Exclusive — Secretary Scott Bessent on More American Workers, Fewer Layoffs, Higher Wages Under Trump: ‘Big Lie Was that Mass Unfettered Immigration Did Not Affect the Bottom Workers’

Halting mass immigration to the United States through fierce immigration enforcement and rapid deportations has resulted in more jobs and higher wages for the nation’s bottom 25 percent of wage-earners, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at Breitbart News’s State of the Economy event on Tuesday in Washington.

“We’re seeing, too, somehow supply and demand does matter in the labor market, especially when it comes to immigration,” Bessent told Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle and Breitbart News Finance and Economics Editor John Carney.

“We are seeing that workers without a college degree — their wages, their employment situation is the best that it’s been in over a decade, back to President Trump’s first term,” Bessent said. “And we’re seeing the bottom 25 percent of wage earners, the wages increased almost 3.5 or three times more than the top 25 percent, with a median at about three and a half.”

“So, somehow, when we stopped the mass unfettered immigration, and add 2-3 million deportations, working Americans make more money and have more jobs,” Bessent said.

Carney recently detailed key findings of the August jobs report, showing average hourly earnings jumped 3.1 percent over the last year, with private-sector employees earning an average of $37.75 an hour — indicating that average weekly earnings stood at nearly $1,300.

Meanwhile, the number of foreign-born workers holding American jobs has dropped by nearly a million, or about 3.1 percent, since President Donald Trump took office.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.