The Postpandemic U.S. Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications
The U.S. experienced an extraordinary surge in immigration from 2021 to 2024, which triggered widespread discussions about its macroeconomic impact, particularly on inflation. To determine the impact of the immigration surge, we first document the salient features of these new immigrants: they are primarily low-skilled relative to the existing workforce and more likely to be hand-to-mouth consumers. We then incorporate these features into a heterogeneous agent model with capital-skill complementarity. We find that the supply- and demand-side effects of the immigration surge roughly cancel out, causing a negligible response of inflation.
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Copy CitationAnton Cheremukhin, Sewon Hur, Ronald R. Mau, Karel Mertens, Alexander W. Richter, and Xiaoqing Zhou, "The Postpandemic U.S. Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications," NBER Working Paper 35168 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35168.Download Citation
Published Versions
Forthcoming: The Postpandemic US Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications, Anton Cheremukhin, Sewon Hur, Ronald Mau, Karel Mertens, Alexander W. Richter, Xiaoqing Zhou. in NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2026, volume 41, Leahy, Ramey, and Violante. 2026
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