Trump immigrant purge could cut social security for Americans by $2,000 a year

Elderly Americans can expect to lose an average of $2,152 in annual social security benefits each, a projected 8.6% reduction in their retirement payments, by 2034 and every year after as a direct consequence of the economic fallout from the Trump administration's anti-immigration campaign , if that carries on, according to a new report shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Already, US food prices are up, housing permits to build new homes are down – and even native-born Americans are losing out on potential jobs after the sudden exodus of 1.2 million foreign-born workers over the last two years as a result of Donald Trump's policies, the report finds.

"When the Trump administration says things, it's not always data-driven. And we wanted to see what the data shows, and what other people have found the data shows," said Michael Ettlinger, one of the report's authors. "Turns out that refutes what the US president primarily is asserting."

The blowback on the economy from Donald Trump's crackdown is wide-ranging, even as the federal government's aggressive mass deportation campaign quietly ramps up further .

"We are just beginning to see the harms in terms of what is happening here domestically. But the impacts of these policies, of these efforts, are going to be long-lasting. And I think that is by design," Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the pro-immigration reform organization America's Voice, told the Guardian.

The report, Economic Impacts of Trump Administration Immigration Policy, was commissioned by America's Voice and conducted by researchers at Economic Insights and Research Consulting, a firm focused on economic analysis.

Its conclusions underscore how recent federal policies revoking immigrants' legal protections or targeting them for enforcement have had dire effects on the nation's affordability crisis and job market, especially in regions and industries that rely disproportionately on foreign-born workers.

In the US agricultural sector, where 42% of crop workers are undocumented and 68% are foreign-born, farmers across the country are warning that the vast majority or in some cases all of their workforce has disappeared overnight, leaving produce to fall to, or rot in, the ground and go to waste .

Food products heavily reliant on immigrant labor have experienced much sharper price increases than food overall since Trump retook the White House, according to the report.