economics, demographics and arithmetic.

There are only two ways to get the economy to move faster over a sustained period: Hire more workers, or make the workers we have more productive. Those two factors — working harder and working smarter — determine the economy’s potential growth rate, or its speed limit. Potential growth is the sustainable level of output that the economy can supply, and right now it’s below 2%.

Sorry, Mr. Trump, but the only way to get to 3% growth is to hire more Mexicans - MarketWatch