Immigration Logic 101 requires us to believe that low-skill immigrants expand the U.S. economy (aggregate GDP growth) and make everyone in the U.S. richer (per-capita GDP growth).
We’re informed that the U.S. economy is growing or, at least, not shrinking.
We’re informed that, apparently contradicting the two items above, that the U.S. is becoming impoverished in immigrants (not as enriched by enrichers). “Immigrant Population in U.S. Drops for the First Time in Decades” (New York Times):
An analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the foreign-born population declined by nearly 1.5 million. … experts predict looming negative economic and demographic consequences for the United States if the trend persists. Immigrants are a critical work force in many sectors, and the country’s reliance on them is growing as more baby boomers retire.
Covering a somewhat longer time period and announced with a bit more color, DHS says that 2 million migrants are no longer among us:
If immigration makes us rich how is it possible that de-immigration doesn’t make us poor?
Related:
- “Private payrolls declined in September by 32,000 in key ADP report coming amid shutdown data blackout” (CNBC; we’d expect a decline in headcount, but shouldn’t it be much larger given the number of migrants who’ve decided to re-migrate?)
- official .gov web site regarding National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day (October 15 every year)
- a less colorful and more recent statistic from DHS:
> the country’s reliance on [immigrants] is growing as more baby boomers retire
Boomers were out in the fields picking avocados or working in the slaughterhouse? I’m quite uniformed, apparently. Maybe the boomers are eating more avacados and sirloin as they retire. Not sure.
We can look more closely at that quote from the New York Times (true, by definition, since the NYT is our source of truth). The first Boomers were introduced in 1946. The percentage of foreign-born residents of the US reached its modern low point of 4.8 percent circa 1966 (see https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2015/09/28/modern-immigration-wave-brings-59-million-to-u-s-driving-population-growth-and-change-through-2065/ ). So as of 1966, the vast majority of American jobs in all sectors were being done by native-born Americans (including some 20-year-old Boomers).
Separately, all of agriculture is about 5.5 percent of US GDP. If you assume that (1) native-born Americans can’t do anything productive in the agricultural sector, and (2) all foreign-born residents of the U.S. go back to where they came from, the U.S. GDP would shrink by only 5.5 percent (and our environment would be much cleaner without all of the agricultural runoff!). The US welfare state is about 30 percent of GDP (see this Washington Post article at https://archive.is/vUevz ). If migrants are consuming more than 1/6th of U.S. welfare state payments then their departure would actually be a net fiscal gain for the U.S. even if their departure meant that 100 percent of food needed to be imported.
Welcome to Immigration Logic 802: Seminar of the Strawman and Specious, irrefutable and wrong. The NYT didn’t offer any examples or evidence to support the original quote, just started into a slice of life of the “poor pitiful me” illegal aliens. Even if they had a “deep-dive” article on the topic, I’m sure I wouldn’t even bother to go through Google search to read it. (Why are they so horndog to have my throw-away email, how do they make money off that?)
> We’re informed that, apparently contradicting the two items above, that the U.S. is becoming impoverished in immigrants
I don’t feel “informed”. 🦜 I miss paper newspapers, which I can at least use as a toilet at the end of the day. This is the best I can do electronically. Squawk at you later.