President Biden committed Thursday to “welcome 100,000 Ukrainians to the United States with a focus on reuniting families.” That’s a good start, and it sounds like a large figure. Yet it’s less than 3% of the total refugees. Spread across the U.S., it breaks down to 2,000 per state, and New York is a pretty big place, to say nothing of Texas or California.

Why not welcome more? Past waves of refugees, including from Cuba and Vietnam, have found success here while enriching the fabric of American life. Many if not most Ukrainians may want to return home after the war ends, but meantime the U.S. gets a talent boom.

U.S. officials say the Ukrainians could arrive via a range of legal pathways, and if Mr. Biden wanted to go substantially higher, perhaps he would need to consult Congress. The U.S. has a labor shortage, and the Labor Department said Thursday the number of people getting unemployment benefits is at its lowest level since 1970. Go for it, Mr. President.