Why the U.S. Needs Immigrants
This might be only tangentially related to personal finance, so please bear with me for a second.
I was watching just a bit of the Republican presidential debate when they were discussing a current hot button issue - immigration. I wasn’t surprised that every one of the candidates who spoke on this were pandering to voters without much information about the actual situation.
The simple fact is, to maintain anything like our current economy in the future, the U.S. needs immigrants. Lots of them.
Math explains why. Women need to have 2.1 live births each to sustain a population. Currently, native-born U.S. women have about 2.0. Without immigration, our population would be shrinking or, at best, constant.
Big deal, you say. So the population stays the same. More for the rest of us, right? Wrong.
The big word in economics is growth. Without it, your economy is dead. You get growth by selling more stuff. You need more people to buy more stuff. Manpower is one of the factors of production we all learned about in macroeconomics class.
But wait! There’s more.
It gets worse. Much worse.
Without a growing population, your current one ages. Rapidly.
That’s bad because you have fewer and fewer workers supporting more and more retirees. Right now, there are 3.5 workers per retiree, more or less. By 2040, that number drops to 2 to 1. You think your payroll taxes are high now? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
In short, I think many people have the immigration issue all wrong. We need to be encouraging immigration, not trying to inhibit it.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Do unskilled Americans need immigrants?
In my area, rents were up 6 percent last year, and are projected to rise 8/5 percent this year and an additional 5 percent next year.
We have a lot of recent immigrants here, and I think immigration is a ,ajor force driving up rents.
Can unskilled Americans afford immigration?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
On the other hand, if you keep growing the population in a limited area (the size of the country is not increasing), you will run against a limit. Growth measured by quantity is not sustainable in the long run. A better solution would be to increase the quality of the people. Many countries do that by only accepting qualified/skilled immigrants. Another solution is to encourage unskilled natives to leave the country. That would be political suicide if suggested directly, but we already see Americans retiring to lower cost of living countries like Mexico or Thailand, so that’s the way it will be done.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Another solution is to encourage unskilled natives to leave the country. That would be political suicide if suggested directly, but we already see Americans retiring to lower cost of living countries like Mexico or Thailand, so that’s the way it will be done.
I have long considered this, BUT, you put your finger on the problem.
RETIREES are doing it, but WORKERS cannot do it. Other countries will allow retirees to enter, but not unskilled workers.
My solution would be to require some level of reciprocity: if we allow N immigrants from country X, in return country X should be required to allow in some number of American workers to. I wouldn’t require 1-for-1 reciprocity, but maybe allowing 1/10 as many American workers to go the other direction would be reasonable.
And how about helping unskilled natives get skills? Back when employers and headhunters were frantically looking for IT help with Y2K issues, I was waving my arms like a maniac, here I am, I have skills and I’m available. (My skills were 30 years old and not used on the job, so they didn’t want me.)
December 13th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
While I believe there is nothing wrong with immigration, ILLEGAL immigration is the concern of both Democrats and Republicans mainly due to the concerns of national security. If Mexicans can cross the border, how hard would it be for terrorists to go into Mexico and then into the US?
I believe we should always allow immigration through legal means. How do you think people in Europe and Asia feel when they patiently await the opportunity to come to the US legally and hear about Mexicans crossing the border without repercussions?
There are plenty of people that would like to come to our country to better themselves. All we should ask is that you do it the proper way.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Everybody is talking about illegal immigrants/unskilled immigrants.
Why nobody talks about legal/skilled immigrants? Those folks are here begging for green cards.
By the way, some stupid Americans will rather pay more taxes than “potentially” lose their jobs to immigrants….
December 14th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
What’s been lost in the shuffle is the distinction between LEGAL and ILLEGAL immigration, and it’s all being called immigration. Plenty of people go through the process to legally enter the country every day. More come in illegally and get plenty of services handed to them on a platter. Illegal immigrants need to be deported, all the time.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
As John, aa, and justin write, there is a definite distinction between illegal and legal immigration. I think we should transition the vast majority of the currently ‘illegal’ immigration into legal.
I think the U.S. should let in pretty much anyone who wants to come subject to certain checks. For example, you could run an Interpol criminal search (or whatever equivalent), make sure they’re vaccinated and free of whatever diseases, and let them in.
I realize I’ll be pilloried for this position, but I think it’s a hell of a lot more realistic than trying to build a fence along the Mexican border.
And let’s not forget, the terrorists everyone’s so worried about? All the 9/11 perpetrators came the U.S. LEGALLY.
December 17th, 2007 at 5:17 am
@KMC - I don’t think that flinging open the borders to anyone who wants to come in is a good idea really. While I agree that (legal) immigration itself is necessary and good, left unrestricted I believe it is very likely that there would be an influx that the economy cannot support…. Wouldn’t too many people for the available jobs leads to lower wages, higher social services costs (schools, welfare, medical care, etc)? Who will bear the burden of those costs? Who will feel it the most?
Could we allow more legal immigration? Sure. Should we provide a path for those who have been here illegally for some time to become legal? Why not? Should it be free of any consequences for having been here illegally — absolutely not!!
December 17th, 2007 at 5:51 am
@EJD - It’s a very unpopular position, mine. But the reality of it is, there are many illegal immigrants in this country, the great majority working and contributing. They’re not going anywhere, so why not bring them into the mainstream fully?
December 17th, 2007 at 9:37 am
If you’re going to allow illegal immigrants to stay and become legal then they need to follow the same processes and pay no less in penalties than those that come to the US legally. It also send the message that it’s OK to break the law and you will have very little negative repercussions coming to the US illegally.
December 17th, 2007 at 10:23 am
@ Justin - It’s not a question of ‘allowing’ them to stay. The practicality of it is that you have no choice. You can’t round up and deport every illegal here today. Can you get some? Yes. But it will cost a lot of money per person.
My point with the original post was that we need the population growth immigrants provide. I’m just thinking of ways to encourage population growth in a sensible way.
December 17th, 2007 at 11:12 am
@KMC: Legal immigrants are providing plenty of growth as it is. They also do things that the illegal immigrants don’t. They’re paying income taxes, social security and medicare taxes.
Legalising illegal immigrants isn’t sensible, for the reasons outlined above.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
@Justin - The fact that illegal immigrants don’t pay income taxes, social security, and medicare taxes only support’s KMC’s suggestion of bringing them into the mainstream where they would then be required to pay their fair share. Again, I don’t necessarily disagree with that plan, but I do believe that there should be consequences for having come illegally in the first place. The threat of the law and penalty, I believe, is a deterrent to illegal activities (including immigration). Lack of enforcement or penalty, or blind amnesty, both erode the power and value of the laws themselves.
@KMC - I’m sure that you recognize that there is a vast difference between the original “let anyone in who wants to come” and the “bring the ones that are here into the mainstream” comments from your posts. While there are millions of illegal immigrants in the US now, I believe that there are probably many times that number of people from all over the world who want to be here and are impeded or deterred by the fact that it is illegal.
The fact that they are here anyway and we cannot get rid of all of them is in no way justification for just giving up on it. How about traffic laws? You can’t catch all the speeders, we’ll never stop people from speeding, so should we just give up on speed limits altogether? It sounds to me like the same argument, no?
The questions I’d pose to you are how many immigrants can the US welcome without negative consequence? And then what do we do when that number is exceeded?