5/22/2020 - At least 90,000 deaths and counting and permanently disabled people due to COVID-19 are NOT going to help. Nor is the Trump administration's attitude and practice toward migrants.
If there is a policy certain to undermine real economic growth on the local level, the Trump administration will choose it. Grifting public money to billionaires can only go so far. It only enhances billionaires' and corporate cash position which is a false and useless measure compared to the over all economic well-being of individuals, families, workers, and their communities.
Better education results can expand the skilled workforce. Better apprenticeship programs.
The US has contented itself with trashing thousands of workers due to poor education and job training and continued discrimination based on race, gender, age, etc. Letting foreigners fill some of the occupations has been easier.
It is time to get serious about making the unqualified qualified. Labor quality requires a national commitment.
Look at the profile of the working population. Look at the profile of the population. The disparities occur for reasons.
If the worst schools were about as good as the best schools, the labor shortages feared would largely disappear. We can elevate the underclasses or build F-35's for $100 million a pop.
We have an education problem not a demographics problem.
2
Neil, another good column. As for this quote -- .. "Given hostility to immigration .."
Whoa. First, it is obvious, blatant and *unlawful* immigration that is the issue. "Birth tourism." Line-cutting. Swamping small towns. Lectures about "fences" .. by those *with* fences to protect themselves.
Further, these tidal waves of unlawful immigrants are creating giant Social Security bookkeeping disasters in the near future. Unlawful immigrants have paid into SocSec, many with unlawful IDs. In the near future, fee-hungry trial lawyers will sue taxpayers for them -- bet the farm on that.
Second, again, Bezos/Zuckerman tech-exec crowd pushes immigration .. while ignoring older tech workers who have "aged" out of their businesses. How convenient .. for the Bezos/Zuckerman gang.
39
Machines do the work. Employees hang out, kibitzing and joking. The employment system is a method of distribution of our GDP. More education entitles one to more pay, same with seniority. The beauty of it is that people generally accept the outcome. Just try to invent a better method of distribution.
The alternative is unending lethal conflict.
1
Since the industrial revolution growth has depended on growing populations and "free" natural resources. The laws of thermodynamics, governing the entropy - energy relationship when recycling the 92 chemical elements for reuse, demand that economic growth will stop as non-renewable resources become rare. When this occurs the countries with the lowest population to resource ratio will have the highest living standards - especially as climate warming destroys water and food supplies in many locations.
How many people are leaving rural counties for cultural or political reasons rather than economic reasons? If a municipality has anti-gay policies or an intolerant culture, it's practically asking young people to leave. Not just gay people, either.
Regarding the various "workers:"
I can understand some of the angry feelings, and those feelings are real.
But politics in terms of satisfying the urge, the heartfelt desire, to punch someone in the face?
No, that does not work for me, in terms of policy.
I would like the USA to maintain the core expertise of manufacturing, and not cede all manufacturing to China and other countries. How to do that profitably and properly? That is difficult.
Promising to punch some other country or person in the face is stupid and weak.
"Growth is good," or even more drastically, "Growth is the main driver of economic good," needs to be challenged. Here we are in a country with beautiful assets, national parks, wilderness areas, etc. which are being sacrificed for oil and gas, avatars of growth. Our model of capitalism depends far too much on more-more-more, and too rarely on conservation and efficiency. If we revised the reward formula in capitalism and allowed people to get as rich saving energy as finding new fuels, things would change big time. If the out-of-work and under-employed of our Daytons could make the money they saved by making their buildings and vehicles more energy efficient, there would be a new kind of gusher to celebrate. Even older demographics can do that kind of work.
2
@will duff. Dual opt-in as described in this article is a way of delivering an already born & viable worker to a town — without requiring an additional person be added to the planet
It’s actually ends up as a way to share an existing resource.
1
@SailorPaul, encouraging a bigger population increase only benefits those who want to drive down wages. US workers are anxious and fearful about their jobs even in this current boom time. The addition of a large number of low wage workers does nothing to help the fears of workers already here. And with all the tax cuts, who is going to pay for the infrastructure for food, water, education, transportation and housing for the new wave of impoverished workers and their growing families?
1
There is a whoel generation of young people in this country throwing thier lives away with opaites an ddrugs.
This past weekend, while on You Tube for another subject, I got directed to videos of tent cities, "Seattle is Dying" (EVERYONE should watch that , and countless videos uploaded of tweakers on meth and other drugs.)....Thousands of people living in squalor in tents and using drugs. That's America.
And MOST of the subjects in drug induced stupor or violence are WHITE. Wasting the best years of thier lives, and who will NEVER be more than they are in these videos.
There isn't enough money to rehab these people. I think it will get worse as the uneducated and un-educateable become more numerous. And the USA is now trying to legalize marijuana....why....to keep the masses drugged?
Watch some of these videos. Time to wake up to the line that immigrant are taking jobs. No, it's young WHITE people living in the land of milk and honey, throwing thier lives away by the thousands.
I didn't see ONE video of anyone holding a gun to thier heads forcing them to do drugs. They made the choice, and of course, it's someone else's fault.
If you limit targeted immigration to 'skilled' workers, you will never address population decline. It has to be targeted 'family immigration', exactly the sort of immigration President Trump wants to eliminate.
We've already failed on immigration. We let Europe face a real immigration surge and refused to help, we didn't open our borders to suffering and dying Syrians. Mr. Trump wants to turn us into a heartless Fortress American, inside the walls of which our country will slowly rot and decay from sustained population declines.
2
This simplistic Ponzi logic assumes that endless population growth, and the increased consumption and loss of plants and animals and clean air and water that go with it, have no environmental consequences, no negatives for the quality of life. Yes, learning to live more simply, focusing on personal and group services and mutual help, and plant foods, more localized production of food and goods, will be a challenge. But we just can't assume the carrying capacity of the earth is infinite. To protect nature, to restore a quality of life not based on driving and consuming, will take creativity. But the simplistic assumption that constant population growth is essential for human happiness is just not true. It will lead to massive destruction of nature, accelerated climate change, and in the world at large, massive migration and civil war. Less can be more, if we unlock our consumer brains.
5
"As a matter of simple arithmetic, lower growth in the number of people working will almost certainly mean slower growth in economic output."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Humans will be less and less vital to economic output as they are replaced by automation that gets the job done faster and at a lower cost. Low-skilled human work is becoming less and less valuable.
Rates of childbirth have been in decline due to young people's concerns about housing affordability, career growth, health insurance, and student debt. And due to concentrations of young people in the coastal cities where the societal norm is to wait longer and longer to find partners, have children, etc. Oh, and "U.S. Life Expectancy Drops for Third Year in a Row, Reflecting Rising Drug Overdoses, Suicides" thanks to mass unemployment due to automation.
We need to fully confront issues of affordable housing, healthcare, usurious student lending, and automation as a human labor replacement.
Immigration is great, but a temporary band-aid to these structural problems. Presumably, we'll want immigrants and their children to stay in the US and become integrated with the greater American society, which means that sooner or later, we're going to have to fix these problems.
One proposal that I think makes sense is the universal basic income, or a "trickle up" economy. Put money in the hands of the people to determine their own fates rather than giving tax breaks to corporations and trusting them to hire humans.
8
You seem to miss the point that consumer spending drives our economy.
Will the robots be consumers?
An economic system that depends on population growth is a pyramid scheme.
8
No immigration policy or one focused on admitting hundreds of thousands of skill less asylum seekers is certainly not going to improve the situation.
1
Could shuttling immigrants to dying cities be part of a national immigration policy? Intriguing is the optional nature of the proposal. Trump country choice!
Economics is a social science, not one fixed, like physics and biology by natural law. We can choose the approach to take.
As several commenters have noted, there is no basis for requiring eternal growth in an economic system and absolute resource constraints preventing it’s indefinite pursuit.
I prefer the “Doughnut Economics” paradigm as a better one, since it focuses on providing essential needs at the low end for an economic engine and not overwhelming the ecosystem at the upper limit. Interesting book by Kate Raworth.
1
"...despite overall population growth in that period." - That means that people left those counties for others, and not that we have a low population problem. Why did they leave? High taxes? Not enough affordable housing? High cost of living?
1
quite the opposite: declining economic activity.
1
Population. The environment and our effects on it. GDP. Educating kids. Preparing people for a changing workforce. Caring for elders. Adequate medical care for all. Pension and retirement adequacy. Crowded areas and underpopulated areas.
If this was a system of equations, one for each of the above and more, there would probably not be a solution, and we'd be lucky if we could find a reasonable, partial solution, as all of these variables simultaneously change in response to each other.
We give millions and more to corporations to locate somewhere; creating incentives for individuals to do the same is a reasonable, partial solution.
Increasing prosperity is a superbly effective method of birth control, as parents pour their resources into fewer kids. Increasing work loads that leave parents unwilling to have more kids can lead to the same result, but is not good for anyone. So, let's make real birth control easier to access, so that pregnancy is desired, not accidental. Let's provide more supports to working parents, so that they can better support their kids.
A reasoned discussion on immigration, which we haven't had, would ask: Who do we want to enter the country? With what skills? What work do we want them to do? Where do we want them to live? If that's what we want, what supports are we willing to put in place to achieve these goals? Leaving people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, Horatio Alger style, generally doesn't work.
2
Low level ex inmates could have also benefited from the Welcome to Dayton Program.............
5
It fascinates me that many of the people who are responding to this article see the solution as NOT to encourage a higher birth rate among those who live here, but rather to encourage more immigrants, who supposedly have a higher birth rate. I am mystified why Americans can't be encouraged to have more children?
3
@Bill Clayton I'm going to take this two steps further Bill: We need to nurture a culture that celebrates marriages and having children.
Because optimistic cultures have higher birth rates, we need to promote American optimism. I understand why people decry The US' inequality and bigotry, along with our terrifying environmental recklessness. But, we've also made great progress since WWII, especially in civil rights and technology. Let's take credit for our successes and celebrate them-- and ride that cultural self-confidence to marriages and making families.
Second, let's also celebrate conventional values-- Family, God, America, all that stuff-- We associate right wing politics with those issues-- But they're not the only ones celebrating conventional values. It's also what 'It Takes A Village' was about. We should encourage affluent couples to have more kids. The same-sex marriage movement should encourage children as a wonderful part of any family. My point is-- Family values will lead to more babies.
4
good point about bringing the parents here. that means the immigrants will have to take care of their own parents, so they will not be available to take care of other's parents.
@Bill Clayto
Probably because they can’t afford to have more children because when they do there is no support for families in the form of subsidized or affordable child care, paid parental leave and universal pre-K. There is no substantive support for families in this country that pretends to value family.
7
Some of what is proposed makes sense and fair, logical immigration reform is needed; however, the idea that one way to solve the problem might be to encourage Americans to have larger families when we are unable to house, feed and educate many children who are already here is way off base. To mitigate population loss in the Midwest, perhaps families there could be encouraged to foster or adopt children from cities where populations are exploding.
3
I live in the rural Midwest and have an MBA from a top 30 school. I’ve lived in large coastal cities and suburbs, as well as Midwest ex-urbs and countryside. It’s obvious that many in the comment section haven’t spent a lot of time in “flyover” country.
The most isolated of communities are slowly crumbling, but the vast majority of smaller cities and their surrounding areas are fine places to live. Quality of life here is very nice, and living more affordable, and the schools in most communities are better than the big cities. Skilled workers from other countries build happy lives here and are quite welcome in our communities. Frankly, they bear more children and like others families, appreciate good schools, low crime, space, and affordable houses with big yards.
More babies and more immigration of skilled workers of child-bearing age are part of the answer. Tax policies that strongly favor marriage and childbirth and adoption to promote families are needed, as families need space, and we in the country have lots of it.
The nature of work is changing, too. It’s also time for government to give tax incentives breaks for companies that allow remote work. Lots of people would like to live out here in the “sticks”. It would be very helpful if employers would let them.
4
@Midwest Guy I'm with you on the virtues of the Midwest, and I would add that precisely because the nature of work is changing there should be a concerted Fed/State and local investment in more advanced training that has been the case in the past. Individuals and companies should be eligible for tax incentives for continuing ed. The main thing is that as a country we lag in spending on public sector goods like education. All of our substantial competitors and peers in the world make higher education (including hi-tech training) essentially public (together with healthcare and child care). The day's long past when free public education could afford to stop with four years of high school.
4
Dayton has (at least) two universities and (next door) a very large air force base. It is commuting distance to both Cincinnati and Columbus and a tolerable drive to Indianapolis. It is at the intersection of two major interstates. If this is not enough to prop up a city, maybe there are other problems that policy band-aids will not fix and possibly should not fix.
If, for example, a city has a thoroughly corrupt local government, rampant violent crime or a brutal and unlawful police department it would be horrible to prop up this structure and promote it as a destination for immigrants or anyone else.
If parts of the country need more people, let more people in to the country and let them work. Subsidize moving so people can locate and re-locate where they want to without being stuck. Markets and individuals will do their work if allowed to operate. In contrast, policies like a giant federal minimum wage might undercut struggling areas.
Past or current policies have favored certain cities or regions and likely created distortions (for example, SALT deductions and military base locations). The answer is not to play whack-a-mole and prop up or funnel people to every city that is failing. Over time, people will realize many of these regions are appealing places and start moving there or staying there. People will also realize many of these places are not and stay away.
Sometimes we have to live with mistakes, let things fail and let people make their own decisions.
2
The U.S. has solved all of its social problems, its water crisis, its housing shortage, it's education issues and health care; we have addressed the threat of climate change. Commute times keep falling. We are sailing along a sustainable path - a nation united boasting ever increasing lifespans and greater happiness.
So lets increase immigration to 20 million per year. Makes perfect sense.
5
@Tim A., immigration helps solve these issues. They're the lifeblood of our economy and social fabric.
In 2016 Clinton carried 472 counties which produced approximately 64% of America’s economic activity (GDP) in 2015.
Trump carried 2584 counties which produced approximately 36% percent of America’s GDP in 2015.
I'd be interested to know how many of the same counties were gaining/losing population...
2
Are we being trolled by Russians here in the comment section? In what world can you look at the US and say the demographic problem isn't aging and low birth rates, its not enough robots and overpopulation. Thats nuts.
1
As Americans have fewer children later in life, we need workers to do all sorts of jobs, skilled and unskilled. This is why a sane immigration policy makes sense. We need unskilled laborers to pick crops as much as we need software developers to invent or improve AI.
5
@Barbara
"...we need software developers to invent or improve AI...
so they can replace human software developers with AI and quantum computers.
40 percent of all humans in jobs across the globe with repetitive work tasks both menial and cerebral will be replaced by AI and quantum computing.
5
unskilled laborers. another word for serfs
1
@Barbara the same 'software developers' we were ordered by corp mgmt to TRAIN then be told to hit the road. Importing foreign workers is a fraud on well-educated American citizens. FWIW, I had 3 trainees, none of them had near the knowledge or experience as myself; but they were cheaper.
Cheaper for the corporations lining the pockets of Congress(who vote to import 'Foreign Replacement Workers'). #HireAmerican
1
A legalization process for immigrants and a path to citizenship would be an achievable start. People stuck in underground jobs would have mobility, legality and better wages and working conditions. They could buy houses and participate fully in the economy. Faltering towns like Jersey City have been revived by immigrants. Legalization was done during the Reagan years and should be done again. And tell us again why we're going to deport hundreds of thousands of people who are working legally under temporary protected status? Obviously, our policies are the opposite of what we should be doing.
5
@Lennyg easy, it is TEMPORARY???
"And tell us again why we're going to deport hundreds of thousands of people who are working legally under TEMPORARY protected status?"
There have been plenty of articles and studies written about the problem of aging demographics and economies (Foreign Affairs, etc.). The point isn't just about economic health & GDP, it's about quality of life, how we care for a demographic of older persons who are living longer, who need low skilled care, whose medical care must be paid by someone. Working people pay taxes and thus support this system. Well funded elder care systems free up younger family members to work and care for their young. Immigrants help this demographic in a way that honors national values: hard work, community, patriotism through paying taxes, respect for the elderly and the centrality of family. The earth doesn't have a population problem, it has a distribution problem. People in poor, violent, drought stricken places who can't get to wealthy, healthy places. The US has Idaho and Wyoming, for God's sake! Plenty of room, once again... No jobs, so a distribution problem. Our current political leaders don't want to solve long term problems, so we make immigrants the enemy and shoot ourselves in the gut. Always $ for the military, never $ for bold solutions.
6
will you let poor uneducated immigrants ever stop doing the grunt work. if you do then we will need immigrants ad infinitum.
A study funded by tech investors and entrepreneurs (job creators to the Trump crowd), yeah, sign me up for whatever they want, which is one thing only more h1b visas for Indians who will work for less than American techies, I lived in a building in San Francisco during the boom and knew several unemployed tech workers as the h1b visas were in full bloom. O.K. some of them were over thirty and a couple were women so I know they don’t count as unemployed, merely as unemployable to the twenty something spinmeisters.
11
@Ted in our case we were ordered by corporate management to TRAIN our H-1b/L-1b Replacements.
I had 3 trainees, each learned a different facet of my job. None of them had near the knowledge or experience as me; .....but they were cheaper; cheaper for the corporation lining the pockets of Congress(both parties). IMO, Congress cares more for the corporations lining their pockets than their constituents.
1
Do you know what's worse than an economy suffering the pressures of lack of work force? The EARTH suffering the effects of over population. Already first world people consume well more than their share of resources, and to continue on this path is a recipe for species extinction including our own, homo sapiens. Of course when we do go extinct, which is looking likely, the Earth will be fine - just as it was post dinosaur. If we want to prevent that probability then please stop considering "having more children" as a solution to a temporary economic problem. In fact have less children and redistribute the ones we already have (that's immigration not kidnapping, btw). That plus everyone consuming less might save us in the long term not just the short term.
8
@Elizabeth Marsh. Stop Shopping! is my mantra.
3
In a world of options, people will take them.
I often wonder what this country would have been like if Republicans hadn't gone crazy.
The moment of change-over was the day that Ronnie Reagan took down the solar-panels on the White House. None of that hippie stuff, the R's sneered.
That was, what? 40 years ago?
Since then Republicans have elevated devolution to an art form.
That entire swath of mid-America? It's a wasteland of poverty, fundamentalism, ignorance and violence. The young can't wait to get out and escape the Haters.
Really? After a half-century of sneering at the "Other", making that the backbone of their politics, do you really think that the educated from other countries are going to settle there?
Why would they?
The schools are toast.
Rural hospitals are closed.
Libraries are not funded.
The water is fracked.
Pesticides are everywhere.
And the R's solution to the bottomed out "demographics" is to de-fund Planned Parenthood and apply the Hyde to every woman, not just the poor.
If I were an educated person looking at the USA, it would be last on my list to move to - especially into that "Heartland".
Heartland: You have a half century of bad PR to overcome.
The world has watched you become mean to the point of crazed, the world doesn't love guns and the NRA, and it is likely that the country that they are fleeing already has a forced-breeding program.
There are options in this world for the educated.
No one has to endanger themselves to find them.
8
I see a number of commenters plaintively calling for zero economic growth and a shrinking population, and perhaps even a slow but deliberate move to a low-tech world.
I would love to applaud, but I can't. At seven billion plus humans on earth, we have married ourselves to certain dynamic processes, and what is envisioned as a stable, light-touch human presence is only possible with, I don't know, probably 400,000 million or so people alive.
And getting from where we are down to that would be the ugliest, nastiest, most destructive period that could possibly be imagined. You talk about a swarm, a plague of locust stripping every edible green thing and leaving behind a dead wasteland, think several billion refugees desperately roaming an impoverished world trying to eat that day.
Unfortunately we are locked onto a high tech, big-scale set of solutions in the short to medium term. Then maybe we can find our way to a peaceful, modest, better, smaller kind of human existence on this lovely little planet.
3
Agreed, up to a point. If the increase in work productivity is paired appropriately with declines in the work force/population, you can have moderate overall economic growth, increase quality of life, and a reduction in population. We need to develop economic models that examine and promote this concept, as opposed to the ‘increase in population is need to secure growth’ proposition which, when paired with increased productivity, creates a reinforcing cycle to population growth and economic degradation.
3
Another reason Trump regime xenophobia is not right for America.
3
folk are leaving "flyover country" because it is so boring. What can be done to spice it up? How about legal prostitution? During the growth period of the "old west" brothels proliferated (at least I think so). Prostitution has been good for Nevada.
I can imaging fascinating variations on the theme. Besides being associated with saloons, we might see "church brothels." Imagine a church stocked with several perfumed female sinners, and a severe preacher. I might suggest "country club brothels," but that action is already well under way. Likewise with fake "high school" brothels.
Brothels that serve both males and females would be an obvious business notion. Moms and pops arriving in buses!
With a salute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, we could call it the Brothel Archipelago. All we need to do, with a few guidelines, is let it happen.
Hey, I'm credentialed. I have a masters degree in urban planning.
5
People are depopulating the lousy places in the US. Shocking.
5
I would love for someone to explain how or why this whole demography thing isn't a constant hyper loop. When or does it end? Cause it seems like it is a perpetual need - we have lots of older people so we need more people. Of course, those younger people get older and so we need even more young people. Also, I've heard automation is going to take lots of jobs so maybe we shouldn't fret about needing more people for jobs that are going to soon disappear.
4
One solution is to reform immigration rules to encourage young people to become American citizens and contribute to the economy instead of ‘paperless’ migrants running afoul of the law.
Immigrants, like many of our fathers nd mothers, came to America to work and start families. It is this new growth that bodes well for the broader economy. Software and other technologies commercialization enriches few and employee fewer at lesser wages.
Inter-generational wealth accumulation offers 'middle class' standards to a broader array of citizens.
Henry Ford’s business model included paying auto-assembly workers well so that they could afford to buy the cars they assembled. Ford’s technical and business model were copied by other car-makers. Auto-workers earned relatively higher wages and better pensions/benefits than other union workers.
And if the union movement did not exist, workers would still be working longer hours, six days a week, for less pay.
The Walls you build are part of the problem in the absence of immigration reform. America needs young workers to fund social security and other programs. Families need the same opportunities our parents had when they came to America - many were children who were "Americanized" and granted citizenship in due course.
The Wall will have a similar effect as the one-child policy in China - now ended. Better to have legal residents than illegal migrants subject to social-economic abuse and exploitation.
3
After reading several comments here it seems to me that a lot of the readers missed the main point of this article. I think the writer was trying to tell us that we should be embracing immigration and directing it to where it is needed most. That is how we might have to replace the retiring generation with a new self- sustaining work force that is not going to be concentrated in major areas. We are not talking about unsustainable economic growth or increasing the world population. These people are already here on earth. Immigrants are hard working and willing to sacrifice as they move up the ladder as pervious American immigrants have done.
7
This is part of a world-wide pattern. As incomes rise and as women receive more education, the birth rate drops. Most countries in the world now have birth rates below the 2.1 per family that sustains the population level.
I would say that this is a good thing, as there is some human population level that exceeds the carrying capacity of our world.
There are big problems with the local variations of these changes that need some policy thought, and some possible assistance in adapting to the new reality. States are beginning to react, and we will now have some natural experiments to learn from.
Urbanization is a fairly consistent trend over the last 40k years or so, and it is linked to increased productivity. There are challenges but they have been overcome time and again with improved social and physical infrastructure. An ever smaller proportion of the population is working the land, in agriculture, forestry, mining etc, due to increased productivity. This necessarily reduces population densities in rural areas. I don't think there is much point in forcing investment in one location over another, that decision should be made based on where it is most productive. And I do think that the nation should invest in the productivity of all it's members in all regions, by supporting infrastructure, education and health care. However, people must be ready to move somewhere else when an opportunity presents itself. (Which is why I think the American obsession with owning homes is holding back the economy.)
5
When I was working in a particular small declining city 15 years ago in Wisconsin a consultant said in a presentation to business leaders, "your future workforce is here now." That was a real eye-opener. But no one did anything about it. That's the real problem.
2
There are many Baby Boomers who are willing to work in their 60s and 70s for economic reasons. If businesses would hire more that would solve the shortage for at least 10 more years.
9
@Virginia - Amen. But age discrimination in the US is rife and, as with any form of discrimination, it's hurting them.
4
@Virginia, true that. I'm 70 and work for a large electrical contractor here in the city because I can write fast and well and when necessary learn the technical details fairly easily. An ex academic ex management consultant, I have the experience to be flexible, pick up the info rapidly. Work semi-full time as a contractor; the work itself is interesting and my younger colleagues appreciate the help.
No, latent demand for jobs is still sky-high. How did the in-effect two-month jobs data turn out? How are we doing now? Why did the American Job Shortage Number or AJSN show that latent demand is up 670,000 since December? All that is at http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/2019/03/februarys-employment-data-little-change.html.
I can't believe that anyone is seriously advocating increased immigration, more children and more growth for ANY country in the world. There is no balance in that zero sum game: welcoming human overpopulation from other countries into our own only perpetuates the problems identified, now and in the future. Bigger and more is not better and not a permanent solution.
Things are changing. The US has the capacity to adapt to these changes without targeted immigration. It will not work in any event. It was tried in the past. Cubans resettled in New Jersey missed their relatives and the warmer weather in Miami and returned south. We don't do indentured servitude very well - we have a habit of voting with our feet.
6
Let's see. Just how does increasing the number of immigrants benefit Americans when those SAME working-age immigrants are able to sponsor their elderly parents for residency in the US through chain migration? Just assume that each immigrant has TWO elderly parents he'll bring here. Parents who will need healthcare, and could soon be eligible for SSI even though they never worked day one in this country, nor paid one dollar in taxes.
5
@Ali - One cannot be eligible for SSI unless they have worked and paid into the system for a period of time. The elderly parents will not be eligible. Given the cost and quality of medical care in the US for those without insurance, the elderly parents will probably opt to stay in their own country.
2
My husband immigrated to the US when he was in his 50s. I was the primary source of income while he got his own business established, which took awhile, and therefore he did not pay into Social Security enough to qualify for Medicare or Social Security when he turned 65 (and thinking he must be eligible for Medicare no private insurer wanted to cover him ). He had to get his Medicare as my spouse once I turned 62. Unless you have paid in or are a spouse you are not going to be receiving benefits!
8
@Ali Wow. Clearly you have been listening to some bad information. I would recommend looking up the claims you made on a reliable website and then recomposing your thoughts.
Our system's misaligned incentives discourage procreation. Not enough family leave, not enough health care coverage. At one time, women were expected to marry one man, stay married, stay home and have "his" children. Now, many of those men have become absent "baby daddies" and women who want to pursue a career should be free to do so. And since men still can't get pregnant, we have a demographic problem. Ironically, among what gender equality progress has been made, some choices have been removed for some women; i.e., women who would like to have children are often unable to afford to do so. Many conservatives say "Good" to this; claiming that the free market has spoken. Until there are not enough people to grow consumer markets, do specific necessary roles (physician, plumber, auto mechanic, plow driver, crop worker, teacher). Once again, we are face to face with an example that pure capitalism does not provide all the answers.
4
How to raise the birthrate: low-cost universal health insurance; longterm paid maternity/paternity leave with guaranteed job on reentry; low-cost or free childcare; well-funded K-12 public education; well-funded public tertiary education and job training; housing subsidies in expensive job centers; well-funded and extensive public transport; universal pensions. Provide for these things and young people will start having lots of babies, guaranteed. Continue to NOT do these things, and the birthrate falls.
11
@Repat But see Scandinavia. It hasn't worked, they are below replacement rate.
1
@Repat. Well, I am 72 and when I was of childbearing age I sorely wanted a child. However, reason took over and told me that I did not earn enough money to provide a child with a good life. Kids are expensive. These days the very wealthy have nannies pushing kids around parks in prams while the mothers do things like work on their online clothing line. Generally speaking, only the wealthy can really offer a child what he or she needs to be on the path toward a good life. It doesn't surprise me that birthrates are low. I wanted to be a stay at home mother and place my child in Montessori school. You don't do that on minimum wage.
One of the solutions is always to encourage people to have more children. To me it it like encouraging people to work for world peace. Both sound great but unrealistic. Ask yourself what it would take to get you to have more children.A very very large percentage of the population will answer "ha ha."
4
@Paul--Americans tend to have more kids when they're not worried about their economic futures. We were at replacement rate at 2.1 prior to the 2008 recession. Immigration increases competition for jobs and depresses wages and salaries for Americans, i.e. increases worry about their economic futures.
5
@Paul This country is pathetic when it comes to making things easier for people with young families. The "party of life" will only propose a "paid" parental leave that takes money out of your future SS payments. That is absolutely insulting.
2
wrong direction???
wait a minute. is the problem overpopulation or underpopulation? or is there no problem at all. this article is entirely with the idea that "bigger is better." maybe for economists -- at least some of them. but not for you or me.
our goal -- for people -- should not be to increase our gnp.
5
Maybe if we stopped incarcerating men at such a high rate, we could make more babies.
5
@K. T. Mitchell People are incarcerated because the courts determine they have violated the law. To do otherwise so as to attain a lower rate of incarceration would be to create a greater risk of crime.
2
@Al Lapins
Lots of these "crimes" are not offenses at all, e.g. marijuana possession, felonies for shoplifting based on a few hundred dollars, etc.
2
Given the slow growth, and absolute decline in some sectors, in the number of available jobs I would thing that a slow growth or even a decline in the number of people available to take these jobs is a good thing, not a problem.
3
The article suggests that slow growth is the result of a shrinking US workforce. Available jobs have increased, available workers have not.
@Steve--Wages are just starting to rise. The lack of wage increases suggests there are NO shortages--just employers who don't want to pay more for workers.
1
@Steve Go to any job fair, check at your local State Employment office, and you will see a different picture. There are many times as many applicants than jobs for anything paying a living wage.
6
What is needed is to continue leveraging technology continue to have people work longer in our lives (Most would prefer a “gradual retirement), secure the border, and target a higher caliber of folks allowed to enter. As the Times Is wont to do, do not confuse this statement with a racist agenda. It is a skills and potential productivity agenda based on facts and qualifications, not romance and/or political agendas.
4
@John Yes we live in an apolitical world!!!
@John
Good, concise analysis! Bigger and more is not better and should not be the goal.
1
I don't believe anything coming from a group funded by those vultures.
3
Duh we know this. Bush and Obama tried. But good’ ol McConnell blocked ALL Obama efforts.
6
Demographic collapse threatens the entire Western world. If we won't make babies ourselves, import them.
2
@Jonathan Katz. I have eight and I am considered a kook. What I am is a rich man (because of it), contributing to society,and the future retirement recipient’s SSN checks.
1
@John. From my perspective your decision (or non-decision)to have eight children is selfish, irresponsible, and short-sighted. I am glad you take pleasure in parenting, and I hope that because of it they will grow up to be good citizens, but we must also consider the quality of life for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
7
"Be prosperous and multiply." hmmm.
3
This article ignores the fact that the world is on a track of unsustainable population growth. We should be embracing a new world of flat or declining population and determine the strategies necessary to maintain our country in that new world. We should not be looking for ways to increase the population of the US or of the world. If smaller cities in the US are suffering due to the lack of working age people, they should be striving for policies to encourage US residents to move there.
13
@RD I respectfully disagree, with regard to the US context: we should be growing and nurturing our own. But of course, that is inconvenient and frankly a lot of hard work. The liberal agenda of the 60s 70s and 80s sold folks a bill of goods. A lot of sad and lonely old folks out there with no one to support them, both emotionally and financially.
3
@RD How about unsustainable consumption, simultaneous deprivation, inequality, and thus pressure on migration? Unless of course we have cement walls along the border.
The truth that dare not speak its name with immigration is the studied ignorance of the concept of a national ID card. In effect a digital wall; not a physical one per Trump's vision. It could be tied to social benefits for taxpayers; if the US could ever get less than hysterical about true social democracy.
Once in place, the influx of less-than-fully-entitled immigrants becomes legitimate and admissible. In a country that has seen its population demographic increase by an order of difference since the Civil War, the idea that America has room for everyone is inexcusable.
Yet we dare not speak of addressing it so directly, and we give you Donald Trump, POTUS, as a direct result.
By linking mincome tax policy for poor American taxpayers with universal medical care and other citizen privileges, America becomes 'authentic' as the humanist philosopher Tu Weiming would say. Not a 'freedom' or a 'right'.
Here lies a quid-pro-quo within responsible citizenship, and the offshore world is not the sinister presence we make it out to be. You're a citizen or you are not, crossing a border becomes irrelevant.
What the human species has to deal with collectively is not solely an American conundrum. Let's not make it a chronic stewpot for extremist YouTubers, who are quick to exploit our overweening liberal follies.
1
@Dwight Jones. Sir, you lost me after the first sentence of the first para. Both walls are needed. With a big door, as the evil Trump has stated over and over.
1
Simple set of solutions. Stop illegal immigration. Increase legal immigration. Make all workers pay taxes. Wages will rise for all. Ten million workers paying $100 each in income tax weekly is fifty billion dollars a year to the federal deficit!
4
.. and to think how much of our “cognitive material” is actually locked up in prisons, this at the same time we’re loathing the arrivals of new replacements whose energy could be used to help carry the load into the future... Americans are committing Brexit in slow motion...
3
America needs more people to counteract declining populations. There are millions of refugees who have lost everything they have and need somewhere new to build a new life for themselves and their children. This is a problem with a glaringly obvious solution, and people’s refusal to accept it boggles my mind. Immigrants are America’s very dna, and they always have been.
6
@Nicole--Most of those refugees are unskilled and uneducated. We do NOT need just bodies. We need people with educations and skills, who will be NET taxpayers pretty quickly. The National Academies of Sciences reported in 2016 that unskilled, uneducated immigrants are a NET cost to American taxpayers.
1
Finally, we are doing something about climate change - lowering our population.
9
@Fernando How about using per capita emissions as a measure and see which country is the highest polluter? Not the country with the largest populations. Following the principle my country first, the model is broken. Economies grow, incomes rise, pollution increases period.
So there are no more Americans willing to work or what? Pay a decent wage and there will be plenty. We don't need more immigrants.
7
@Chris Anderson
As a former roofing contractor for thirty years, it's not about the pay it's about the work.
There are jobs that Americans will not do, or at least do in a manner that makes hiring them worth the money.
The immigrants that I hired were very nearly to a man the hardest working employees I ever had.
Immigrants that I have known work harder and are willing to go where the work is.
Hard physical labor used to be a source of pride in America, not any more.
11
How has this “immigration to create economic growth” strategy worked for Germany? It hasn’t worked well at all.
3
To all those who are writing comments on the twin evils of Immigration and Procreation, I hope they have robot home-health-aides by the time they move into assisted living.
1
There is no "hostility to immigration" in some parts of the country. Illegal immigrants are what citizens are concerned with. Stop pushing the false racism narrative.
3
Maybe no one really wants to live in Dayton ?!? I know I wouldn’t... you couldn’t pay me enough.
6
Here we go again.
Selling a false narrative of worker shortages so that we can pull in H1B visa folks from India to replace American jobs.
Leaving perfectly capable Americans on unemployment.
This has been, and is, happening everywhere and these articles are the lie basis foundation of the approach.
This approach got Boeing in trouble. Their software is so bad they have no idea how to fix it now.
These articles are lies.
5
@Michael
"Leaving perfectly capable Americans on unemployment."
How many American workers will relocate to get a job that they are qualified to do?
Have you looked at the unemployment stats lately?
We are at what they used to call the unemployable level, meaning that those that are not employed either don't want to work or they will not or can not move to where they would be hired. Most jobs are not portable, people are.
1
The communities would need to welcome immigrants. With jobs, schools, housing, houses of worship. Could most of America do that?
The brilliance of Angela Merkel’s immigration policy in Germany was to bring immigrants to the rural areas that had declining populations and thereby sustain the schools and hospitals with both users and employees. Many villages that would have turned into ghost towns with abandoned retirees are reawakening with laughter and the sounds of children. Trump’s eyes are mirrors reflecting a distorted internal view of the world.
7
How about integrating Mexico and Central America into the US? Force would not be necessary...only a referendum. The US would gain the population but also the resources. Taking millions of migrants without the assets to build society is a failing strategy.
2
@as
Some 40% of the US population can not handle a $400 emergency.
Millions of migrants without assets would hardly be a big change.
At the very least they are willing to go to where the jobs are and tend to have very strong work ethics.
2
To channel Donald Trump just a little bit:
Paul Krugman, if you're listening, maybe you could write a wonk-ish column that gives the Nobel level explanation about what, if any, economy has been able to successfully handle "demographic decline" and the associated stagnant aggregate demand.
Capitalism has a bad track record of dealing with it. I don't need a Ph.D. in economics to figure that out. As far as communism, it seemed to do better, partly by equalizing misery across the population. Socialism doesn't seem to do that great with negative GDP, either. Nevertheless, from a layman's point of view there doesn't seem to be an economy that doesn't amplify a negative growth rate in a grossly nonlinear fashion.
Sure, immigration from high birth rate countries would work, but that's about as politically realistic right now as shortening Trump's tie.
1
Not one suggestion that training and educating the relatively un-educated and poorly trained could fill the suggested labor gap presented here.
Where's is the proof of an actual shortage? What positions will go begging? Who holds them now? Is there alarm about a whites shortage on the assumption that only whites can fill those jobs?
Maybe the liberalism of the coasts attracts young people. Is that the unstated problem? They don't want to live in communities dominated by greed, bigotry and industrial rot?
Anybody seen Dayton? Anything about Dayton that would make one choose to move elsewhere? A human exodus might be a perfectly rational move by a young person looking for something better. Explain why it isn't.
Those good Republicans in control of Ohio have a collection of clapped out cities losing population. Why is that? God's chosen party controls the entire game and young people are heading elsewhere? Cut taxes for the rich. Deny global warming. Increase military spending. It is all happening and young people are leaving.
10
The obsession with perpetual 'growth' is destroying the planet and ultimately mankind. The planet cannot sustain ever more 'growth'. We are facing an immense over population problem (soon approaching 8 Billion). Uncontrolled population growth is the root cause of global warming, climate change, worldwide social / political turmoil, environmental devastation, etc. Are we no smarter the lemmings racing over the cliff?
7
Growth, Growth, Growth. Where would we be without Growth?
In a world that has stabilized itself with Nature perhaps.
But no we must always be more, be bigger, make more babies, more wealth. If we don't, some other group of male patriarchs will overcome us by being greater than us.
What chance does the Earth have with a human cancer like this?
5
No lower skilled immigration!
In 2014, 63 percent of households headed by a non-citizen reported that they used at least one welfare program, compared to 35 percent of native-headed households.
Welfare use drops to 58 percent for non-citizen households and 30 percent for native households if cash payments from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are not counted as welfare. EITC recipients pay no federal income tax. Like other welfare, the EITC is a means-tested, anti-poverty program, but unlike other programs one has to work to receive it.
Compared to native households, non-citizen households have much higher use of food programs (45 percent vs. 21 percent for natives) and Medicaid (50 percent vs. 23 percent for natives).
Including the EITC, 31 percent of non-citizen-headed households receive cash welfare, compared to 19 percent of native households. If the EITC is not included, then cash receipt by non-citizen households is slightly lower than natives (6 percent vs. 8 percent).
@Steve Sailer You really should cite your sources.
In dollar terms, citizens consume the vast, vast majority of these program's resources simple because there are vastly more citizens than non-citizens, so if your point is that non-citizens "cost" the US government and taxpayer money, you'll need to quantify the actual dollars spent, which are likely to be quite low in comparison to the amount spent on citizens.
6
Increased use of robots assures there will be continued progress in living standards without immigration. The future is bright, and highly technical.
@Real D B Cooper. When I was young I believed that "cybernetics" would result in a shorter work week or even in a subsidy for the unemployed or those made redundant.
Why is it that in the midst of so much progress there's a work ethic that sucks us in to a life of suffering without adequate recompense to have a good life?
Our economy— the biggest and deadliest pyramid scheme in history making the rich richer and consigning the rest of us to poverty.
4
@Patricia Pretty nice poverty, we have. Visit a truly poor place, and then come back and revel in your wealth and privilege.
2
Since when did expanding the aggregate size of the economy become the preeminent goal of civilization? Our planet would do just fine with an order of magnitude fewer people. We are literally on the verge of a mass extinction event because of our inability to not soil our living room and yet some narrow-minded economists are ranting that growth may not hit an irrelevant goal post. Time to wake up people before the planet becomes inhabitable.
4
I guess growth could be considered a right in the future. Eric Holder could sue the Federal Gov't in the 9th Circuit court because lack of growth is impacting Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. A liberal judge in the 9th circuit could agree with the complaint and could force the gov't to invent some social engineering process to correct the injustice. Finally the gov't could spend billions, perhaps trillions to follow thru with the Liberal judge and than we all could grow broke.
The truth is we are not creating opportunities in our small cities and rural areas. For the longest times they were fat and happy with their one strong industry (Detriot -Cars, Appalachia-coal) and they didn't seek out other industries. Tourism and the Arts weren't considered viable for high wage workers, but for solopreneurs they do well. Small business were not pursued because a 10 person machine shop wasn't newsworthy for the politicians. We as a country need to rethink this...Depts of Commerce and Industrial developers need to start looking at recruiting 40 ten person companies rather than one 400 person employer. We need to encourage geo-diversity of employment through telecommuting. The sweet spot in this for all is to earn an above US median wage in an area with very lost housing costs. It is not what you make, but what you keep.
5
@Spencer Hill
I live in a tourist area.
At the existing minimum wage, the local cost of housing consumes an over sized portion of worker pay, leading to youth exodus and a lack of workers for the tourist industry.
3
The demographic effects of wars and the de-industrialization of America comes home to roost. Welcome to the efficiency and rationality of capitalism.
1
Immigration is what built America but it was immigration that was both legal and varied in nationalities and races. America became the greatest nation because it was a true melting pot. Yes, we had and still have major issues, biases, and discrimination but I will still take it over any other country.
There is no government incentive to help young people or young families. Young people have crushing educational loans that will take years to repay. Marriage and children will have to wait. And once they have children, there's no incentive to provide excellent childcare or preschools. When parents have to pay a lot of money for childcare, they can't afford many children.
8
Even if you forced every young woman in America to have babies right now, the country would need to wait 18 to 24 years for those babies to finish school and get jobs. By then, most of the elderly will have died. Constantly making babies doesn't work economically, especially now that we have robotics to do so much manual labor. Meanwhile we do have millions of under-employed and under-educated young people who languish in rural areas and inner cities. More people is not the answer. Better educated and trained people and investment in the infrastructure of mid-sized cities is the answer.
10
Solutions mentioned in this article embrace the perpetual growth paradigm--have more babies; increase immigration; enact policies to stimulate regional business development.
The perpetual growth paradigm, besides being unsustainable in a closed system (earth), leads to more of the same problems it has caused already--environmental destruction, economic inequality, international discord, war, and suffering.
The demographic changes described can be approached in many ways, and could be remedied with a variety of social policies, some of which require only the stroke of a pen by leadership. A leadership beholden to business interests and thereby enthralled with perpetual growth is unlikely to propose any social policies that do not serve capitalism's winners. Throw off the yoke of obedience to perpetual growth, and the solutions become obvious.
In other words, we could fix this problem easily but our owners won't let us.
8
@William Romp This is capitalism; perpetual growth is its lifeblood. No amount of tinkering with policies, however radical, will change that. There is an alternative, but it’s not with the continuation of capitalism.
3
@Roger No, it's human instinct and social desire to accumulate material goods. I think you'll find that in Neanderthals and Homo Erectus. It has nothing to do with "capitalism" which is just how we describe this desire to accumulate. It exists even in the most communist of communist countries.
More material goods generally means an easier life.
Making life harder is usually not an attractive social policy to an individual.
@Roger. The benefits of capitalism are creativity and energy; the disadvantages are destructiveness and dehumanization. We can harness the benefits by carefully and intelligently regulating capitalism. The chief responsibility of government is regulation. Unregulated capitalism is self-destructive. Unfortunately the current Republican politician were brought up with the fallacious notion, so popular in the 70's and 80's, that capitalism is self-regulating. They will eventually fade and we can get on with the business of devising and implementing strong, humane regulations to harness the benefits of capitalism.
2
As a young worker looking for employment at one point in my home town, I’ve had first hand experience. There’s not as many entry level or junior level roles in a small town therefore I move to somewhere I can find a job - a major city.
7
Population issue can be easily solved by importing or allowing more young people here. The problem is that those young people will go to big cities and coastal areas where jobs are. They won't stay in small towns or not prosperous areas. They will move according to their desire. The bottom line is that we have to accept the nature in recognizing every dynasty will eventually decline. However, human will continue to prosper but not necessarily in here.
3
All things being equal, the loss of workers will impact demand and production, but all things are never equal. The longer term trend is the impact of technology. For example, trucking companies are short about 80,000 drivers. Some of this may be due to demographics. Some may be due to the fact that long haul driving is a terrible job and the trucking industry has reduced the pay of truckers. But autonomous trucks change that equation completely. If the car industry develops autonomous cars, imagine the impact on taxi drivers, and Uber and other companies, insurance companies and car manufacturers. If cars drive themselves, why own one? The list goes on. Many workers today will be replaced by automation, eliminating the need for large swaths of employees. Even financial decisions are being automated with algorithms. Perhaps we should focus on how we are going to adapt to a world where we need many fewer workers instead of worrying about lower birth rates.
10
We should be more concerned about "rising debt" than "slower growth". Too many have borrowed far beyond their means as shown in recent credit card, college and auto debt compilations and cannot meet minimal expenses if their weekly check is interrupted. We saw evidence of this during the recent government shutdown with people going to food pantries after being out of work for only one week. If not curbed, this debt will bring us all down - Again!
5
Whether the growth rate is 3 percent or 2, we’ve seen that nearly all the benefits from growth go to the top of the economy. The economy is something like 4 times as big as it was in 1970 and yet workers under the median income are still making the same amount as they did when Nixon was in office.
So why nibble around the edges?
Ensure a better distribution of income and the people at the bottom end of the economy would see incomes 200, 300, even 400 percent higher than now, without changing our immigration or family policies one whit.
And this increase in income would go a long way toward stimulating these “left behind” areas as that’s where low wage workers are concentrated.
17
There will be a vast reduction in the number of jobs over the next 20 years as technology takes over human work. Certainly a stable and growing population is needed to maintain places large and small but without some assurance that incomes won't be slashed as a result, it's easy to see why many Americans view immigration as a threat, not a need.
6
The shortsightedness of this article is stunning. We are accustomed to an economy based on population growth. Now we are coming up against the limit of that principle, the finite size of the planet. The solution to locally weak economies is not local population increase through either immigration or childbirth, but a reconception and revitalization of those local economies, which could be pioneers in modification of the global economy. This would be a complex process of trial and error, but one simple starting suggestion might be reduction of the standard work week from eight to, say, four hours without reduction of salaries. This would likely attract a good many new residents to the community. The doubled labor costs would be mostly passed on to customers, but there would be more customers with more money, and an added benefit would be a more equitable distribution of wealth. Add good local public services like schools, parks, etc. and Dayton begins to look like an attractive alternative to high-density, high-rent, traffic-clogged, high-crime cities.
10
For example: “As a matter of simple arithmetic, lower growth in the number of people working will almost certainly mean slower growth in economic output.”
This article, like nearly all macroeconomic discussion today, equates economic prosperity with economic growth. For how much longer can this make sense? Don’t we now understand enough about the external costs of incessant economic growth, costs such as global ecological destruction? And shouldn’t it be obvious that, in a world of finite resources, at some point we’ll need a different measure of "prosperity" because we CAN’T grow forever?
Open, fair competition seems all good and well in economic systems, at all levels, but when the performance standard is “growth in economic output” and that means ever more people working, it’s a matter of simple arithmetic that Earth will collapse under the weight of human excess. That ultimately nobody wins.
If humans were really smart, by now we’d understand that if we won’t let red-in-tooth-and-claw Mother Nature control us, we’re gonna have to step up and control ourselves. This would be a great time to stop growing -- and, IMO, start shrinking a bit -- and invent an economic system that leaves us “prosperous” nevertheless. All we need are different attitudes.
36
It's economic growth per capita that matters, not the growth of the whole economy. Of course, peoples' net well being is affected by things other than their economic output an their consumption of materials. Our population cannot increase forever. Too much of a good thing is bad. Let's save some unspoiled land, air and water for our descendants.
14
This problem, as described in the article, is exactly what many other countries like South Korea, Japan, etc. are encountering.
South Korea has attempted to encourage couples to have children with cash and have even planned massive building projects which would rely heavily upon imported labor (the disastrous Saemangeum Project), yet this problem persists and there has been recent scare campaigns against immigration from Muslim countries such as Yemen to South Korea, as well.
Considering the current administration, any solutions will be found in a future without the scare tactics over immigration and through better leadership and understanding of this long term problem for America. There is *zero* chance of this issue being addressed with a GOP congress or administration in place due to their political tactics.
2
The human population is already living beyond sustainable limits on our one and only planet. It requires a special kind of willful blindness to suggest that we should have more babies in order to fix our capitalist economic system's need for never-ending expansion. The trendlines are not "pointing in the wrong direction;" we need a sustainable economy and a sustainable population. There would be more opportunity for everyone to have success, health and happiness in a less-populated, less capitalist world.
24
@G Khn At some point nature will resolve the population issue. Always has, always will. Problem is with the population being where it is at now imagine how bad it will be when something like the bubonic plague or even the equivalent of the 1918 Spanish Flu strikes. 3 to 5 percent of the world's population dying would be over 200 million.
2
Since we have less poverty, less war, less illness and more freedom in the world than ever before, why do you feel we are beyond sustainable limits? @G Khn
One way to bring people into specific counties would be to allow local citizens to sponsor refugees. Sponsors could elect to be responsible for finding initial housing, schooling and employment. Refugee families with children could add vitality to fading towns.
Refugee sponsorship has been successful in this country in the past and is currently working in Canada. Of course now it is nearly impossible to bring anyone into the US.
With a new crisis every day, it is hard to remember that tens of millions of people have been forced from their homes. They would surely have a deeper appreciation of the towns left behind.
2
Increasingly, even while the governments or people in the know would not say it, consumers are increasingly more valuable than many ordinary workers.
See, number 1 challenge and bottleneck of modern economy is not how to make the things, in million copies or custom-made. The world has the China etc. for that.
What is in short supply are people who are still able to consume of all that overproduction.
Population in "advanced" countries is 'smartly" shrinking as women and their partners have been now convinced that professional career it whats "cool" and kids are essentially a hindrance. Plus unjust burden to environment.
Population is obese, can't consume more agri products on steroids, pesticides and genetically modified. Interests remain very low and credit and monetary inflastion can't be boosted anymore.
Thus, here and in Europe, the top 1% and 0.1% and governments serving - above all their + corporate interests - resort to immigration of any quality, especially when large families and higher birth rates deliver missing tens of million consumers on internal Western markets.
4
"Policies to encourage American families to have more children would help over the long run by increasing the supply of potential workers in the future. So could efforts to ensure that even struggling cities have the kinds of amenities young families desire, particularly good schools."
Unfortunately, we can't grow forever - so we have to figure financing things people want without expecting each place remains populated. Illinois has 102 counties. None of the 52 smallest has even 25,000 people. Many split from larger ones in the early years of the state, when Northwestern University was named because we were the frontier. Now many are shrinking - why isn't that to be allowed? Why can't consolidation be as natural as expansion was?
For the US, our continued inflow of immigration means that some of the other developed nations will be pioneering methods to do well without growth. Of course, that's based on our keeping conditions in the rest of the world good enough for residents to be able to do well where they live.
Demographics are heading in the right direction. We're doing too much now to make life difficult in the coming decades, and not enough to preserve a livable planet. More and more people everywhere will lead to more and more refugees everywhere - not the way immigration is best done.
"Be fruitful and multiply"? Done. Check it off the list. More of it and there will be no other life in the air, land or seas for us to have dominion over.
8
This country used to have a lower total population and thrived. One big difference is that farming was a major occupation for families residing in the vast rural areas across the country. That is no longer true. We should not be panicked over the idea that our population is not growing; we should take advantage of it. We simply need to be clever and strategic and change how we do business. Planned, targeted immigration could be one piece of that puzzle, but we also need government help to draw new green jobs to flyover country. We need problem solvers who believe in America.
9
Many, many people over 55 want jobs and cannot find them. Let's be clear. This is about employers wanting to lower wage costs, even if it pushes the costs of education and health care for those immigrants, and their children, on middle class people. They likely are not attending the schools where the business owners live.
16
@Juanita K. Yes, despite being illegal, age discrimination is thriving especially in the large corporations. The so called talent shortage would be gone in a month if the federal government got serious about this issue.
2
I think any underpopulated region should offer incentives to Americans for them to relocate from wherever they may be living. Another alternative: those regions could offer jobs in particular to the millions of folks who want jobs but can’t get hired because they are over 40. Age discrimination is real and I don’t think the unemployment numbers reflect it since many give up looking since they know they won’t be hired.
10
@James
Is it really age discrimination if older workers haven't learned new anything since they graduated from high school or college? The old model was you got an entry level job, stayed with one employer, and slowly moved up the wage scale because of your seniority. It may have made some sense when the senior people were the storehouse of institutional knowledge but we now have information systems that can recall information much more quickly and with greater fidelity than the grey beards ever could. If you don't want to be economically redundant when you're 50, never stop learning and keep your skills fresh and in tune with what the market demands.
2
@James - Perfectly said, James !!
@Earl W. Not my experience. It's all about cutting costs by replacing older, more expensive workers with younger, cheaper versions even though the replacement does not meet the advertised minimum requirements.
If a small to medium-sized city wants to attract young people, it needs jobs and affordable housing. If it wants to attract people who want to have children, invest in affordable childcare, a decent hospital, and educational opportunities. But especially childcare.
9
@Katrin
So how that noble process of significantly decreasing human "carbon footprint" while keeping consumption-based economy running can or will match with each other?
A nonsense and pipe dream.
While - I believe for the first time in Homo sapiens history - "advanced" tribes or countries are those who are dying out, those "developing" or "undeveloped"continue to experience population growth and, say in Sub-Saharan Africa even per the U.N. will even in coming decades, despite availability of education and birth control, continue dramatic population explosion .... people at "sophisticated" West (and the Far East) start making oath that they will "never ever have a single child".
The wealth (thus power) continue to be generated by production (ultimately always at expense of Nature's resources) and changing that is virtually and certainly not peacefully possible to move from.
On one hand we drill (especially into girls' and women's) minds and those environmentally sensitive: have no or just few kids, follow your career .... then, on other hand, those desperate "economic development" folks in our decaying cities are taking in any immigrants, especially when their birth rates are higher.
Robots will take many of the jobs, but they don't pay taxes, or require benefits and won't get social security. The problem of imbalance between workers and retirees will end around 2045, when most of the baby boomers are gone. If and when the population falls, less CO2 and stuff and waste will be produced.
2
@turbot
In 2045 you mentioned, for example population of Africa, thanks mostly to, quoting the U.N. "in coming decades likely continuation of population explosion", despite education and availability of birth control, will double to 2.5 billion.
By continuing "monetary expansion" (debasement of money, i.e. mainly dollar and euro) Africa will be able to get the necessities paid for or subsidized by workers and robots in "advanced", yet dying out countries.
Thus again: the current and the future, even more overproduction churning out economy will need new billions of consumers, not workers.
Thus CO2 etc. production will be impossible to reduce in any significant degree.
3
It is not clear that all immigrants add to the economic well-being of a shrinking community. Unless there is a match between the kind of labor needed in that local economy and the immigrant's background, it is unlikely to prove fruitful even with good intentions on both sides. The reason new immigrants gravitate to the coastal cities is there is always some fit among the wide variety of jobs available. So, the opt-in has to be mediated based on the types of jobs available in the local area.
9
It's a dilemma or educated young women.
My college grad daughter age 25 wants to further her career,
not stay at home with babies.
What to do?
4
@Zetelmo
Obviously, the "culture", i.e. school curriculum, media, TV programming, etc. all drilling into young and not so young, especially girls and women (i.e. whom Mother Nature assign to hold the facilities for giving gift of life) as well their equally confused (male or other) partners what you are mentioning here.
Women have been made frightened by "pregnant barefoot in a kitchen" derogatory caricature. And it "worked" in all "advanced" countries.
Overcoming that 24/7 years, now decades of massage by ones own strong family environment is not at all easy.
@Zetelmo It's the same way in South Korea, where the tradition of starting a family early has disappeared during the course of the last twenty years.
@Zetelmo "What to do?"
Don't have babies?
2
In perhaps the greatest social science breakthrough of the 18th Century, which had direct influence on Malthus and Darwin, Benjamin Franklin pointed out in 1754's "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind" that the standard of living in the American colonies was much higher than in Europe, allowing more Americans to get married and have children (and at younger ages). The reason for the greater prosperity of the average American was the lower supply of labor in America. To preserve this happy state of affairs in America, Franklin called for restrictions on immigration.
14
" It would have to be a “dual opt-in” approach in which both the community decides it wants more immigration, and individual immigrants elect to move there."
I would think most small cities will opt out due to fear of having to compete with competent employable immigrants. So many clerks at a gas station decide what language to be spoken or immigration policy I doubt they will accept anyone.
1
I agree with the views expressed here about how growing the immigrant population is important in some areas which are seeing decline. However, to state that the prime working age ends at 54 ignores the millions of older workers who would like to work but face harsh age discrimination in the workplace. Older workers are being laid off and can't get hired in new jobs. It's a rampant, but hidden crisis that wastes the abilities of millions of older workers. The combination of increased immigration and maximizing employing older workers would give a substantial economic boost locally and nationally.
15
@Bobbie
I have faced that very issue. In my mid 50's I was laid off due to the recession, I have 40+ years of relevant experience and an MBA. Yet when I applied for similar positions, while no one ever said anything, I usually found out the successful candidate was much, much younger. Older people are looked at as 'not blending in with the culture', or too expensive, or simply out of touch. So you take what you can get, usually at a fraction of your former pay and using a fraction of your knowledge. It is frustrating however, to see people and businesses making rookie mistakes and not being viewed as a resource. As you said in your post, Bobbie, the lost opportunity cost is immense.
4
The world does not have sufficient resources for its current population. Americans fear loss of jobs due to robotics and artificial intelligence. The country was able to function effectively with 180 million people in 1960.
The more substantial problem will be deciding how to address the social support programs - the "entitlements." Maybe business will have to pay more, people will have to consume less and save more, robot owners will have to pay into Social Security and Medicare until we arrive at a better solution. We will also have to address the motivation of businesses to escape US taxes by off-shoring. We need global solutions and buy-in to create greater equity worldwide, as we should also join together in suppressing greenhouse gases, preserving fisheries, potable water, rainforests, and fertile land.
24
@S. Sorrento
With all due respect you are mentioning - almost all - currently or recently tried policies and tricks which in the end make zero or tiny and questionable improvements in overall situation.
The wealth (thus power) will do anything to prevent any significant change in the current power distribution arrangement.
While the ruling 1% or 0.1% and primarily their interests serving governments is opting for maintaining profits though mass immigration and continuation of population explosion (namely Sub-Saharan Africa, see UN projections) in order to have more billions of new consumers to take care of all that over-production, people in "advanced" countries opt for dying out or swear outright to be antinatalists.
3
New immigrants have helped to revitalize my Boston area city, adding 25% to our population in the past 20 years. The Americanization process is still working here. All the immigrant kids I see speak English and root for the Patriots. Here's why it still works here. We've attracted new immigrants from a range of countries and languages, so English is still king, bolstered by the fact that almost half the city is still native born Americans. Finally, our immigrant communities are not ghettoized in certain areas. Every neighborhood is diverse.
14
@Russell Laverty
Isn't it "sophisticated" that - after our corporations outsourced millions jobs abroad - we. citizens, equally "smartly" are outsourcing giving gift of life to and rising our children to immigrants?
Apparently, it is, like that corporate outsourcing of jobs, well thought-through strategy of common citizens.
@Russell Laverty I applaud your city, Sir, but point out that it is in the Northeast where waves of immigrants have come and gone and residents have the experience of interacting with folks of different backgrounds. Here in NYC I cannot imagine my neighborhood without a Korean deli or the Hispanic bodega up the street, both with Muslim employees. In the Deep South, though, the environment is different. There has been no change there since the Civil War
the demographic trends that leave certain sections of the country beyond the point of economic no return is the cause of the rise of Trumpism. they know they're drowning and, rather than swimming, they'll grasp at any gaudy piece of flotsam that promises to keep their heads above water, if only for the few years they have left before the grave gets 'em. why not? the kids have left or gone onto opioids and all the shops on main street have closed. small scale farming is unable to compete with industrial scale agribusiness. the local industries have moved offshore. Ike is long gone. they are high and dry. whose fault is that and who is going to pay for it? Mexico!
8
@Pottree
Is it really that difficult to resist any opportunity and not to take a swipe at president Trump, especially when the problems are structural, cultural and much older than Nov. 6, 2016?
2
It's nuts to limit immigration when we need more workers--said by a Boomer who recently retired. Letting in only skilled workers is perhaps part of the solution, but even relatively unskilled folks from other cultures and societies add to our economy. They have children and want better for them, so we have two generations of folks enriching our country.
It has worked well for Canada, which welcomed many times more Syrian immigrants than the U.S. despite having only 10% of the population. And it has made Canada an appealing for some of the "best"--most desirable educationally and skillwise--immigrants.
6
@Susan
Isn't that rather "nuts" to rely on foreigners to become immigrants and with their generally larger families and generally higher birth rates "solve" our "sophisticated" practices of having birth rates below simple reproduction (2.1 children per woman on average)?
When corporations are outsourcing millions of jobs overseas, it might be questionable if that is overall beneficial ... and many certainly oppose that.
But doing the same "outsourcing", i.e. assigning giving birth and raising children to foreigners willing to immigrate here, that is smarter than having that supposedly needed number of children ourselves?
Then why does anyone point to Western Europe as a socioeconomic model for America?
4
@Ed Because the general level of education, health and socio-economic equality is much higher than here in the USA!
@Ed - Wow. Missed the point completely.
@Ed
Western Europe (and for a brief period of time, to our hard lefties, even USSR and Eastern Europe) looked as socio-economic model to follow, because it redistributes income and wealth more equally.
Illusion about communist version of just world died in shame and "social-economy" in Western Europe continues to deteriorate as their corporations like ours are outsourcing jobs.
Then, they need replacement for tens of millions of unborn Europeans as internal (EU and European) markets have been shrinking due to low birth rates for decades now. Thus "Come all" by Mutti (childless) Merkel.
"Could targeted immigration policy help solve it?"
We don't need more immigrants, we just need to build more and better robots.
9
@Henry Miller, Libertarian
You and most of Americans don't need more immigrants ... but the top 1% and 0.1% and corporations need tens of millions of them, increasingly not as possible cheaper labor but as new consumers who will, with their large families and birth rates, help taking care of all that over-production which causes under-utilization of production capacities.
Guess, who will continue to win in this?
3
You can't rebuild your society with other people's kids, unless you are also willing to accept their language, religion, culture, values, etc......in other words, if you view America not as a society, but simply as a landmass to be picked at by whoever wants it. Pretty much every person alive would object to a stranger barging through their front door, taking up residence in the spare bedroom, and announcing that they were now in charge. Why so eager for the same process to take place at the national level?
Yes, America needs more people. It needs lots more people. More people would go a long way in solving most of our serious challenges. But simply importing millions from abroad who have little connection to anything other than making more money for themselves is not the way to go about it.
America faces demographic disaster thanks to the left, the left which has never met an alternative to the traditional family it didn't like. So now we have lots of unwed mothers and absent fathers and people living with other people of the same sex, and abortions, and 1.5 child families. Put an end to social leftism and you'll put an end to the chaos.
8
@Matthew Kilburn
It depends on their willingness to adopt our culture and values. Some are; some aren't.
@Matthew Kilburn Half of all pregnancies in the US are still unplanned; about half (not necessarily the same half) are paid for through Medicaid. The most common reason a woman seeks an abortion is because she cannot afford a second or third child -- daycare, health insurance, time off, etc. If "the right" really wanted well-educated women to have more children, they'd push the kind of policies that would enable them to do it -- universal health care, affordable child care, a generous family leave policy, and so on. Until then, you'll have to make do with who overstays a visa or seeks refugee status.
1
@Matthew Kilburn
The "most advanced" countries (the West and Far East) are so "successful" that they are dying out, from historical perspective rather quickly.
Popular "culture", TV and Hollywood production, stuff taught at school, etc. have been drilling into people's minds, that "cool" is not be a giver of life but corporate slave and eager consumer.
Predictably, it "worked", certainly outside of conservative streams of Christianity and Judaism.
Economic growth as a measure of economic well being is a scam - actually, a Ponzi scheme. It is past time to measure economic well being based on, well, well being. Not ever increasing population growth and worker productivity based on eternal work hours.
36
@Bjh
Will Bill Gates' et al money, especially Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular continue their population explosion, as U.N. predicts that "even with education and accessible birth control it will continue in coming decades".
Western "anti-natalists" proudly swearing "not a single child" will make zero impact on continuing global population explosion.
Neil,
I agree that the evolving demographics presents an economic challenge for the U.S. and many other areas of the World and we need innovation in our immigration policies but I think the fundamental social norm that has created the dismal trends that you are reporting might be resolved simply is to permit and encourage the hiring of older people. Some of us have remained healthy and are qualified to work but we may have become obsolete in some of the new technologies.
I strongly believe that our biggest and most certain economic challenge is to evolve the global energy source to non-fossil energy. This is huge challenge and will require a major reallocation of both private and government resources and redistribution of people and wealth.
In order to adapt the World's nations and cultures to the scale of this change will require much greater international cooperation and social mobility to meet the requirements and achieve economic stability. It is not very likely that this new world order will be achieved by free enterprise and market forces only. It will require international investment on a fair sharing basis similar to the concepts used to form the IMF, World Bank, and UN.
5
@james jordan
SIR:
With all due respect, your noble ideas and hopes for international cooperation will not (yet again) in any way work as (not only) you hope for. I will stop there as my comment might be, even when realistic and factual, labeled as "not fitting the publication".
Thus there will be, I am afraid repeatedly, rather tough crises and equality of outcome will be the last thing anyone will worry about.
Japan does not allow immigration on a significant scale.
Japan’s answer to poor demographics was to trade low yielding expensive sovereign debt for higher yielding Japanese equities.
As a sovereign with a printing press, that is a reasonable response, if insufficient.
The United States always has embraced immigration, often uniquely, and it prospered as a result. The “brain drain” was to America, governed by freedom, democracy and the rule of law. We benefit from immigrants at all skill levels.
Would a business rather have 300 million customers or 7 billion? Trump’s war on trade and immigration is idiotic. Closed economies like North Korea and Cuba are not models of economic prosperity.
Developed economies in general have a demographic problem from an economic standpoint, but emerging markets generally do not.
So we don’t need to add to global population growth, we need to better allocate the space we have. Economic growth occurs in hubs, which is why the depopulated center of America grows so much slower than the coasts.
Immigrants just don’t take jobs, they make jobs. Half the Fortune 500 companies were founded by first or 2nd generation Americans.
7 billion customers are better than 300 million.
Until Trump is thrown out of office, everything that already made America great will be undermined.
21
@David Parsons
Unlike Japan (but also S.Korea and even China) where governments would not dare to propose to proud population any mass immigration schemes, Western population is tolerating - and some even glamouring and celebrating and welcoming - mass immigration policies or "we can't control borders" practices of their governments.
Human demographic change with such reasonable and maybe achievable solutions. But what about the increasing birth rate of artificial intelligence?
2
An intelligent immigration policy would go a long way to improving America's long-term economic prospects. The high-tech future belongs to those countries with educated technologically skilled workforces. Immigrants with the intellect, the education and skill, and a cultural attitude (ability) to assimilate with the culture of America will strengthen America.
On the other hand, uncontrolled illegal immigration which expands the population of the uneducated and unskilled only increases the underclass and dependency on the rest of America.
It's high time that Congress does something about our completely broken immigration system if we want America to be able to meet the challenges of the future.
11
@Chris
Than, in the West (unlike in Far East), what immigration policies have been winning?
Proud Far East population doesn't allow their leaders to even propose any kind of mass immigration.
Yet they continue to be strong even without "diversity".
When I was young in the 1950's, in NZ, government used to pay mothers to stay home and look after their children, and the fathers of the children used to be the sole bread winner. Nowadays citizens can't afford to have kids because both parents are busy working to keep their heads above water. If you want your citizens to have more kids then pay them baby bonuses or whatever. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to work that one out.
18
@CK
Many governments have tried baby bonuses, they have even tried funding vacations for would be parents so they can get in the mood to procreate. Having a baby is not a dollars and cents decision. If it is priority for someone, they are going to do it no matter what the obstacles. If it not a priority, they will not do it whatever the incentive.
1
@CK
The notion that "people can't afford to have kids" is to a great degree (self-destructive) illusion and delusion.
It is actually possible to have decent life for self and children while entire life on welfare. The problem is that most of us fall into trap of consumption races.
The notion that we must see GDP growth to have a healthy economy is a hoax. Declining numbers of workers coupled with a SHRINKING population can result in net wage growth as seniors compete for services from the shrinking working class. You would think this idea would excite Democrats as it would truly result in wealth redistribution (poor workers able to become independent with fewer years of work). But, this scenario would likely result in a shift further right (workers with bigger incomes favor low taxes) so of course they are against it just as they oppose most policies that actually help the poor become independent,
8
The rich doesn’t want to hire 60 year olds as their minions. They want young blood.
1
Too many people are having babies where there are limited economic resources (Africa and India), and too few are having babies where there are lots of resources (Europe, Japan, coastal US). Valuable resources are wasted in richer areas, poverty is worsened in the poor areas. It creates a lopsided distribution which is unstable for society and the planet.
8
@DK
Your ideas are all from 50 years ago. Most of India is below replacement level in population growth, while it is also the fastest growing major economy for the past few years. The whole of Southern Europe is a basket case along with most of rural America.
They told us not to have so many kids but then allow illegal immigration because we didn't have those kids. I think I've been had. I don't trust anything anyone tells me any more. Gender pay gap between the two genders? I thought saying there's only two genders is forbidden? Heads you win,tails I lose? OK, I quit, howbowda?
7
@krnewman
Sorry to hear that you apparently paid attention and done what you have been told (no so many kids).
Where I came from we didn't trust government and its propaganda much, thus we ended up - and every single day enjoy and count our blessings with more than double the US average family number of children (all doing well, kind members of society).
Outsourcing jobs overseas is one (not exactly good) thing.
Outsourcing having and raising children abroad is potentially suicidal and certainly not smart.
Maybe some of the haters commenting on the op-ed by asylum seeker Sindy Flores should wander over here for a dose of reality.
Even as a member of VHEMT ("live long and die out") who's declined to procreate, I recognize the difficulties inherent to keeping stable our economy & democracy amid changing demographics. (i.e., part & parcel to goal of keeping total human population in check is the necessity of migration)
Putting aside that it's in our own demographic self-interest; we have a moral obligation to accept & deal with the consequences of our shifting climate- given that US has been a huge & disproportionate (relative to population size) driver of the coming horrors.
4
@winky
Question: Why VHEMT people strive to live long, when they should, being consistent in putting as little tons of CO2 and such out via no genetic copies (aka kids), look at themselves living as shorter lives as possible?
It is time to reduce population on the earth. There are too many people!
28
@Frank
Not only those beautiful, humanistic billionaires as Bill Gates, for decades now, have been doing whatever they can to ensure continuation of population explosion.
Then to at east maintaing corporate profits, being able to get rid of all that over-production, they need millions and some billions of new consumers (not workers).
This piece makes eminent sense and, at the same time, runs against the grain of the sentiments of xenophobic Trump voters in many of the areas mentioned who are losing workers and possess a knee jerk animus to immigrants. This square can’t be circled.
7
In 1980 the US population was 228 million. We now have 328 million. Anyone who says we need more people is blindingly stupid. Do we want to be another India? There is only so much water available. If it doesn’t snow enough the American West has drought. Less people is better for all.
46
@edthefed
You and most of other average Americans likely dont need "more people" but our top 1% and 0.1% and the corporation need many more people, increasingly not as cheap labor but as new consumers to help with that over-production of almost everything.
So, be assure, that they will continue to win and mass immigration of any quality will continue and speed up.
1
Gee.....do you think the move to coastal cities as my kids did has anything to do with rampant intolerance, a dominate religion,and mind numbing stupidity ?
After high school they put Boise Idaho in the rear view.
29
@Rickd785 I see this with all six of my godchildren. If you want to repopulate the rural areas and small cities, you need to give people reasons to come there. Good schools, affordable child care, and a community's willingness to accept those who are different could go a long way to draw people to these areas.
6
@varine
Your wishes for "good schools, affordable child care" etc. are no more realistic than believing in Santa Claus.
BTW: I doubt that immigrants such as Far East Asians or Indians would move into those weak economy and dying out places. But some of them (being a physician willing to live "in the woods" or enterprising liquor or motel owner would go there locals, including parents of school-age kids wouldn't mind.
But many classes of immigrants wouldn't go there for the same reasons: poor economy, bad schools ... because of poor tax base.
1
Mr. Irwin makes perfect sense if you think that people are there to serve "the economy," rather than the other way around.
13
Business and the GOP want slave labor wages for the poor and disaffected. Poor white people wont work the jobs that only illegal immigrants will perform. The rural red states are declining in population, their future is in doubt with the technology of the future. The red states feel cheated because they are not conducive to technology and the people are not trained for the technology jobs. It is really a sociological issue, it requires a generational change of mind which is a slow process. The speed of technological change is faster than these areas ability to change. Once they were left behind it’s tough to catch up. Once a person feels victimized they are in a state of negativity which makes thought change even more difficult. A tough road to hoe.
13
We know how this ends: with claims that conditioning the right to be here on a willingness to remain in a certain place is unconstitutional, racist and surely a host of other bad things.
No one would have the guts to enforce it.
4
Today almost all youngsters delay entering the workforce as they take up student loans and may even study silly subjects in college. They will never repay those loans, but are having a good time: maybe the only good time in their entire life. Work is for the immigrants, easily exploited because of their often dubious legality. And the promise of curbing illegal immigration is a simple way to obtain votes. Much rhetoric, little action.
Here in Holland there are presently many openings, but housing has become a problem. The numerous temporary workers from Poland often live in very bad conditions. There is always something.
2
It is ironic that the demographic decline is increasing as anti-immigration attitudes are reaching levels we haven't seen since the 1920s
8
This is a good article but I sense that in Trumplandia, the blame for the next recession will be placed squarely on brown people and not on the real place: TrumpGOP policy.
The real world is not going to be analyzed and improvements suggested. It’s going to be slash and burn.
2
Community town halls are the seat of true social & economic democracy. Start there...you would be surprised at how citizens are chomping at the bit to brainstorm solutions to problems. To make a meaningful contribution is the ultimate legacy & sign of self-dignity.
3
It utterly baffles me that so many in the US have become so anti-immigrant. It has always been our great competitive strength. Very few nations are as good at assimilating newcomers as we are. Immigration has played a critical role in so many of our great accomplishments and should continue to do.
There is nothing about ethnic homogeneity that's even interesting. It's not like we're giving up something good.
9
@Nancy
Immigration was strength ... because, in general, we had "melting pot" not "celebration of diversity".
This is not a bad thing. I submit, albeit controversially, that these towns and villages and even cities should disband and their residents should consider relocation. You can't force people to stay if opportunities are better elsewhere.
My fiends and I used to have a saying about our small town before we left: "What was the number one cause of death in our town? Boredom." Nothing to do and no real longterm prospects.
8
@Progers9
If you seek and go where entertainment is supplied that sound like very shallow life to me.
@Progers9, try affording relocation with little money and risky job prospects.
There are a number of words I hate. Of these "sustainable" & its twin "unsustainable" are right near the top of the list. Now one can argue if the universe will continue to expand or will eventually begin to contract. More locally, it seems the Sun will eventually will run out of fuel and explode.
But these long term problems are not what people usually mean (if they mean anything) when they use these words. They are just talking about the tiny rock we currently are confined to, called the earth. Sure, if the population continues to grow, there won't be enough volume in the atmosphere for everybody to find a a place to breath.
But for pete's sake, why should we restrict ourselves just to this rock? It is blindingly clear that the human race prospers, that life gets better for its members when it is growing in all ways, in knowledge, in resources, and, yes, in size. Stasis is death.
For all practical purposes, the solar system is infinite. Everything naysayers say is "unsustainable" is "sustainable" in any meaningful sense, within the solar system.
We have had the technology to go out when no person has gone before for decades, but have done little with it. If we had reversed the expenditures for defense and space, we would have colonies in near earth orbit, on the moon, and possibly even on mars. We would have a vibrant mining industry in the asteroid belt.
All we have to do is to lift our eyes up from the mud.
Ad Astra Per Aspera!!
3
"As a matter of simple arithmetic, lower growth in the number of people working will almost certainly mean slower growth in economic output."
By all means let's close the Southern border to potential workers and billions of dollars that flow in both directions in trade. Trump thinks his base will do the jobs all those immigrants are taking from them. Is that what the Wharton School of Business taught him about arithmetic and trade?
13
@Jacquie--Don't you thing the university scam was operational back then too? I bet Daddy Trump paid for Donny's grades and degree just as he paid for his acceptance.
2
@Susan
You mean the Old Trump has done what our progressive Hollywood actresses have done with their daughters in college admission scandal?
If government wants its middle class and working class citizens to have more children then it needs to reward them and incentivise them with money, to have more kids. Not brain science to work that one out. Maternity leave, pay mothers to stay home and be mothers, and paying mothers to only work part time, while prioritising jobs for single school leavers. Government support like family support, maternity leave, free hospital and child care and doctors visits for under 18 year olds, etc; etc;
23
Ironic that this article appears next to one on a shortage of farm and construction workers.
Of course baby boomers don't just disappear when they hit 65. They expect the smaller workforce left to provide a good living through Social Security and Medicare.
There really is no option other than immigration, both to rescue depopulated areas and to support our safety net.
Fortunately, the demand for a place to migrate to is going to be increasing as there are more and more climate change refugees.
Smart politicians will put all this together at some point, I hope.
6
Please do not think of incentivizing people to have more children, when overpopulation is the ultimate threat to humans in a world of limited resources. The stabilization of population at a sustainable level is a desirable situation. The disconnect is between undeniable limits and the perceived need for economic growth, no matter what. Anybody familiar with biology (which includes our own species) could tell you with certainty that unlimited growth in a world that has limits is an impossibility, and the only questions are by what means, at what level, and in what timeframe our growth will stop.
19
I do not regard a decline in population as an one-sided tragedy. That decline will lessen demands on limited natural resources and will lessen the demand for housing and thereby bring about lower living costs.
I further assume that as automation increases, the need for workers in a wide range of industries as rapidly as has the number of workers required to produce an automobile.
16
How about we just make a good match with work force numbers and automation? Rather than the government incentivizing people to have more children (we know the hazards of overpopulation, particularly with our being the third largest population which far and away consumes per capita more than any other) maybe we could encourage those companies which rely more and more on the boom in automation to set up in those regions of the country where the numbers of work force aged people are dwindling. Given a good deal by the government other companies might follow suit and want to locate to these areas. Perhaps tax breaks on the Fed level and local taxes can be levied to take care of local infrastructure and public services? Just a thought.
5
Here’s a radical suggestion: Businesses could hire people older than 50.
89
@CA Meyer
And in the tech sector, they could hire over age 35 and keep them until 70. What a concept.
17
We have plenty of worker. For blue collar the problem we have is a lack of skills, ability to show up every day and the ability to pass a drug test. Lots of people apply- few commit
While White collar workers over 45 are unemployable. They can’t even get an interview. Corporations are only willing to pay entry level salaries
21
No doubt this appeals to those who want even cheaper labor and less unionization, (the effect of massive immigration we have had) or the fools who think we live on an infinite planet with unlimited resources. But I'm glad I won't see that future of overcrowding, the disappearance of even more of nature and wildlife, even more climate disruption thanks to increasing population all wanting to consume, consume. the depletion of ocean resources, the spreading ugliness, all well depicted by "Soylent Green." Since humanity is unable to deal with long tern thinking, I expect it will came to that future indeed.
16
6% of US immigrants come from India and 78% hold a bachelors degree or higher.
26% of US immigrants come from Mexico and 6% hold a bachelors degree or higher.
If we're going to bring in immigrants with education and skills, we need to overhaul our immifration policy to reflect that.
And that's not going to happen.
11
There is a reason why the U.S. is well down the list of "happiest countries". If we continue on our current path of greed, selfishness and narcissism we may be faced with emigration.
10
Democrats have a theoretical interest in helping depopulated areas, but a political interest in getting more Electoral Votes on the coast.
4
Or how about discouraging movement of people to Seattle, San Francisco and other coastal cities by simply letting those cities price themselves out of the housing market, instead of constantly haranguing them to erect more apartment buildings in old single-family neighborhoods.
8
We wed an immigration policy like Canada’s. Accept immigrants with skills!
11
@Louise Yarvis - Immigrants with skills simply replace Americans with skills who are over 45 years of age...
Yes, of course you are right. But what you say makes way too much sense for anyone blinded by the bright lights of capitalism to pay any attention to. In a country (world) where capitalism is the overwhelmingly dominant ideology, the very god we prostrate ourselves in front of, the mantra is that capitalism needs to grow. Like a shark; it needs to keep moving and eating.
But making demographic adjustments to encourage growth simply exacerbates the situation we are currently in as profits from that growth go right to the top. And maybe worst of all, as you point out, growth creates a bigger carbon foot print, which may stop growth dead in its tracks if left unchecked.
Democratic socialism anyone? Or shall we continue to whistle past the graveyard, and blindly cling to the fantasy that the market is a natural, rational, self-regulating force that, if left alone, will eventually raise all boats – if we just keep feeding it. We will be like the dance band on the Titanic, playing away as the water washes over our feet.
Marx observed: “Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” In other words, the more it grows the more blood it wants to suck – our blood.
11
And yet a declining population is the only hope for human survival when you look at the dwindling resources of the planet we live in. Obsession with economic growth is the problem. Why are we chasing growth rather than contentment?
60
The current lack of daycare options, workplace flexibility, coverage for prenatal care and birth costs, etc is downright hostile to young people who might want to start a family, and the right answer is to support young families.
Increasing immigration is just an easy out that avoids addressing the real challenges, though of course a sane immigration policy that makes it easy for talented, highly educated workers to come here (as Canada has) would be very beneficial for our economy.
39
Unemployment is low but wages are not increasing, so we have enough workers. Small businesses are the drivers in rural towns but the business climate has changed. Large businesses have made production and retail more efficient, eliminating the need for small businesses. The local foundry has been replaced by an office complex of money managers. Immigration may not help unless they bring their own jobs.
10
As a renter in France, I wonder about moving back to the U.S. in 15 years, with my Euros for retirement.
Maybe the rents will be low in some small town in the U.S. where there are no jobs, in 15 years.
Perhaps something by the sea, in Maine or California, or Washington state.
5
@David Martin--Sorry, but rents are not low in WA by the sea. On our side of the state, though it's different. You could live by the Columbia in NE WA like we do for not much.
Or try Maine? CA is worse than WA.
Undoing the myth of overpopulation is going to take a lot of effort, even more than convincing people that immigration is a net positive instead of a net-negative.
7
Please inform us about the "myth of overpopulation."
4
@John The mantra since the 1960s has been that the growth of humanity comprises a lethal threat to civilization and nature, yet if you look carefully you see that the numbers never supported the fear. There' s lot to unpack in it, but my primary observation is that overpopulation does not mean too many people. It means too many OTHER people. It is always underlined by racism and classism, if not general misanthropy.
1
Have you been to India Pakistan or AFG lately? No overpopulation in Mumbai?
We talk of growth in terms of wealth, not improvement. We encourage immigration of those who can expand our wealth, not those in need. We are led by people consumed with hubris, greed and religious and constitutional hypocrisy. We fear those we don't understand and pull back into gated communities and walled borders, telling ourselves we are the moral leaders of the western world. As people who believe this lie travel thousands of miles to escape brutality and poverty our answer is to build a wall that will be ineffective in keeping people out but clearly demonstrates our lack of empathy or intelligent, compassionate solutions to eliminate the need to risk their lives on this arduous journey. Answer, bringing "labor", not families, to rural Midwest communities who are mostly old, white and afraid of change? In the long run communities are likely to find these brown people love and understand the American dream while current citizens stand by while it erodes. Our need of migrants and coming climate migration suggests that we first become the moral, accepting, truthful, equality based society we profess to be so that newcomers habituate into a culture of kindness and not one that is dog eat dog, celebrating only greed, power, intimidation and lies. They will become what we ask of them. First, we must look in the mirror and ask this of ourselves.
13
For those claiming we need to stop caring about economic growth I ask who is going to pay for your retirement. Who do you think is going to pay the taxes to fund your social security and medicare? It will be people working while you are retired. Not to mention the people needed to run the country. If you are willing to accept a declining standard of living then by all means cut off immigration. If you want your kids and grand-kids to have a better life, or at least not a significantly worse life, that takes productive workers. We won't have enough on our own- we never have. A targeted immigration policy that repopulates America's dying towns sounds like a good idea.
20
You seem to have just given a textbook description of a Ponzi scheme.
9
@AJ social security is dead dude. Not sure how you could live in SF on SS.
3
@Tanesha - No, SS is not dead. May be dead for you younger people still working but I am looking forward to 30 years or more of it at this point. Keep putting in those hours please!
And if you can't afford to live somewhere, then I guess you'll have to move.
I don’t understand what’s so tricky about looking at the numbers and saying yeah, we need more immigrants. I mean, we can’t be that illiterate or that afraid America’s not good enough to handle things, can we? We can’t be so ignorant we don’t know that when people get better educated and have better economic lives, they have fewer kids, can we?
Wait, hang on. This wouldn’t be a matter of panicked white guys and their political parties, would it? I don’t want to use the r-word, as they get all riled up...but it wouldn’t be that their irrational fears (often, whomped up by guys like Trump) are overriding their judgment, would it?
19
@Robert
You don't understand why we don't need a disproportionate percentage of illiterate immigrants with rudimentary skills and little interest in becoming literate? Because that's who comes from our southern border: not an ideal mix of skilled and unskilled, educated and not, but --overwhelmingly-- desperate people from desperate circumstances and locations, needing to live for the present survival moment instead of for increasing advancement and the tools needed to get there. I have taught their children, and the same mentality they had there is merely transported up here. A minority of them are realistic about their own futures and will eventually provide more than the most blue-collar of work, which, with inevitable rises in COL, will make them dependent on our social services. U.S. immigration policy has never recommended that the bulk of any kind of labor come from merely one region on the globe and be narrowly of one category of labor. Any country needs a balance of manual labor and intellectual labor, or it will find itself without one of those within a generation.
8
@calleefornia Live in Sf Bay Area too. We have so many immigrants here we interact with them a lot. My dad is an immigrant, my friends are kids of immigrants, my coworkers (past and present) are immigrants I have volunteered at a school to mentor kids of immigrants. I have love and empathy for all people but we have a crisis in the Bay Area of poverty and homelessness for people who work minimum wage jobs. Perhaps other parts of the country can absorb this type of immigration (where a person can support themselves on a minimum wage job) but Bay Area is full as far as I'm concerned.
1
Uncle Sam must needs take care/working stiffs are mighty rare/empty factories do mean/streets where grass is growing green/but let immigrants arrive/and there is a chance we'll thrive.
2
@tim torkildson
Walt Whitman?/
1. The author pushes a pernicious doctrine that emerges frequently in the media. This is the idea that if our population of young people doesn't grow, we are on the road to disaster.
2. This myth floats around in absolute contradiction to our insights about the true, impending, vastly greater disaster, global warming. For the real crisis, warming, the causation is: population growth requires increased production, which means more greenhouse gases, which means Lower Manhattan, etc, underwater in a century or two. And means, who knows? Devastating droughts, hurricanes, fires...
3. The first point, spuriously, calls for surging population.
4. The second point calls for reducing population as dramatically as possible.
5. The second point is correct, and the only hope we have for ameliorating the cataclysm that is beginning.
Population growth is the kiss of death for our civilizations.
6. End of discussion.
But a footnote on the bad economics behind this article, ie. behind point 1 is relevant.
The crisis claimed by this article would be that a reduction in the growth of population will bring a reduction in the growth of the economy. So what?
There's less production for fewer people. But production per person, per capita product, will INCREASE. That's what you get, which is MORE.
The reason is that fewer people produce more efficiently: they don't have to crowd the factories, use lousy farmland, drive 3 hours per day. More efficiency means more for you.
26
@alyosha
That only works when your population has an even age distribution. But a declining-population country won't have that even distribution - it will be more heavily oriented to older people, like Japan is becoming. If those old people want to stop working - we call that "retire" - there won't be the current production to support them. Immigration doesn't so much increase the population as it evens out the age distribution with people who are still working age.
6
@Cfiverson
Oddly enough, people who want to rely on market economics are happy to do so until they really have to.
This comment seems to me to describe emerging market opportunities according to demographic shifts.
We have so much automated data collection and potentially AI supported predictions for efficient distribution of widgets, I expect we will be just fine. Also, people are aging better, or at least it seems they are, so their needs may not be what is imagined in the dark projections.
Maybe this is a chance to redesign, it is way overdue.
Of course we should support immigration, it is a defining feature of America.
1
@alyosha - "More efficiency means more for you."
Excellent! I am assuming that this will mean more SS for me and that the fewer workers will have to ante up more of their efficient productivity for me. Thanks!
We really need to address sustainability and get growth out of our vocabulary. Endless growth is not sustainable. We are the throwaway species. If bridges crumble, businesses board up, star all over somewhere else. We are not a bright species.
46
Seems like the same old ideas keep getting trotted out when there is a whiff of even slight economic decline. Yes, a more compassionate immigration policy might help some but if you were to simply add 100,000 new immigrates in Mississippi, I doubt it would move the needle in and of itself. Do we really need more unskilled workers anyway? We consistently see articles talking about how AI, Big Data, and robotics are making more and more jobs obsolete.
What we really need is a more sustainable tax base and to do that, we might want to re-review our tax policies a bit more carefully. What we surely don't need is more American high consuming babies.
23
Easy peasy al la mode apple-pie. Open the floodgate of immigration of MD/STEM educated foreigners and watch Dayton grow.
3
@terry brady - LOL !!! Well said.
This article explains why Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of "The Black Swan" is so contemptuous of macroeconomists who only think of the short and intermediate term, without considering the long term.
Back in the 1960s, British novelist John Fowles (author of "The French Lieutenant's Woman") wrote in his non-fiction work, "The Aristos": "If we insist that we are free to breed like rabbits, Nature will see to it that we die like them".
44
@PMN Mr. Irwin is not suggesting that we "breed like rabbits." He is suggesting that people who already exist in this world and want to immigrate to the US, be encouraged to settle in cities that want and need workers. That is a reasonable suggestion.
5
@PMN
Great comment...thanks for mentioning Taleb!
4
Demographics will continue on it’s way despite any puny efforts we may make. The issues are too large for our fragmented politics to address. And the change is slow enough so as to not keep our attention. As it has been in history, so will it be now.
6
The global economy is a grand Ponzi scheme. As we all should know by now, there are limits to growth. We need to transition to a sustainable economy, rather than one that depends on growth. Not likely though, as the world has no shortage of greedy power-mad fools poised to destroy our environment for a few more coins in their pockets.
82
@Samantha Kelly
Well said
5
You don't want to go down the same path as Japan. Not reproducing enough, living longer, leading to higher stress among younger population. Entry levels today in Japan now have to accomplish the same amount of task or more with fewer people and with compromised efficiency. Thus we have so many cheating scandals there every day.
1
The current generation of young people is not having many children? Gosh, do you suppose they listened to their parents advice about having children? I know I told my kids useful tips like:
Don't have children until you're ready.
Wait until you have a steady job before you decide to have children.
Make sure you're married, and confident of your relationship before you have children.
Be sure your spouse/partner is committed to sharing the care of children.
Make sure you can afford the costs of child care, etc.
So now, when our adult children are trying to navigate today's world, most jobs can't be relied on to be steady. The costs of raising a child are constantly rising, while wages are stagnant. Saving money is very difficult. People who have good jobs are reluctant to jeopardize them by taking time off. In particular, women who take time out of their careers to raise children loose a lot of potential lifetime income. Many young adults don't marry, and of those who do, many of them saw their parents' marriages fall apart.
So, I don't have grandchildren. Who would have imagined all this good advice, which was heeded by my kids, would have left me without grandchildren?
108
@Marjorie
You advice sounds like what I tell my son and [some] of his friends. So where does this logically end? Breeding only from irresponsible and/or rich people?
14
@Marjorie, would you really want grandchildren and their children, if any, to face what's coming in 50 to 100 years of global climate changes? Personally, I'm glad I have no children or direct line descendants. I worry about my nieces, nephews, and their children, though. I worry like all get out about what it will be like for them.
13
Did anyone actually read the op ed before launching off on an anti-growth diatribe? He cites areas that lost population because people move away for lack of opportunities, not from not having children.
4
Really? I will believe the story of the demographic decline the day a Marshall Plan is announced for American citizens.
1. Free or very affordable trade and STEM education - because that it where the labor shortages are said to be the most acute
2. Universal health care for all -- because that is necessary for a mobile, productive, and risk-taking innovative workforce
3. Infrastructure rebuilding -- because that is what is needed to create quality jobs and better roads etc. for people to easily get around
4. Just like the home mortgage deduction, policies that encourage and promote establishing and building families - tax breaks for on-site child care in each office park, bigger standard deductions for children, more time-off as in western Europe
These are just the ideas that I, a retired woman with no economics training, came up with - just off the top of my head. If the best and brightest put their minds to it, they would figure out ways to implement such policies and/or come up with better ones. Where there is a will there is a way. The real question is this - is there a will??
In the meantime, I read hand-wringing articles like this one as a veiled argument for replacing American workers with more compliant and cheap foreign workers.
No, thank you.
83
@na, the declining birth rate is real, whether you want to face that inconvenient fact or not. It is currently around 1.8 and declining. We need at least 2.0 to stablize our population, and that is not happening. As far as a Marshall Plan to increase our population internally - perhaps you need to listen to what Democratic presidential hopefuls are talking about.
5
@na
While I don't share your objections to increased immigration, or your concern about population decline (which I frankly welcome), I agree with many of your ideas. Not only would they solve the "challenge of demographic decline," but they would greatly enhance the quality of life for citizens, something politicians at least used to pretend to care about.
I do think it's worth pushing back on the focus on STEM education, though. I know a lot of people, in multiple cities, who work in tech. They get dozens, if not hundreds, of applications for open positions when they're posted. The push for more STEM, I suspect, has more to do with employers wanting a flooded market so they can pay less.
15
@na Health care doesn't do a thing for ageism. We have universal health care in Canada and just as much employment ageism as you do in the USA. People in the private sector here are pushed out by their mid 50s as well and become unemployable. Then they claim that we are drains on society.
12
We have two major trends to contend with:
As mentioned, the Boomers are leaving their working years and the following generations are not large enough to fill the gaps.
Secondly the economy is changing and leaving many behind. The barriers to entry for the new economy are too high for millions to surmount. A 50 yr old laid off machinist from Toledo, OH will not move to San Diego, CA to learn programming for the gaming industry or to become a LPN. It is too different, the costs are too high.
Our failure to deal with these two trends has led directly to Trump. He is the reaction to fear of change, and fear of the other. He is also the reaction to the anger of those who were left behind and watched helplessly while those at the top were taken care of and they withered on the vine.
If we are to survive this transition in peace then the Democrats must offer a platform that provides an alternative to fear. I would suggest:
Service to the nation
Compassion for those in need
Respect for all
49
The economy at present shows sluggish growth accompanied by very low unemployment. The two don't go together usually. These numbers seem to point to a labor shortage.
4
@Bill H
In 1964 the average hourly wage in the U.S. (in seasonally-adjusted constant 2018 dollars) was $20.27. In 2018 it was $22.65.
THAT is what people punching a clock have got to show for the last half-century. Maybe it's time to tap the brakes on the supply of labor and let the market right the ship before it's mobs-with-pitchforks time.
23
Very insightful article. To maintain our standard of living, we need to have enough people working. Increasing labor participation by improving child care and employing more aged workers would help that, combined with strategic and thoughtful increases in immigration. I had seen a chart recently that showed U.S. population had decreased in the last few years had it not been for the foreign born (Census term). The problems with not having enough workers with a population that is aging, as in the U.S., is it will have significant impact on the more vulnerable people - for example, who will take care of all the seniors in hospitals, nursing homes, home aides, etc.? Japan has somewhat solved these issues by encouraging employment from women, the elderly and immigrants. We can look at this and other successes to defy the demographics and live happily ever after.
8
When the Internet was emerging as a force for economic growth (some 30 years ago), many experts touted it as a savior for less developed areas because it promised to link rural and other underdeveloped areas to economic centers. Telecommuting was one of the next big things, they experts said. Many people would no longer need to move to urban areas for employment. However, the flow to urban areas seems to have increased rather than decreased in the past 30 years. Why is that and how can the Internet and telecommuting make less developed areas more attractive? Someone should look more deeply into that dynamic.
28
@RB
Good questions. Both my daughter and her partner were telecommuting for companies they had both worked for at their respective corporate offices.
It didn’t last. There is an intrinsic demand to oversee a departments workers, as in “on-site”. Lack of confidence in the dedication of offsite workers performance is a reason, as is the appearance of managing, which is more visible if the staff is local.
14
@RB - They can start by preventing USA companies from hiring support/customer service people in foreign land.
If I call Amazon, Comcast, AT&T and countless other places I buy from, I will almost always get someone in India, the Philippines and untold other places, most trying desperately to sound like they work in the USA by [humorously] using common American names like Tom, Joan, Bob, etc.
These workers DO NOT pay USA taxes, including Social Security and Medicare.
Force these jobs back into the USA and many more work opportunities could be created in the heartland of the country while also increasing taxes collected, which fund all the benefits we enjoy here in the USA!
4
@TJC, yep. A relative is a computer consultant, but his boss is insecure about letting him and other employees telecommute because the boss fears lack of enough oversight.
Virtually every wealthy, developed country is in this situation.... Except one: Israel.
Ofir Haivry writes in Mosaic Magazine about "Israel's Demographic Miracle." Would it be too much to ask U.S. policymakers to study and learn from Israel's inspiring example?
https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2018/05/israels-demographic-miracle/
1
@JasonM
Not too much to ask of U.S. policymakers, perhaps, but certainly an initiative based upon a flawed premise. Study and learn from Israel's inspiring example, you say?
The fifth paragraph of your linked article clearly states:
"Meanwhile, birthrates of Arabs across the Middle East, including in Israel and the Israel-controlled territories of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza, were vastly higher than Jewish birthrates and showed no signs of diminishing."
Israel's collective effort, which is most likely futile, is part of an attempt to reverse the status quo: a slow but inevitable increase in the proportion of Arabs versus Jews among the populace.
As a Jewish State, the religion of its inhabitants is of special importance to Israel. However any Native American can tell you that the USA had become a majority country of immigrants centuries ago.
Apparently little more is needed to reduce birthrates than to grant green cards and the right of abode/ to work to recent USA immigrants. While it may not have been a reason for their immigration, the freedom to choose the size of their family is one of the rights and privileges that come with it.
Even though the Trump-Republican 2018 tax cuts for the rich, which did away with tax exemptions for dependent children, would appear to be a policy decision in direct conflict with what JasonM proposes, it is difficult to see any learning to be had on the basis of Israel's unique situation.
3
Except Americans are living longer and need to work longer in order to avoid retiring in squalor. Except age discrimination is an ever worsening problem despite our aging population. Companies claim a talent shortage while rejecting applicants older than 35 as a “bad cultural fit” and while pushing out current workers before they even hit 50. People need to work into old age, but companies are making that impossible. Our 25-54 labor participation rate is still historically low.
We also are told artificial intelligence and automation are going to eliminate many of our jobs. That’s why there’s talk about universal basic income. So why do we need to increase immigration. The severity of the past recession caused many people to forgo or delay children. And continued economic precariousness discourages many young Americans from having children. Immigration doesn’t address the root cause of these demographic trends.
Mass immigration since the 1990 Immigration Act probably increased economic inequality in America by doubling the number of green cards issued annually and establishing H1-B and other foreign worker visas. When the supply of labor is global, workers here have little bargaining power. Increasing immigration levels may increase GDP overall, but it says nothing about the quality of that growth.
68
@H
Yep, at 66 times around the sun I’ve experienced age discrimination again and again.
Luckily I have resources and part-time consulting to keep things interesting.
10
@H The jobs that demographically they need aren't going to be even filled by older people or many people born in America. They want low-paid low-status women willing to do home care for seniors, people to work in fields picking crops, people to clean washrooms and hotels or working in slaughterhouses processing pork and chicken.
3
Fewer humans is by far the best thing that can happen to every other species.
160
@JustInsideBeltway How about humans in the places they can best prosper and contribute to their community. Surely that's not a bad idea.
1
Overpopulation. Enough of the “ Growth “ expectation and wish. Gaining immigrants, great idea. Continuing to have Children you can’t afford and educate : condemning them to a life of poverty and suffering.
SAD.
52
Easily mitigated by carefully increasing immigration. But conservatives and ethno-nationalists will pitch a fit.
6
@Andrew
It's the "carefully" part, and whether you really mean it, that has us pitching fits.
4
The demographic trends suggest solutions that are counter to liberal policies.
Let’s begin with housing discrimination – particularly for immigrants. Mayor Whaley may support the “Welcome Dayton” program that attracts immigrants from Turkey, but I doubt the program could be advertised on Facebook without violating the anti-discrimination laws. People of similar cultural and religious faith may like to live in a neighborhood where they dominate but the real estate transactions and preferences cannot be done in the open. Perhaps it is time to admit that the anti-discrimination laws are wrongheaded. There should be nothing wrong with advertising the virtues of a Turkish, Spanish, black, Jewish, WASP, gay, Polish, Asian, etc. neighborhoods as long as anyone with enough green can buy in. Digital advertising that targets the desired audience should be allowed (just as it is in consumer goods).
An even more controversial norm relates to abortion where feminists have earned the right to destroy a perfectly healthy unborn child. Short of equating abortion with murder, as least the father’s right to procreate and refuse consent to abortion should be recognized. A man’s right to save his child would turn the tide on declining populations in the U.S. and lessen the pressure to have immigrants (documented and undocumented) fill the labor voids. Adoption is a wonderful option.
1
@Eugene Patrick Devany A man who truly intends to "save his child" should never have sexual intercourse unless he's married to the woman, she agrees that she wishes to become pregnant by him, and he supports any children that might result.
16
Blessed Be the Fruit. May the Lord Open.
2
Goosing GDP from 2% to 3%.
Finding somebody, ANYBODY, to tax in order to fund social security for boomers.
THIS is how we judge the advisability of our immigration policies??
This is insanity.
Perpetually flooding the country's labor force with low-to-no-skilled immigrants who will take decades, if not generations, to assimilate (if that's even a thing anymore) is a recipe for strife and further decay of the fabric of our society.
I'm sure those who craft the policies of this country (and those who opine about them) are truly delighted by how little they need to pay all those nannies and gardeners and painters and carpenters and cooks and cleaners.
But sooner or later even they will find that all those rock-bottom wages come at a very high cost.
19
I am a Boomer and proud of it and retiring in 4 years. I have earned my Social Security
7
The nimbyism and no growth mindset of some of California’s smaller towns that are currently prospering due to the current tech bubble would do well to heed the problems of these Midwest towns.
If you are not growing, you are dying. My town’s refusal to pass rent control and to seriously address the housing needs of those who live and work here will hurt the town when the tech money tide recedes.
The causes of a town’s declines may look different but once a populace decides to shut the door , they are locking themselves away as well
1
@Dani Weber
"If you are not growing, you are dying."
Growth and death go, and come, together. Stand in the middle of a healthy forrest and you will see it growing and dying. "Stable at climax", as Gary Snyder said. A little stability, and yes even death (of-a-kind), might be just what the doctor ordered.
3
I'm all for immigrants coming to live in the US for any reason. What really bothers me that at 59 I've aged out of being employed. I can't retire with my full social security benefits until I'm 72, and I can't retire without them. You do the math.
92
@Julie Hall
I’ve experienced this too...but I was born before you so my SS threshold was 65, plus I didn’t need it as much since I had other financial resources.
Living the US dream is sometimes more akin to a bad dream.
12
@Julie Hall. Excellent point. There is ample research to support age discrimination in the workforce as a whole. It was especially evident during the last recession where employers disproportionately laid off older workers to save dollars. And the trend has continued up through the present.
31
@Julie Hall
How do you arrive at 72? Full retirement age for someone your age is 67.
13
You might want to think twice about allowing counties to opt out of immigrants.... Smacks of condoning racism. An alternative would be to incentivize corporations to move production and back room facilities to more rural counties by allowing them increased visas for immigrants. Right now permissible visas are snapped up in one day or less by corporations seeking talented immigrants. If corporations got more visas by moving facilities to rural areas they might embrace that initiative. With a good internet connection many tech companies can work from almost any location. But the racism issue will still need to be faced. If the immigrants are talented and more highly paid, with the local citizens moving into support roles, there is ample room for resentment and anger. Not an easy problem to solve.
5
The economist Thomas Piketty has revised my thinking on immigration, by pointing out that 'natural' GDP growth is really only about 1%/year. Only two factors allow an economy to grow faster...
Economies can grow faster when they're 'catching up' from the perspective of industrialization or technology. Case: China, which has grown at a far higher rate as it moved from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, albeit at terrible environmental cost.
Or, economies can grow faster when their population's also increasing. But since all the tech-advanced/industrialized nations have natural reproduction rates <0, only immigration can stimulate GDP growth.
That's why on a per capita basis, Canada admits so many more immigrants. You might wonder whether Germany or Scandinavian countries are making a mistake allowing so many migrants from the Middle East/Africa into their countries, but they too have done Piketty's math.
Anyone living in a small town anywhere in the Midwest will tell you that the only people moving in are immigrants. Lots of old white people resent them, but most realize that the alternative is a slow death.
24
You constantly read we need population growth for growth. No we need some via immigration to manage our slow decline. Increasing population growth does lead to growth but their is an inflection point after with it leads to decline and problems. Do people really think a world of 12 billion will be more prosperous than one with 7.5 billion. I will not it will be more unstable more unstable and mere easily destabilized by disasters and wars.
34
@GUANNA
The privileged elite "masters of the universe" don't think they are included in the 12 billion statistic. Think of it as a Roman arena where the rulers watch, from a distance, gladiators destroy each one another.
7
Two opposite responses. All occasional NYTs articles about or mentioning population growth continue to say that we need it despite the comments from me and others that the Earth probably can not tolerate it. Yet--your writers, particularly the economics ones, keep missing this. It's as if the Earth does not exist in their super-specialized economics thinking. I know Neil has written about climate change--but it's relevant here, too. And talking about "population," what about those of endangered species? Why don't they count? One of the major environmental models is Environmental Impact equals Population X Affluence or Consumption X the pollution content of Technology. So it makes pollution and resource depletion worse. We can't continue to make the cavalier assumption that technology (the easiest part of the formula to focus on) is going to be enough to save us, or doesn't come with its own negative consequences. It's time to challenge the conventional wisdom at the Times about population, as well as innovate the social support systems that currently depend on population growth.
(And, also, why do you continue to ignore this?)
On the other hand, the idea of targeted immigration is interesting and appears to solve multiple problems at the same time. Just be thoughtful about how you define the "skill" in skilled immigrants. It overlooks some wonderful people in the unskilled category who may also have the qualities we're going to need as we go into into an ever-murky future.
34
I recently moved to a relatively rural area to do work related to economic development.
One of the first major realizations I have had here is about the lack of support for working families. Childcare is basically impossible to access unless you are on the extremes of the economic ladder.
Also in my region, which is physically beautiful, a shocking number of property owners have decided to go all-in with AirBnB, driving up costs and taking a lot of housing stock out of the market. Local business leaders say housing has very abruptly become one of the area's biggest challenges.
Meanwhile, the economy is simply very slow. The only recent economic bright spot (so to speak) was a proposal to build a huge resource-extraction operation in the area, which 90% of this very conservative region adamantly opposes.
These are but a few things that have become clear to me in just a month or so of doing this work. I can't blame young people for leaving, and I can't blame people for choosing to have fewer or no children. I agree with the Dayton mayor that a lot of this is the result of choices made by our government and industry leaders, and it's too bad.
35
Currently most of states in the middle of the country are trying to attract businesses while paradoxically adopting policies that drive away many of their current residents to economically vibrant coasts. Many states are directing tax dollars to private schools that may be of uneven quality, many are parochial in nature and are thus unattractive to someone looking for diversity. Many states are adopting policies that govern relationships and family structures, which tend to make those places unattractive to a diverse populace. Clearly these places need to project a message where everyone is welcome and will be allowed personal freedom and creative space. Do we really need laws that dictate what time one can buy adult beverages or what size of containers can certain beverages be bottled in?
19
Real, per capita income growth -- rather than just real aggregate growth -- should be the goal. Real income growth due to any factor other than productivity growth is ultimately illusory.
If reigning in and adapting to climate change are also considered, a stable or slightly declining total population and movement of people away from areas already being degraded by climate change, or facing the certain prospect of being degraded within the next several decades, should be goals.
Geographically targeted relocation incentives for current residents should be pursued ahead of immigration targeted incentives, which as described in this article amount to indentured residency.
17
The idea that our future well being is dependent on pretual growth of the economy needs to be rethought. There is a point of population sustainability on this planet, and quite probably we have surpassed that point. We must think in terms of fewer more productive workers within a population level commensurate with the resources available. Most of the resources used in manufacturing are finite. So we must either look to reuse and recycle those resources. We need an economy based more on services and less on manufacturing, as more of those jobs are being automated anyways. At present we seem to be in a mad dash to oblivion.
122
This is a good idea, and something like it is inevitable. Even Japan is starting to take in way more immigrants than it used to because the alternative is economic decline.
However, the way this will play out is that the larger cities in Middle America will get lots of immigrants and economic vibrancy. These are already arguably the best places to live in America as they offer most of the amenities and job opportunities of a big coastal city at a fraction of the cost of living and commute time. Rural areas won’t want to take in many immigrants and will continue their decline.
5
@Aoy, Besides the draw of large cities in Middle American, it is beyond hypocrisy to ask immigrants to stay in places Americans don't want to. There is no way to keep immigrants in a certain place short of an internal visa system. Well, since it won't work in reality, it is just another argument for open borders that lead to unskilled immigrants that are demanded in big cities.
Why must we forever worship at the alter of endless growth and at the same time complain about a used up, polluted, climate changing world? Isn't the connection between endless growth and a degraded environment clear enough yet? Why can't the USA manage a period of change and stabilize or even reduce its population? Want to get out of a hole? Then first, stop digging.
250
@Mr. Jones
Well said. Endless growth is unsustainable. That which is unsustainable eventually stops. But the mechanism of stopping is likely to be catastrophic.
69
Growth is the least bad option out there when considering all the other alternatives, quaint pockets of antiquity exist, surrounded by and financed by modernity. There is not quaint good country out there
8
@Mr. Jones: When I read this article I did not read about "endless growth," rather I read a suggestion about moving existing populations around.
I understand the impulse to want to create a functioning, sustainable economy without increasing the number of humans in this world, but as the climate changes and due to political conflicts this climate change may cause, the world's population may need to move around. Welcoming immigrants to particular US cities is not a bad idea.
21
Here in flyover country, the average age of a farmer is approaching 60 years old and are the oldest demographic of any occupation. As they retire or age out, it is not young people who are taking over farming that land, it is the neighboring farmer or a corporation.
43
I appreciate this article on such a complicated topic. First off we should note that demographics determines many important long term things. There's no question that economic strength is a function of population. The classic cases are the very poor Bangladesh and India populations. And I'm sure it was the basis for the disastrous one child policy in China. On the other side, we have Japan which, as a closed society, is basically aging itself to death.
Second , part of the proposed solution of increasing immigration to offset decline American birthrates makes perfect sense. Especially when the immigration is based on skills (not necessarily family ties) and when the immigrants have been educated in American universities. There is much evidence that the very thing that has made America great was the diversity of the waves of immigrants over our history. (mostly before there was a distinction between legal and illegal immigration).
Finally, the rest of the proposed solution of economically enticing immigrants to certain parts of the country is dangerous. It will be filled with unintended consequences and smacks of government overreach. Just like 50 years ago, no one foresaw Austin Texas or Pittsburgh PA would be a major tech and population hubs, population trends change in ways we can't control.
Encourage immigrants into this country. But don't try to engineer where they live. Rural or disadvantaged areas will ebb and flow. Let it work itself out
22
The middle of the country was always a social engineering project. Without the investment in power plants, sewage & water and roadway infrastructure during the era of the great depression, middle America would have never existed. Without external stimuli, many of these places will be returned to wilderness
12
@deedubs. “...the disastrous one child policy in China.” Wrong. That policy was in fact a great success. China first needed to get its population growth under control in order to be able to lift itself out of poverty. It did and living standards soared.
1
These areas are great places to live and raise children. They are not dystopian scenes from a post apocalyptic movie. Typically the schools are as good as almost any in suburbs of growing metro areas. Retirees from big metro areas, particularly well-off households, return and have a good life, with excellent medical facilities. The problem is employment and income growth. Dropping immigrants into these areas will not create jobs.
We would have to see a huge transfer in capital to these areas to create the jobs. If done well, you might see a virtuous cycle as the immigrants feed off the capital and develop growing, capital generating communities. IF done well. First Government does not do this process well. Politicians and bureaucrats are totally inept at this process. The risk is very high that we would waste every dime. Second, why take the chance? Putting same capital into metro areas would be a safer bet and serve as many or more people. Private firms are much smarter than bureaucrats. They are already putting capital where it will do the most good for the most people.
The author has to make a better case that a dollar spent to develop these counties delivers a greater return to the nation than one spent in an already growing area. Capital has made its decision otherwise. People follow. The acres of land involved do not get a vote.
12
@Michael Blazin
No, capital follows people. Capital doesn’t care about Sun or Rust, people do. People moved out of the Rust Belt first because air conditioning and greater affluence made the Sun Belt a nicer place to live. The jobs followed only decades later. In Pittsburgh, for example, the population peaked in 1950, and the steel industry only started to decline in the 1970s. By then there had already been two decades of -10% population growth. Capital goes where the number of workers and consumers is expanding.
6
@Aoy Pittsburgh is in the biggest boom in the east.
1
@Michael Blazin
"First Government does not do this process well. Politicians and bureaucrats are totally inept at this process. The risk is very high that we would waste every dime. Second, why take the chance? Putting same capital into metro areas would be a safer bet and serve as many or more people. Private firms are much smarter than bureaucrats. They are already putting capital where it will do the most good for the most people."
Have you been paying attention the past 40 years? Private firms are great at figuring out ways to enrich owners and shareholders. Trusting them to make decisions that will benefit the commonweal, however, has a mixed track record at best. The idea that we can just trust the markets to sort things out has taken us to near-record levels of inequality and the brink of climate catastrophe. We need more rules, more regulations, and more government oversight. Not less.
4
This is why Ted Turner donated millions to the United Nations.. he foresaw that globalism is a fact of life for the future of humanity, and that it would need a global governing body. Instead of retreating, we need to find ways to embrace an open society and an economy that benefits workers as well as the
corporate elite. Now we are controlled by faceless international corporations who are determined to keep the workers down... the corporations need a governing body to entice them to be fair.
15
@margaret
And if this matter of economic fairness is not addressed,
there's a global revolution in the wings...waiting to happen. World history is littered with such lessons.
2
except -- when you look at times of world wide pandemics. The period after has always resulted in a boom. less people in the same infrastructure.
Was all the growth in 1920's USA due to the aftermath of WWI -- or the lower population of the 18 pandemic. We lost as many people the civil war ? Mostly young and starting to work?
Italy only cam out of poverty (north) after a plague -- more people are not the answer
My family has worked in Japan since after WWII -- I lived there as a kid. Japan cant be used as an example for anything -- it's just to unique.
13
@GT, When the Japanese economy was growing rapidly, one of the economic dragons in Asia, volumes were written to tell the world why it was successful. It is surprising those authors have not published as many explanations of the decline. It seems economics and economic policies are nothing more than crude supply and demand with little understanding the underlying forces, and hence no real policy or economics in the sense of a science of the economy. The Brexit fiasco is another example that there is no policy or economics of globalization either. There is expertise, and then there are fads.
1
We need to leave the 'economic growth requires population growth" paradigm behind - unless we want to manifest tragedy of the commons writ large and often.
161
@david
if the metric of GNP, so widely published and attended to, were to become GNP per capita it would be a first step in leaving the "economic growth requires population growth" paradigm behind.
30
@umbler
The very idea of GDP as something to be targeted is the larger problem, however you account for it.
As has been pointed out more places than I can possibly count, any metric that regards an oil spill as "productive" needs to be jettisoned forever.
8