Of course the rational choice is to increase immigration. But reality is messy, not rational.
I'm an immigrant, we came to Canada in 1954. We assimilated. In a conversation a few months ago, a Canadian-born friend told me he didn't think of me as an immigrant. Why? Because I'm like him. He knew that without immigrants Canada would be in very serious economic trouble. But his feelings and thinking conflict, each interferes with the other, and I don't see any easy way out of that conflict.
As for the related issue of economic viability and growth: that's not really about economics, it's about values. It's ethics, morality, the purpose and meaning of life. Economics is just one of the systems through which we express those values.
1
Us Homo Sapiens need to find new economic and business models that are not dependent on continuous growth. Climate change is directly related to human population growth as well as dependence on fossil fuels. As AI removes millions of jobs, we don't need more bodies for work, we will need fewer.
2
Women in the US are having babies at a rate of about 1.77 each (and falling--that average is held up by older women that have already had children)--well below the replacement rate of 2.1.
Without immigration, our population would be declining.
That's happening all over the world-outside of Africa, Central America and a few Muslim countries. Even Mexico barely reaches the replacement birth rate.
It seems that, as women are empowered, they make choices other than having kids. Drastically declining sperm counts may also play a role.
While it would unquestionably be better to have fewer people, getting there can be painful. We will have fewer people here to care for us as we age; there will be fewer contributing to social security and tax rolls; economic activity will decline, and so will research.
We should not dismiss the notion that we are lucky to have immigrants come here to do some of that work for us, to perform some of that research, and to pay some of those taxes.
3
Article after article, in the Times and elsewhere, drives home the unfolding disaster begotten of the growth of greenhouse gases.
In recent weeks, however, story after story in the Times bewails the threat of a declining rate of population growth, or even declining population.
I recall no story in which the contradiction between these two viewpoints is highlighted
Population growth means carbon usage growth, which means more greenhouse gases, which means accelerating global warming.
The conclusions are inescapable: increasing population is bad, while declining population is good.
For the world, population needs to decline at a significant rate, if we are to do more than watch the water reach our knees and then rooftops.
And every country needs to be part of this decline.
Yet, the moment it looks like US population growth might slow down, finally reducing our carbon usage, we get panicked calls to do something: raise the birthrate, increase immigration...
I can think of only two beneficiaries of population growth.
(1) Better paid workers can be replaced by lower paid immigrants---a wonderful benefit to be enjoyed by the 1% of 1% of 1% who own our industry.
(2) The more youth, the more potential soldiers, and the more our military can swagger: The cannon-fodder benefit.
For the rest of us it means crowding, pollution, heat, and rising seas.
3
@alyosha...You forgot (3) Higher census counts in big cities [New York, LA, Chicago] and Blue States [same same] leading to more House seats and more federal funding. Also, the assumption is that immigrants who actually become citizens will vote overwhelmingly Democratic...Follow the politics.
1
@alyosha I suspect the media and political classes realize that ponzi schemes such as medicare and social security can only survive in the context of perpetual population growth. You can't have an aging population, stagnant wage growth, and an economy based on wealth transfers / perpetual debt servicing. Maybe in a leftists paradise complete with forced labor at carbon neutral jobs and massive wealth transfers, but not on this planet.
@Jarvis The current economic and business models are dependent on continuous business growth which are dependent on a growing population of ravenous consumers. The models are generally created and believed by conservative thinkers and business types. Let's not try to label all things on liberals. Obama ate my homework.
So once again, current residents are paying with higher rents, more expensive commodities, and congestion in order to feed the hunger business has to bring in international workers to reduce the wages they pay their workers.
What a system!
3
Do not forget the role of demographics in economic statistics. Lower population growth with the same per capita economic activity means lower economic growth and economic growth is the opioid for much of our economic system.
1
"As the United States debates the right levels of immigration.." Actually we have no problems with legal immigration. It is illegal immigration that needs to be addressed
3
actually we do have a problem with legal immigration because refugees are being attacked by our current president... that is a form of legal immigration. The president would like to only bring in white Europeans... and highly educated skilled workers. That is not what we need. our immigration system is suffering we are not bringing enough people in. We should quadruple the amount of immigrants we allow in and we should be bringing them from Central America, Mexico, in Canada the most.
2
Americans cannot meet our important environmental challenges without stabilizing our population. The good news is that after more than two centuries of continuous population growth, in recent decades US citizens have freely chosen a path toward population stabilization. From a peak of 3.5 children per woman at the height of the baby boom, in the mid-1950s, fertility rates in the United States have declined to around 1.8 today: slightly below "replacement rate" for a nation with modern sanitation and health care.
The bad news? Just as Americans have chosen to cut back on childbearing, succeeding Congresses have increased immigration, thus keeping our country on a path of rapid population growth. Net immigration has increased from 250,000 in 1960 to 1.25 million. Today most US population growth is caused by immigration.
Consider three alternative immigration scenarios: 250,000 immigrants annually, 1.25 million (the current rate ), and 2.25 million. At fertility and mortality rates projected by the Census Bureau to 2100, under these three scenarios, we could see modest population growth (to 379 million people), an increase of more than 200 million Americans (to 524 million), or doubling of our population (to 639 million).
Given Americans’ failure to create a sustainable society of 330 million people, creating one with hundreds of millions more inhabitants is even more unlikely.
9
@Philip Cafaro
Rather obviously, Miami *should* be losing population; the ocean is going to swallow large sections of it. And there are plenty of other US cities that are choking on their increased population -NYC, LA, SF, Seattle, Portland, to name a few.
Given the rate at which Americans consume *everything*, a sustainable population would be well under 200 million. I think immigration should be virtually eliminated, the last thing the world needs now is more American consumers.
3
then what we will become a dying Nation.
Are we overpopulated? It all depends on the standard of living. If we want to keep and enjoy our current life, we must need more young people who is willing to work, sustaining the GDP growth. Just look at Japan whose average worker age is older than most of other Asian countries. Over the years she doesn't want immigration. Till recently, Japan finally acknowledges and accepts foreigners. Otherwise, Japan will die gradually in a slow and painful way. Since I am a senior, I will accept legal immigration. In addition, if not enough new immigrants, I would also accept temporary workers from other countries.
4
Why don't these Midwestern places entice inner-city residents to move there? oh right... they want hard-working people
3
@Bob: By "inner city residents" you surely mean lazy white people... right?
Of course, the term "inner-city residents" is rather often used to refer to people who are Black. Did you realize that when you wrote your quite negative comment? Somehow, I suspect you did.
7
@MLChadwick...Bob didn't put a racial spin on his comment, but you certainly did, ML. Just because you think "inner-city residents" are Black, doesn't mean everyone does. In fact, most "inner-cities" are a diverse mix of ethnicities. Census data easily verifies this.
Let all of them in with e-verify .. have the paym taxes .. give them free food, homes, healthcare, education, an electric car and an emotional service dog... They can have it all and I'll gladly pay more in taxes to support them and their extended families..... All I ask is they enter LEGALLY!
3
The US now has over 330 million.. Will our country be better when we have a billion, all trying to live like so many of the 350 million we have now?
At some point, we in the US, and the rest of the world, will have to develop economic models based upon something other than perpetual endless population growth and endlessly increasing personal consumption. More people
and more stuff does not make for a happy populace.
I'm not anti-immigrant; indeed, the plight of Central Americans fleeing chaos, murder, and few jobs, must be addressed with compassion. Allowing in more immigrants now is the compassionate thing to do, and our country may be richer for it in the end. At some point, helping these "human donor" countries improve their own economies and the welfare of their people is what needs to be done, not just having them all move here.
Again, in the long run, we must develop economies that work with a fairly stable population. Earth has nearly 7.5 billion......Something that can't go on forever generally doesn't.
9
You know, I almost bought into this global warming thing.
1
In a subtle manner this article appears to indicate that US citizens are opposed to immigration and consider it unnecessary which is not the case at all. ILLEGAL immigration is what American citizens for the most part reject.
5
@granddad1 The difference between "legal" and "illegal" is words written on paper and passed into law. It is not some kind of intrinsic property of the migrant.
"Citizenship" is also a matter of law, and law, including consitutional law, can be changed.
Be careful what youi wish for.
The article appears to attribute non immigrant population flight to the suburbs, to housing affordability and the failure of cities to build more. Yet the immigrant population replacing them can afford that very same housing?
That seems unlikely.
Perhaps the flight to the suburbs has more to do with people who can avail themselves if that option, simply preferring to live in the suburbs for a variety of reasons - schools, open space, trees, having a yard, etc.
4
I'm surprised that anyone still buys the argument that the US population needs to continually grow, particularly when that growth is due to uneducated, low skilled immigrants - legal or not. The only people who benefit other than the immigrants themselves are their exploitative employers. The rest of us absorb the costs that the low paid immigrants and their families incur, but cannot pay for...medical care, education (ESL specialists, special needs programs), criminal justice system...
If wages are raised Americans WILL take the jobs. I recall when meatpacking provided union jobs and good wages and benefits. Not any longer. Construction also used to provide middle class jobs for American citizens - not so much these days.
10
@CalMoist slaughter house and meat packing jobs along with construction jobs no longer pay a decent salary is not due to immigrations and immigrants it is due to the hiring of the illegal aliens and the non-enforcement of immigration laws by the judicial system and so called sanctuary cities/States.
6
they would have to pay a decent salary if wages were not being undercut by cheap labor.
4
@Cal...Exploitive employers are not the only beneficiaries of our stupid immigration policies. Follow the Politics, not just the Money. Why do you think Democrats oppose the citizenship question on the decennial census? Hint: California has 5 or 6 excess House seats because of illegal immigrants. Read the Constitution.
1
Potential side consequences that might reveal the anti-immigration back lash is that as these rural counties shrink from youth leaving you have an influx of immigrant labor to make up the labor loss.
The older generation remaining is facing a major culture shift that appears very dramatic and then they project that onto America as a whole.
1
@Mathias: Back in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of rural Maine Yankees were enraged at the influx of hippies.
They saw them as the worst type of "People From Away" who were cruelly replacing their own sons and daughters (who were fleeing Maine in search of well-paying jobs) with long-haired kids who listened to rock music, had too much sex, and were... hmm... living simply and farming.
Most of those hippies stuck around. As they kept growing up, many earned advanced degrees, participated in local governments, joined the volunteer fire fighters, and became respected citizens and taxpayers.
These days, immigrants with dark skin are the feared interlopers. It's true they probably won't turn into Yankees, and we'll lose some of that "you can't there from here" heritage. But we'll gain a lot, too, if we can just accept them wholeheartedly.
1
Some folks need to learn how to stop shouting, stop projecting their own fantasies, and just look at what the numbers say once in a while.
There’s nothing much here that advocates this view or that view; it just looks at the numbers. If you want/to say anything sensible, go thou and do likewise first.
The rural counties want growth, but they want increased births and in migration from "acceptable" people. The people they "want" don't want to go there.
3
The US is full. This is just Growth for growth’s sake.
6
the United States is not full.
I am gradually becoming convinced by Plato's argument (I believe) that democracy does not work as well as say aristocracy because the people are almost always misinformed.
This essay provides an example. Presumably the most informed Americans (the intellectual 1% if you will) get their information from the NY Times.
Yet in this essay, the author ASSUMES as OBVIOUS that growth is good, that means must be found to INCREASE population growth.
He is an economist. And that suggests a sad fact. Although the principles of economics are perfectly valid, and should be in the curriculum of anybody who aspires to be educated, macroeconomics is much like alchemy, based upon wishful thinking because it is so hard to construct models which have predictive value.
Where exactly does the notion come from that growth is GOOD? Is growth really good? What about the destruction of all the environments across Africa for the large mammals? What about the increased pollution that causes people to wear face masks around the large cities in Northern China? What about the unending congestion in Los Angeles, under a constant blanket of smog?
And what about global warming? Yes, global warming is primarily caused by population growth. Doubling the population and doubles production of greenhouse gases, other things equal.
Mistakes of large groups are truly unbelievable. How can liberals advocate for open borders when population growth through global warming leads to human extinction?
10
A lot of the commenters here remind me of the story of the Wall Street newspaper seller in 1929 who was heard to gloat over the downfall of the traders, until he realized that it was those traders who bought his newspapers.
What they don’t seem to realize is that other people pay their salaries. When those other people aren’t around they don’t buy what your company is selling, and when they don’t buy (economists call this demand) the boss decides she doesn’t need as many people to make what she’s selling (economists call this supply). Complain all you like about traffic and crowded subways, but all those people making it hard to get to work are the reason you have a job in the first place.
2
@M
When there are fewer people who buy, there are fewer people who produce, and thus less product. Equivalently, smaller demand brings smaller production, so there is no glut of goods and no pressure to reduce employment.
3
We lived in large metro areas for the first part of our long married life and moved to a small town, 25,000 people in a mostly rural county over forty years ago where we could both practice our professions at a surprisingly high level, have access to quality schools for our children, enjoy a higher salary with a significantly lower cost of living and enjoy out of door activities close by without crowds.
In this interval the demographics have changed just as were described in the essay not just for our immediate area but for the whole of central, northern WI and the western UP of MI.
We need immigrants at two levels. We need health care professionals to fill vacancies and workers willing to work in the packing plants and large dairy farms.
We need young families with children to fill our schools and contribute to our tax base.
In their absence this area of mostly Trump voters will continue its slow decline. Unfortunatey most of them are too ignorant of what is happening around them to realize it.
6
Perpetual growth is the modus operandi of cancer. Let's stop growing, gradually contract, and give non-human species a chance to thrive.
10
@Kim
Great slogan that first sentence! Kudos.
ps: give ourselves a chance, too.
2
Yes--legal, regulated immigration, not the open borders advocated by the media and the Democratic party.
5
Many of us are willing to grow at a slower pace to control immigration.
7
I've lived in the DC area for almost 70 years. Immigration pressure started in the 1980s and has continued unbated since then. The development required to support hundreds of thousands of new citizens and illegal migrants has lowered the quality of life in the area. Congested roads, over-development, unaffordable housing and salespeople who don't speak English are some of the results.
9
People have spoken languages other than English since the start of this country. there is no official language of the United States. by the way Puerto Ricans are Americans and they speak Spanish. Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States you should learn some. I won't even hire people that are not bilingual! I learn Spanish at 40 years of age you can do it. You should do it.
Trump doesn't know what he is talking about on any subject, let alone immigration. He has a bias as to what to do and he makes up the facts to support it. Everything he thinks, however, flies in the face of reality. His base, like Trump, need people to blame for whatever, and the loss of jobs to immigrants is the whipping boy for both.
We need immigration, as we always have. Everybody knows this. The only reason why nothing is being done is that the Republicans enjoy the cheap labor that is derived from illegal immigration.
3
All the comments complaining of overpopulation do realize we currently have one of the largest labor shortages in history, right? Over 7M jobs unfilled as of January, and growing.
3
@Patrick...U-6 Underemployment is a much better metric than U-3. And, it doesn't even include structural underemployment. The US labor market can reach an equilibrium point with the current population of the US. The narrative pushed in this NYT article is not based on economics, it is based on the politics of immigration.
1
End this absurd obsession with GDP growth, it doesn't benefit the majority.
We're a parasite on this planet exacerbated by extreme Capitalism and we need to control the birth rate to far below the death rate and shrink in size. We're not the only species on this Earth.
7
Population size, particularly in countries that consume a huge amount of energy per capita like the US, is directly correlated to global warming. Why do we need more people? Yes, some cities grow and some cities shrink, international immigration isn't going to solve that problem -- migrants will go where the jobs are, not to dying rust belt towns. This article shows the impact of social media on journalism -- its an emotional response to Trump's (admittedly stupid, racist comment), not a report on trends. The south Florida megalopolis has grown from 2 million people to 7 million people in 50 years -- it would be excellent if Miami's population grew smaller as it faces real housing and water shortages. The NYT editors should do better than emotionally initiate articles in response to Trump that contravene the fact bases articles they publish about global warming and climate change.
6
@Joe
Once people come to the USA, they have fewer children. As the economy grows, it will become more efficient. It will grow much faster with immigration.
There does not seem to be much ecological downside to immigration in the long run.
If we didn't kill 800,000 people a year with abortions (source, Planned Parenthood) we would not need as much immigration.
3
If so many truly believe our nation needs a lower population, they should start sacrificing their unnecessary offspring, in an effort to improve our society for the greater good. The sooner, the better. It is said that a wave first starts with a trickle... get on with it, already, or our great and wise Dictator might have to decide for you, bringing your family of a dozen great shame as names of new births are published. As a supporter of ZPG fifty years ago, I have done my part by not reproducing, and am waiting for you to actually join in and fulfill your promise, rather than make idle chatter.
1
We need more immigration. We don't need any illegal immigration.
1
Hello----
- climate change
-an ongoing "extinction event" caused by humanity
-plastic in the oceans
to name just a few problems all caused by billions of people
Our population is already unsustainable, we don't need population growth or immigration!
5
Prudent immigration policy must be readily available, so to benefit both the immigrant in need to improve his/her lot in life...and the communities in need of helping hands to resuscitate their livelihood. Too bad we must wait the passing of the current awful Trumpian times based on fear and hate of 'the other', with racist undertones that diminish us to moral mitgets.
I was in Japan recently. The country is doing very well. They will manage their declining population issues in their own way. It is not for us to say that Japan needs to import people to be happy. I think it would be desirable for the USA to deal with a declining population issue, too. We could plan for it, and manage it. It would be much easier to deal with than rapid unmanaged population growth we are currently experiencing.
13
with AI and robots we can automate many of the jobs that Americans won't do. also they will allow the elderly to become more self-sufficient.
Plus what happens when the immigrants get old?
4
Bob, you have hit the nail on the head, the country’s outlook is bleak with a continuous stream of poor, uneducated illegal immigrants who will be a massive burden on this country, seriously bad judgement of Democrats to encourage illegal immigration and also shortsightedly not plan for the future for the economy or for the environment.
My grandkids will have to support all those uneducated migrants who enter the country, those immigrants’ kids will not be able to support them until perhaps 2-3 generations as they will be dealing with ESL and other issues of acclimating to an English speaking nation with a structured legal system and culture that differs from their old countries.
One thing that is not talked about a lot is all this domestic migration to the south from northern cities - a lot of it is retired people. I lived in Phoenix for 2 years and while it is growing a lot, a large percent is also retirees looking to escape the cold in their older years. However, outside of medical needs for hospitals and nursing homes, many of these individuals are on tight budgets. They can't contribute a lot to an economy - say like 20-50 year olds working in NY or California. For all the growth these states are getting, the entire Northeast together would be the 4th or 5th largest economy in the world and California would be around 7th? Growth is good, but to grow just for the sake of it doesn't necessarily mean all is well for long term economics.
7
@Drew That depends on what you think contribute is. If it is wild spending probably not and young people sometimes don't have money so wild spending by them is just stupid debt. And NO growth is not good.
2
Those retirees sitting in AZ and other retirement areas probably own directly and indirectly most of market value of those NY and CA firms cranking out that GDP. If an economist wants to attribute that value to NY and CA, those people do not care as long as those dividend transfers and stock values keep coming.
2
I don’t know where the new immigrants for example find adequate housing in New York City if even the locals have a hard time to find them.
The whole infrastructure of the city and most others are not capable of accommodating new waves of immigrants.
Real growth comes from within:
Innovation, education, raising skill levels of workers, growing efficiency and productivity .
3
This is what happens when economists don't take ecology courses and worship at the altar of continuous economic growth. Enough!
46
Just wait until you kneel at the altar of economic need....
1
Of what? Counting the numbers as they are?
I agree with your point. Our economic system is based on unsustainable population growth. It is a classic pyramid scheme. I remember a year ago reading an op-ed in the New York Times that suggested that the United States should aspire to have the population density of China in order to remain competitive. 1.5 billion people! That wold require the United State population increasing five fold! I've been to Shanghi. It makes New York City seem like a quaint country village.
8
Why does the US "need" to grow? We have millions of people living on the streets and, if they are lucky, in cars. Why don't we take care of them before importing other people who need help?
59
Because large parts of our economic system are essentially a leveraged pyramid scheme. In order to keep the system functioning, new money has to come in to keep inflating prices. If not, it would collapse the financial system as we got a hint of in 2009. For housing, the collateral damage is the unaffordability for many. Unfortunately, this makes an inherently unstable system.
17
@Nadia
Why do you assume that immigrants "need" more than they give back?
1
@Nadia
"Why don't we take care of them before importing other people who need help?"
In fact, it typically is a low-paid young kind immigrant who takes care of our home-bound seniors.
Hard=working young immigrants pay into Social Security
Without the influx of these hard-working people, we cannot take care of our aging population
1
Thirty years ago as a life-long progressive I said that we would need to close all borders and stay put to be responsible for the place we live. I still hold this position and scoff at "environmentalists" who jet around to one international conference after another, signifying nothing. Clean up your own yard and stop proliferating and consuming.
47
@Craig Millett Although I am unclear about the meaning of the word progressive, it certainly does not seem very progressive to effectively bar the gates and hunker down in our country while everywhere else festers. Which seems to be the gist of your position. Close the borders and then what? Watch the ecological foundation of our very survival be whittled away by those outside the walls while we do: what? Go ahead and scoff at scoff at those who you label, pejoratively, as environmentalists, but better yet, provide a better approach than simply closing the door to everyone else. This is one planet. Even Hawaii cannot escape the impacts of the outside world (the abundance of invasive species should make that clear).
@aoxomoxoa
Humans are the original invasive species. Your reply continues the human-centered attitude that is the source of climate change. Learn to respect all of life first and remember that Earth is not our planet. We belong to Earth and not the other way around.
7
The USA has finally joined Japan and Western Europe as low population growth parts of the world.
Ain’t good.
5
@Ted. Interestingly they are the most prosperous places on earth and the preferred destination for everyone who lives in the crowded, one would assume, "successful" countries with high birth rates. Wonder why that is?
40
Certainly good for the rest of the world.
2
Of course, more immigration means more "growth" --
i.e. a bigger "economy" -- i.e. more total GDP.
Any fool can tell us that much.
We don't need supposedly erudite economists to tell us that.
How so?
Because more immigration means more people.
Fundamental mistake.
The "economic pie" might -- probably does -- "grow".
But the individual slices do not -- they might even shrink.
More people usually mean a bigger "economy" --
i.e. more total GDP.
But --
A bigger "economy" -- i.e. more total GDP --
does not mean a better economy.
A better economy is one with more total GDP per capita.
And more people do not mean more GDP per capita.
Just compare India and Canada.
India has a far bigger "economy" than Canada --
i.e. more total GDP.
But not a better economy -- not more GDP per capita.
Canada wins that debate hands downs.
How so?
Because, obviously, India has far more people.
The "economic pie" might be bigger.
But the slices are smaller.
Because the bigger pie
must be divided among more people.
Not rocket science.
The supposedly erudite "economists" who tout immigration
know this perfectly well.
But they are either not coming clean with us --
because they want immigration for reasons
other than "growth"
-- e.g "diversity" or "racial justice" or "multiculturalism" --
or they are not being asked the right question by the MSM, who want more immigration for any reason they can cook up,
or the MSM is not reporting the answer to the right question.
42
First why do we actually want population growth, and second without some of these perhaps the area would be more affordable so more citizens would live there. We don't need any more unskilled workers, in fact we need fewer. And our country as a whole is overpopulated in that we consume more resources than we produce. Way overpopulated by this standard.
60
@vulcanalex We need more unskilled workers to keep cleaning Donald Trump's gold toilets at his golf resorts, since no Americans will be doing that. He hires only immigrants since he gets them cheap.
2
@vulcanalex
"without some of these perhaps the area would be more affordable so more citizens would live there"
The people we don't need are the ones who pay the Kushners and Trumps >$500,000 to buy an apartment and get a special visa---they are the ones who are filling our space with empty expensive apartments (probably a lot of money laundering) and making them unaffordable.
As for overpopulated---have you been to Wyoming? They have 2 Senators and fewer people in the entire state than in a typical Congressional district
1
@Lynn...Have you been to Delaware? They have 2 Senators and fewer people in the entire state than in a typical Congressional district. Same with Vermont. Wyoming also has Yellowstone and the Tetons.
Japan's population peaked at 128 million in 2010, and has begun a long, slow decline. If total fertility rates remain constant (which is unlikely) the population by 2100 will be around 56 million. Japan is the size of Montana, so few would disagree that even at 56 million the country is plenty crowded. This should occur across the entire world. What's wrong with right-sizing the earth's population, and leaving a bit of room for animals and nature...and restoring balance? Growth is not necessarily good.
87
Right on!
24
@Michael F Absolutely. Why can't economists say this? They are all playing a deadly game with no reference to what is actually happening in the real economy, the economy of nature!
30
We’re living longer, but not necessarily healthier lives. So who takes care of the elderly? Who replaces the elderly at the jobs they retire from? Even if you allow for the inevitable march of technology, our fertility rate in America is dropping. Who works? Who tends to us in our golden years?
9
I think that some commenting miss the point of the article which was to make the readers aware of the consequences of strict immigration in the US, which will result in a number of dying towns, cities and potentially an overall decline in the economy. Recent NYT articles on a lack of senior care facilities in certain parts of the country due to severe labor shortage must be read, in conjunction, with an article such as this where some may want strict immigration for political reasons, etc., but they have not fully examined the ramifications of this approach. Less people might be great for the planet, but not good for small businesses in need of service workers in a less coveted part of the country.
21
@Isle
Pay service workers more. I was recently looking to hire. Once I raised the wage to a competitive level I had applicants. Before that, no takers.
31
@Isle They insist and assume what you do. I insist that those things will not matter much, and automation will replace most of the unskilled workers either directly or by freeing up labor.
1
Amazing how that works!
1
The article is suffused with "growth is good" prejudice from start to finish. Precipitous population decline, as in the case of Detroit, is a big problem, but otherwise the only big beneficiaries of growth are developers. For everyone else it is at best a mixed blessing that brings its own set of problems, including escalating housing prices and rising property taxes. Except in the most rural areas, growth means higher population density and therefore rising taxes overall in the long run, not to mention crime. I'd also question the proposition that "Without these international moves, 44 percent of the nation’s population would be in shrinking counties". Without those international moves, there wouldn't be so much competition for housing, housing costs would be lower, and maybe fewer Americans would have left or more would have moved into those areas.
33
@Larry
Exactly. With lower immigration, there would be less competition for housing and other resources, leading to lower housing costs -- and people could once again afford family-friendly dwellings and having children. That's how things were in the 1950s. It was good for America back then, and it would be good now.
11
Won’t happen. The developers won’t build houses just to build as population decreases. Less labor access also has a consequence on price.
Population decline would also need taxation increase in the youth working to support the elderly who paid in before them. The entire social burden has been shifted from capital to workers with this admin and with declining population you are doubling down on them.
And these same youth will have to pay for the ever increasing costs of hostile climate change.
Closed borders have one last problem. When you close your borders to other nations you create a society that is unlikely to innovate and is more likely to shoot at each other. There is no need to negotiate because you are no longer inter dependent.
2
@Eva,
While the 50's were great for returning white veterans from WWII around many of the cities, with the advent of Levittowns, and greater suburban housing, you seem to ignore the housing plights of people of color, being redlined out of good neighborhoods and being demolished out of their existing urban neighborhoods. You also seem to be ignoring the the rural poor who lived primarily squalid conditions well beyond the 1960s "War on Poverty". It really wasn't the pretty time you make it out to be, except for the beneficiaries of white affirmative action.
So the whole story about Millennials and Empty Nesters rushing into central cities for denser living, museums and great restaurants is now a big oops? People rushing to central cities are legal and illegal immigrants. The same migration to the suburbs and exurbs, in place since the 1950’s, is still in place, chugging along. The new element is emptying rural area as those people leave for exurbs and outer suburbs.
The whole cool, smart cities meme never made any sense. How could people, whose financial situations get portrayed as falling relative to previous generations, be rushing to the areas where even their well-off parents could not afford to live. Maybe now the story confirms to the reality in a place like Dallas. While the central core gets a lot of hype, it is mainly about shifting use of existing buildings. Out in the suburbs and exurbs, tens of thousands of dwellings get built every year plus untold warehouses, corporate offices, data centers and even retail space come on-line in the same year.
16
@Michael Blazin I used to live in Dallas. This is happening because Texas has been planning to annex Oklahoma for decades. Acre by acre, it is happening. :-)
Oklahoma might not like it at first, but their property values will go up and they'll finally get some decent restaurants and people will actually want to live there.
1
When I moved to Texas from Maryland 24 years ago, I showed up at the MVA to get a TX license. The guy looked at my MD license, key entered a few data items, took a picture and then handed me a new license. What a deal! I asked him about it. He said MD was on the list to just transfer info over and cut a license. OK was not. Those people had to take the tests. Apparently quality control north of the Red River was an issue.
5
Legal immigration is absolutely important for this country, illegal immigration is not. My daughter and 4 others had their cars hit in California by an illegal immigrant and guess who had to foot the bill? He never stopped after hitting 5 cars with a delivery truck.
42
@David
I was hit by a vehicle driven by a white US-born citizen who fled. Should I vilify all white male US-born citizens? No, because that is just a dog-whistle to the issue. Stop it.
23
@David
I ask me: How can a illegal person get a job in a delivery truck? Who hire him? (Maybe someone who wants pay lower salary.) How about his driver licence? Really I, living far away from United States, can't understand this situation.
12
@Paulo Cesar Quines, many jurisdictions now provide driver's licenses to not only any US citizen & legal immigrant who otherwise qualifies & passes the test, but to illegal aliens as well. Including in places like California and Vermont with "motor-voter" laws that automatically register anyone to vote who has a Driver's License.
In Vermont, several legal immigrants who were automatically enrolled to vote, including for federal elections, came forward to notify authorities that this had happened because they know it is illegal for anyone who is not a US citizen to vote in federal elections. They did not want to get in trouble for voter fraud or lose their green cards and were angry that the state of Vermont had automatically registered them to vote, without even asking them, simply because they were getting a driver's license.
The Vermont Secretary of State's office (in charge of elections) said this was a mistake of the computer or software and that they would try to fix the program. Not sure if it has been resolved.
There are good arguments both for and against providing driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
8
Rural counties are in decline all over America. And the reasons are irreversible.
First a little history. 100 years ago, typical farms were small and there were a lot of them in any given rural county. Each was owned and managed by a farm family, usually a large family. So, the population of the county was relatively large. It was hard to go long distances to shop. So, the combination of a lot of population and difficulty travelling led to a lot of small towns in every county.
Today, farms are larger. There are fewer families in each county and families are smaller. So, population is smaller. It's easier to go longer distances -- and there is Amazon who will deliver. So, poof, no more small towns in the county. Just a struggling county seat.
Guess who wants to stay in rural America? Employers like farmers, meat packers, grain elevators, etc. Who can they hire? Well, what do you know, they can put out the word that they need workers and get illegal "immigrants".
The tale of how any growth at all is taking place in rural America is NOT a good tale.
22
@Kurfco
A sort of slaves. Working for a bad salary, in bad conditions, far family. Great liberalism, great trade economy where de money is above at all.
12
@Kurfco Great points and if we need seasonal individuals that would be fine, automation is the real answer.
5
Maybe the author owns a bunch of apartment buildings in big cities? If not, why is he cheered up by "Americans are leaving urban counties over all as rising home prices and inadequate construction push people to more affordable suburban counties, midsize metros and smaller metros."
If the median-income native-born American can't afford to live in America, isn't that a sign of political and economic failure?
[Separately, if population growth is an unconditionally great thing, why are the sanctuary cities upset by Donald Trump's proposal to send migrants their way? By the author's logic, wouldn't San Francisco, for example, be better off with 100,000 new residents?]
34
@Philip Greenspun Median-income Americans have never been able to live in neighborhoods where rich people live. So I guess, according to you, America has always been a failure, if success means that a median-income Americans must be able to live anywhere they feel like. Rich people have taken over the urban core, at least in this state and California and I expect in Mass as well.
9
@Philip Greenspun - "median-income native-born American can't afford to live in America" - Sure sounds to me like parental failure to provide.
1
This assumes that continued population growth at current rate is desirable.
If you believe real estate developers have not converted enough forest, farms & fields to housing developments & pavement, you may want more population growth. If you believe there is not enough of a water shortage in the Western states and that the Colorado River and Rio Grande should go entirely dry instead of only seasonally dry & a tiny trickle, you may want more population growth. If you believe the US Government & Western states should continue to violate the Colorado River Compact to prevent Native American tribes from receiving their full allotment, you may want more population growth. If you believe Oglalla Aquifer under Midwest has not been depleted enough, you may want more population growth. If you believe there is not enough traffic in our cities, you may want more population growth. If you believe our cities and nation should grow denser, to mimic those in India or China, you may want more population growth.
This article takes binary view of immigration that is too common in the Trump era. I.e., suggests US should continue on current course with no changes and that, absent this, alternative is total moratorium on all immigration going forward. This is not what's being proposed. Trump's proposed reforms are based on President Clinton's own "Jordan Commission" & would merely reduce immigration to about 550,000 per year. Still growth by immigration. Just not turbo-charged.
31
@GRH And 550K is way too many consider as you admitted we are overpopulated already.
13
Great comment.
Not
Population increase does not equate to societal improvement. The vast majority of immigrants are illegal and the overwhelming majority of those are uneducated and unskilled; they are simply expanding the disproportionately large population of poor, who rely on public services. Automation and technological advances are steadily eliminating work that the unskilled have traditionally performed, and are increasingly encroaching upon middle class jobs. The opportunities for upward mobility are drastically reduced. A huge, non-assimilating underclass will drain resources for generations and make the country as a whole weaker, in and of itself, and certainly compared to our competitors.
37
@Sharon Automation is a greater threat to middle class jobs than trade work right now. We're still having difficulties with tactile, mobile AI robotics.
Moreover, there isn't much we can do. Pushing all these people out will strain our neighbors, and it's a global world now. We have to try to work through it, the gates won't hold.
1
@YQ Those illegals are not trade workers, and even them can be replaced by some automation. Machines can lay blocks, drive trucks, and many other things.
5
It's amazing how clueless the left and the right can be when their agendas are out front. A falling population is the only longterm permanent solution to the problems this country and the planet face. Every technological solution will be overwhelmed by numbers if we don't address the other half of the equation. Number of people x the emissions per person = pollution or co2 production or resources used or name your issue. To ignore it defies logic and common sense. It's also why were aren't getting anywhere against the problems we are facing.
35
@Al Do you want your country to be like Japan? Do you want an aging population, underfunded SS, and low economic growth? No a declining population is not good, this is settled economic consensus.
3
@Tony
You and Al are talking about different things. In the long run, the population of this planet MUST decrease, or else we must all get used to a severely lower standard of living. The earth cannot support 8 billion people living like middle class Americans currently do.
And when that day comes, your short term view of the economic consensus will also be proven false. We cannot keep growing the economy. Unlimited growth is not possible, not forever.
1
@Tony
There needn't be an underfunded social security. Labor productivity is increasing steadily, so you don't need as many workers to support retirees or take care of the elderly/infirm.
Japan is still a wealthy country.
3
We are not full, just at capacity. We are at capacity because we have not solved carbon footprint and chemical contamination and water purity issues. We need to resolve these before we put even more stress on our part of the planet. We could be a model for the world on this, but so far we have chosen not to be because business-as-usual is more profitable. Until we change that, increasing the birth rate or immigration is not reasonable or sustainable.
17
@DMS. We are over full. Beyond capacity. We are 5% of the worlds population using 25% of its resources. This alone makes us over populated and far beyond the carrying capacity of the part of the planet we occupy and. We are also the highest co2 producers per capita on earth. Every person you add to the u.s. population is the single worst thing you can do to the environment. We are far beyond a longterm sustainable population. Nothing we do to help decrease the mess we are making of the environment will be of any value if we don't address population. It's not PC, but sometime the facts aren't.
26
@Al Great points until that CO2 comment, per capita is irrelevant, it is per country.
3
@DMS We are only at "capacity" because we import so many things that we "need".
2
In an article on the impact population growth in highly energy-consuming country like the US on climate change, “progressive” NYT will probably say population growth is bad. It would probably say the same if the population growth came from middle class citizens. But when it comes to immigrants from poor countries entering our country illegally ( the obvious subtext of this article), the concern for the environment is not even a thought. Illegal immigration of low-skilled, poorly educated is no solution to issues facing an aging and decreasing population. High-skilled high wage earners and skilled health care workers are. “Asylum seekers” from Central America only add to our problems by adding additional burden on education and healthcare. And our immigration laws provide a perverse incentive for illegal immigrants to have many children because those children become citizens.
42
@Citizen: It's refreshing to see someone have a realistic view of the immigration issue. Moreover, population growth is one of the two major factors creating the climate catastrophe. The famous "hockey stick" diagram that indicates the phenomenal growth in world GDP and production in the past 150 years of human history has a parallel in population growth.
23
@Citizen. You have summarized why the democrats cannot be taken seriously on the environment anymore than the climate deniers on the right. It also why trump may be reelected. The lefts obsession with flooding the country with low skill, low education, large family immigrants and then claiming it's the best thing that ever happened to this country would be hilarious except they seriously think we are going to believe them.
24
@Al @citizen
As a left wing Democrat, I just want to say that Al is absolutely correct on immigration. Too much immigration undermines a lot of environmental progress.
3
If something continues unabated growth, isn’t it considered a cancer?
38
Sustainability!? Are you commenters off your rockers? I can't believe I have to argue against the Thanos plotline. Let me tell you the true ending of Infinity War. Thanos snaps his fingers, the economy collapses and then in 50 years the population is right back to where it was before. Because that's how demographics work! You can't pretend that your xenophobic racial purity indoctrination is some high minded philosophy about population control. Population Control! That's disgusting!
5
@Eric Ma Where do get “...xenophobic racial purity...” from Thanos’ plan? It’s equal opportunity vaporization!
3
I'm a fan of the Marvel Universe, but I'm not a die hard fan who knows all of the characters and origination stories and I rely on my friends to clue me in to the characters I'm not familiar with. In one of the last Avengers films, the bad guy was Thanos. I'm all prepared to support the good guys (esp. Thor, lol!), but when we started discussing what made Thanos a bad guy, I was surprised to hear that a big part of it was that he wanted to use the Infinity Stones to vaporize half of the world's population. I thought about it a minute and then said "Is that supposed to be a bad thing?". Too bad we can't do that now. I'm sure the planet would breathe a big sigh of relief.
7
I'm assuming you plan to be in the non vaporized group?
3
@Hat Trick Right- I assume you’re volunteering yourself and your family to be in the vaporized group
In 1970 I was taking a 600 level population ecology course at Cornell University. The professor, Lamont Cole, was at the time the authority in the field, and he was also President Nixon's Ecology Advisor. During finals week the President summoned him to Washington to (mainly) wait around in case some question came up for him to answer. On his return he gave us a final entirely on humans (who were not often studied using the methods taught in the course). Mainly, he had picked up mimeographs of raw data from US censuses that had required correction to become the official data. For example, why did the raw data of censuses include more six year old girls than five year old girls? Or why did the raw data include more 70 year olds in 1940 than 60 year olds in 1930? (Hint: the reason was not immigration in either case.) One problem was relevant to this article. It was to prove that then without immigrants (legal and illegal) and their children, who were American citizens because they were born here, America would be even then in slightly negative population growth.
4
@Marvant Duhon Negative population growth sounds like a worthy worldwide goal!
23
@Hat Trick
I do not deny it could be very good. However,
A. If it happens combined with a lengthening of life span it means gradual but enormous economic dislocation as you run out of younger workers. One example, though not the most major: I just retired from over a third of a century as a nurse in the same large home care and hospice agency. For most of the past fifteen years our patients have averaged 66-68 years of age and our aides have averaged older. Agriculture, construction, and janitorial sectors have been much harder hit.
B. The current system does not and cannot result in negative worldwide negative population growth. Peoples will come to the US to fill the jobs. Some politicians will act as if they are doing something to stop this immigration but will not prosecute businesses welcoming illegals. And people like Trump will themselves hire illegals.
6
@Marvant Duhon. Unlimited population growth on a finite planet is insanity of the highest order. It's also why we are in the midst of the greatest extinction since the dinosaurs. It's why by 2050 it is predicted the oceans will contain more plastic by weight than fish and on and on. Try telling people you will add an infinite number of any other species to a closed system. No biologist or scientist thinks this is possible or a good thing, yet our economic model requires it. The problem is not enough people, it's the economic model.
19
The.US Census is mandated to count the number of CITIZENS for representation in Congress. The whole PC movement to block the Citizenship question subverts the valid mandate.
20
@Timit No, it is mandated to count the number of PERSONS in the country. Always has.
12
@Bridgecross
You are correct and it is truly perverse that it provides an incentive for states to try to entice illegal "immigrants" to come into the country and to invite those living in other states. The more heads, the more representatives in Congress -- as long as all the heads get counted.
11
@Bridgecross
We have long since expanded the "mandate" to include all sorts of a sorts of other data --
economic data,
and sociological data,
-- incomes, housing, telephones, education, household patters, etc. etc.
Since all those other kinds of data are now considered legitimate for the Census,
then citizenship status is easily just as legitimate.
The Census will still count the number of "persons"
-- along with the number of "citizens".
Of course, the liberals and the progressives constantly cook up all sorts of notions about "intimidation" and "suppression".
But "people" ought to be expected to stand up and be counted if they want to be counted.
7
It's time to focus on an economy that does not depend on growth to be healthy.
The world population is doubling every 40 years and is quickly becoming unsustainable. Humans can be likened to a cancer cells that if not curbed will kill is host organism, the earth.
Now is the time to address how to achieve a healthy stable economy in our country and help the third world to curb their population explosion. If we don't succeed, the planet is doomed.
60
@Rufus Temple
If we don't succeed, WE are doomed...
8
@Rufus Temple. Agreed. Why don't the politicians on both sides see this fundamental fact?
15
@Rufus Temple We need no human growth to have a healthy economy. First we could reduce importation of various things, and of course man's desires for things is almost infinite.
4
Statistics alone cannot drive policy and right now our country has no coherent reasons for accepting any more immigrants. We out-source tech support. We underpay our own citizens for the work most find unpalatable. We abolish the draft and give no thought to mandatory national service. Wage disparity, college admissions scandals and the Electoral College are all indications that our nation is not a meritocratic democracy but an oligarchic republic.
We don't need more people. We need to place those who arrive at our borders uninvited on the first plane back to the capital cities of the countries from whence they came. It's more cost effective to supply a year's relief for each person to those countries, but monitor how it is used. Don't cheapen the sacrifice our citizens have made since the country was established by giving away our best asset - our quality of life.
More is not better - it's not even good.
37
Falling birth rates is a good thing. Our planet cannot accommodate 10 Billion people--the mark we will likely reach during the middle of the 21st century. It is irresponsible to tacitly suggest we need more immigration for "economic" reasons. That is a thinly veiled political move. Quality of life will decrease for everyone with overpopulation.
40
Before making your apparent assumption that population growth is an unconditional positive, as this article implies, I suggest you ride the Lexington Avenue line at rush hour, or try driving over the GW Bridge at 7 30 am.....the prospect of a smaller, more manageable NYC isn't the negative trend you imply, nor does this article sufficiently outline the profile of the immigrant population and its impact on services and assistance....immigration is an extremely complex dynamic that mere numbers do little to elucidate.....
25
Almost everyone here is saying we need to shrink our population, and almost all our leaders say we need to increase it. That's because there are two drivers; the economy and the carrying capacity of the ecosystems. They are incompatible. We either put up with a slower economy and the inevitable aging population, or we overpopulate the Earth even more, run out of something, and crash.
Making a slower economy and an aging population palatable is the only way out. Add in lots of alternate tech and lifestyle changes, and you have the only way out.
29
@mlbex The economy can expand without more humans, only those that don't understand that today things are different than the past think that. A machine can drive a car, tend an elderly person or perhaps many, and in the future will be able to do many other things.
5
There are costs and benefits to immigration. Here are some costs: In my opinion, the costs out weigh the benefits.
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
44
Dear Professor,
How can we solve the longer-terms problem in light of these short term statistics?
-H
In the developed world, we've reached something close to ZPG. Now people say that we must import people from elsewhere to keep our population growing so our economy stays healthy.
- Slowing population growth is the price that must be paid for sustainability.
- An aging population is the price that must be paid for slowing population growth.
Until we design (yes, design) an economy that works as the population shrinks, one of two things in inevitable: Either the population will keep expanding until it is unsustainable, or the economy will collapse.
Our grandchildren aren't going to make it unless we figure out a way around this dilemma.
26
@mlbex Sure we should just accept your assumptions on the economy and population, like we don't have say AI coming to improve our economy without more low skilled labor. There is no dilemma, limit legal immigration and eliminate the illegal.
4
Here in CT. (where the last election resulted in a new governor who carried only the 16 largest of the state's 169 towns and cities,) the rallying cry is now that our survival depends on "vibrant inner cities." This article SHOULD (but politically WON'T) debunk that mantra. Only millennials want to live there, and then only because they're single and because they work nearby. We need to stop the Social Experimenting and let the chips fall where they may. Or, as Reagan put it more simply: let "People Vote with Their Feet." One are will prosper, another falter. Until the balance is out of whack and the process will reverse itself. Importing residents is not a long-term solution, as soon they, too, will vote with THEIR feet.
19
Is constant growth desired, needed or healthy?
This appears to be shockingly simplistic thinking on the writer's part. For the purposes of sustainability, FEWER people here and in the rest of the world is the truly desirable outcome.
75
@Clotario
Agreed - as Edward Abbey opined, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell."
26
What always seems to happen with every population report is that people take away from it what they are already biased to receive. It quickly becomes a support or non-support for every issue. It can be blamed for anything or seen as confirming anything.
But when you look at population historically, you see tremendous grown in late 1800s through the first decades of the early 1900s through 1950 that puts the current figures into real perspective. Then in the 1960s and 1970s many large cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago lost truly significant population (Chicago has shrunken dramatically from its peak in 1950). They were written off during a time of major population changes and patterns. But in the last decade or two, NYC and LA grew again and NYC in particular reached its highest population levels in history. One thing is therefore certain: nothing will stay the same.
Many people have valid points to varying degrees on the issues they bring up as to whether the population figures mean good or bad. We must pay major attention to the environment, immigration and inequality. But ultimately, one report is just a snapshot. It's long term data that tells the real story. And that story will change, too.
8
With the U.S. at a current population of 330 million I don't understand how anyone can make a case for more people. I've always maintained that we should have 100 million fewer people. NYC, Miami, Phoenix, L.A., Chicago, Otlando, Atlanta. You have to have your head examined to want to live in those teeming places, seemingly like 3rd world countries, with crowds everywhere, jammed roads, etc.
62
@Jim Tagley. You cannot be for mass immigration and an ever growing u.s. population and claim to care about the environment or global warming. They are mutually exclusive concepts.
23
@Jim Tagley
Florida's the place that's like a third world country. Checked your state's health stats lately? And how are your schools doing?
I guess it's still unacceptable to question the simplistic, profit-driven endless growth model -- even as we trash and cook the planet and drive most other species to extinction. The U.S. population has grown from 132 million humans in 1940 to about 327 million today. Quality and quantity are often trade offs. We need to get serious about stabilizing and decreasing our population, like, yesterday. We need to stop infantilizing and condescending to people in poor overpopulated countries. We already have the Catholic Church and radical Islam to carry that water. It's not that complicated: stop having babies when you are barely surviving.
81
That's a good thing. Overpopulation is bad.
30
I am so happy reading the first few comments. The New York Times, perhaps especially, but also the mainstream media, generally, as well also almost every politician who considers himself progressive, has bitten into this insane notion that population growth in the United States is desirable, and that large scale immigration into our country should be encouraged, even so far as to deplore the deportation of those immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally. I would, firstly, encourage everyone to read David Frums fantastic article which appeared in the Atlantic, and then yesterday in the Times. This is the most objective and incisive piece regarding immigration, and immigration numbers, which has ever appeared in the Times. I totally agree with the comments which say that the U.S. is overpopulated now, if for no other reason than environmental. We have a responsibility to other species than our own, and the steady loss of habitat caused by constant development, in turn caused by population growth, in turn caused by lack of immigration control, is in effect, immoral.
92
@Wan
No doubt population has an effect on the environment, but is immigration to the US worse for the global environment than forcing those people to stay home or go elsewhere? Global population is global population; the question is rather we'd rather have those people live here or China/India/Mexico.
Living in a shrinking rust belt city, I'd say we can find room for them.
1
What Trump is saying is there is no more room for processing and holding illegals and asylum seekers. Catch and release is fueling the incentive for illegals to come to the US. believe there is a backlog of 800,000 immigration cases. The majority of asylum seekers are denied so increasing immigration judges doesn't address the problem.
The President is in favor of increasing work visas and that will help where there are shortages. Increasing legal immigration will also help. Letting more illegals into the US does not.
18
The real issues: Overpopulation + Overconsumption.
1800 = 1 Billion global peeps.
2019 = 7.7 Billion
2100 = 11.5 Billion+
Chart that growth trajectory. We're rats in a cage, folks…
Add in that we here in the Good Ole' represent 4.5% of global population, yet consume 25 - 30% of resources. If the rest of the world consumed like we do (and they're trying hard to catch up), we'd have the Consumption Equivalent of 38.5 Billion homo sapiens gnawing away at Our Only Home. Yikes!
41
@Miss Anne Thrope
American style consumption is gross, and it's driven by corporate profits. To me, the suburban family lifestyle is what is destroying earth. And none of it is necessary. The soccer mom in the 10mpg SUV driving her kids to a soccer practice on a clear cut field full of pesticides. Everyone has their bottled water (to throw out after a few sips), snacks wrapped in plastic. Stop on the way home for packaged carry out food. Oversized house out in the burbs so dad drives an hour each way to work. House is 4500SF and poorly insulated so costs $500 a month to heat. Constant flow of new junk from Amazon, and a need to get rid of old junk from Amazon. More chemicals on the lawn.
It would probably take 100 families in China or Bangladesh to impact the earth as much as one American family.
9
@MC. So our consumptive life style justifies our high immigration levels driving our population even higher? I don't get it.
16
These trends are particularly atrocious regarding climate change. Living in and around metro areas contributes much less to climate change than living in the sprawling suburbs. Cities and surrounding counties need to address their affordability issues - but the federal government also has to stop subsidizing the sprawl. Given that Phoenix got so hot a few summers ago that planes couldn't even take off, and that Lake Mead is going to cause a water war in the LA area, people moving to the South and West are going to be in for a horrible surprise in a few decades.
13
@Joseph It does, I have a lot of trees and plants around my house, a person living in a high rise has none of that, and I bet uses more energy than I do. They also need a lot of transportation to move what they need to their populated cities.
5
@vulcanalex
> They also need a lot of transportation to move what they need to their populated cities.
And we don't drive much, we walk or use public transportation. Face it, this is settled science - higher population density is more energy efficient. There are MORE trees worldwide when most people live in small apartments ratehr than sprawling houses in sprawing suburbs with sprawling roads.
4
We saw how the millennial generation delayed having homes, having children because of the recession that happened a decade ago, so we had some 10 years of low growth for economic reasons like that. There's social factors too like women choosing to focus on their career instead of starting families early -- but those social norms aren't fixed and permanent, they can be reshaped by who know's what influences to come. In any case, studies like this are not comprehensive and I don't see how they are indicators for what's to come. I'm not sold on these studies that say immigration is the answer to all of our problems to lead to a clouded judgement that it's ok to have lax immigration enforcement as has been the status quo for decades.
16
We have the lowest unemployment in a very long time and I'm seeing more "help wanted" signs in my neighborhood. There are many jobs no "Americans" are willing to do - harvesting crops, slaughtering animals for food, low level construction, keeping golf courses green, ironing Donald Trump's clothes, and caring for the elderly, including wiping their bottoms. The exclusion of immigrants under the Trump/Republican regime has adversely affected many industries. The immigrants who do these jobs are generally hard working and reliable and the stats show a lower crime rate. We do actually need immigrants, and a good number of them. If we can integrate them into our country we will be stronger.
11
@Seeker: I disagree with the increasingly common opinion that no "Americans" are willing to do jobs farmed out to immigrants. We certainly don't want to create an underclass to do our "dirty work". We do need living wages for all kinds of work and, when that is the case, jobs like this commenter describes would be totally acceptable for (American) teenagers, retirees and others who don't find this kind of work objectionable or demeaning.
33
American capitalism is inherently, historically built on an underclass. I dont see that changing.
3
@Stanley Gomez: There are no menial jobs, just menial wages.
17
The future will be extremely unpleasant for our grandchildren at the present rate of population growth. *Reducing* the size of the present population should be encouraged, not maintaining the status quo snd certainly not *increasing* the population of certain areas.
Since my childhood in the early 1950s the Earth's population has TRIPLED! Considering that Africa and most of South and Central America have growth rates 30-40% greater than the rest of the world, there have to be some countries which actively control their growth. For better or worse the responsibility falls on developed countries like the US.
56
This article assumes that increasing the population of various places is a good thing... and I don't think that's an assumption that should be made anymore.
The earth is a finite place - that cannot sustain never ending population growth. Efforts should be made to figure out a way that the population of places can shrink while maintaining a decent standard of living. For example why can't a rural town shrink and the services in the town scale down in proportion to the shrinking tax base?
39
This is just totally wrong. We need to shrink our population, not increase it.
Prof. Walter Scheidel's research (The Great Leveller) has shown that income and wealth inequality have grown everywhere, at all times, since the neolithic revolution EXCEPT where adverse conditions (war, epidemics, state failure, and etc) have shrunk populations. In those cases wages rise, land rents fall, and inequality is compressed.
We finally have the knowledge and technology to limit population growth peacefully, without wars or plagues. We need to do it.
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@Green Tea
"This is just totally wrong. We need to shrink our population, not increase it."
Thank you.
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@Green Tea, I think the MORE critical point is WHERE people are choosing to live.
This idea that you have to squeeze all of these people into the superstar cities makes no sense. It is a big country. People should have viable choices to live the life they want.
I personally think this migration out of the largest urban centers is a healthy correction.
Just because rural areas are shrinking, why attribute this to immigration-related causes? Why not talk about the consolidation of agribusiness under the yuuge multinationals who gobble up millions of acres and turn the former owners into their tenant farmers? Surely that phenomenon has displaced a lot of people. And why this big push to sell people on immigration, particularly those in these rural areas that famously support reactionary politics and groups? One remains unpersuaded that immigration by itself is a positive boon after this and similar pieces. Uninvited means unwelcome, whether it's a dinner guest or an immigrant.
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As someone who lives in Miami, I read this article and think we would not have needed to destroy so much of the everglades if we did not have immigration, the highways would not be among the worst in the nation if we did not have so much immigration? I am married to an immigrant and am not opposed out of principle to managed immigration, but this type of one-sided article is no better than the President's tweets.
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The United States is overpopulated. It would be impossible for every American to visit Yellowstone Park even once yet it a perfect world, all Americans would go regularly. With our population over 330 million people, there are many things that most Americans will never be able to do, not because they can't afford it but because there simply isn't enough for everyone. NYC is becoming unaffordable and people are being forced out. There simply isn't enough room for millions of new housing units. How much worse will the inequality be when there are 500 million people? At current immigration levels, we will find out in 2070. Who really believes the USA will be a better place with 500 million?
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@Mike
All Americans would regularly go to a place that's a long distance from most of us? Why can't we go to national parks near our own homes?
> NYC is becoming unaffordable and people are being forced out. There simply isn't enough room for millions of new housing units.
Yes, there is. NYC has a very low population density when compared to most cities worldwide. We have plenty of room for millions of new housing units in the outer boros, we just have to build them (and, ideally, more train lines).
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The author forgets, like most progressives, the environment. We rightly are encouraged to have fewer children (overpopulation) to reduce the burden on the Earth. But progressives would negate any benefits of parents who responsibly limit their number of children by allowing ILLEGALS to pour in and make up the difference. As economic refugees they are pursuing the American dream and they or their children will live the energy intensive life driving global warming. It is the earth that is being held hostage.
What this view ignores is the impact on the environment of new arrivals. In the past, humans devastated native species, and wiped many out (passenger pigeon). They cut down almost every tree in the east, most in the West, and ploughed up ninety per-cent of the prairie. The “empty space” is now used for agriculture to feed the people already here: fifty per-cent of the land is used for crops and another thirty per-cent for grazing (James Speth, 2004). Only a small portion is left aside for wildlife, on marginal land. Adding more immigrants would threaten wild habitats and species even more. The U.S. is not empty: it is a graveyard of formerly thriving species that are now rare or extinct (bison, whooping crane, etc.) We do not need to fill the “empty space” but to let it recover.
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@HughMcDonald - Spot on! I can't take the progressives seriously when they demand action on climate change while pushing virtually open borders at the same time. We should be focusing on reducing or eliminating our country's rate of population growth in the interest of environmental sustainability.
Why aren't mainstream environmental groups jumping up and down demanding immigration reductions and enforcement of immigration laws? I'm talking about the Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and The Nature Conservancy. Their silence on this issue is deafening.
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@Dan, Democratic Party has generally abandoned all environmental groups except for single-issue climate change groups. Although Obama EPA does deserve credit for "Waters of the United States" rule, which Trump admin now diluting.
In state of Vermont alone, super-majority of Democrats allowed campaign finance donors from renewables industry, including industrial-level developers and those from out-of-state, to write legislation to fast-track every renewable energy project, without regard to any local or state-wide land use rules, including zoning for open space protections; zoning for natural resources protections; head waters; mountain-tops; wildlife corridors; how close projects could be to people's homes, etc. Predictably, there are now giant wind towers and industrial size solar "farms" in all of these areas, including ridge-lines that had been protected in bipartisan fashion for over 40 years.
Sierra Club, as you mention, lost all credibility. After they did the deal with the devil and took the $100 million dollar gift from hedge funder David Gelbaum on condition that they never mention population growth and immigration again, they purged anyone with population growth concerns, including board members like former Democratic Party Governor Dick Lamm. Last I heard, they are now openly supporting unlimited population growth, including via opposing Jordan Commission recommended immigration reforms.
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@GRH That waters of the Us is an unconstitutional impingement on the rights of citizens in many ways, that is why it is being reduced.
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Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL immigrants. They recognize that the US cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al., and that they and other US taxpayers cannot possibly support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, etc. Indeed, many believe bringing children on such perilous journeys constitutes child abuse.
No other nation has open borders, nor should the US.
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I for one don't adhere to the "bigger is always better" school of thought. You can't even move around any more the big cities between the traffic and the people. We don't need more people in the US. We are killing our planet. We will experience water shortages. Why don't we improve what we have before we add more? Let's take care of our own down trodden, poor, uneducated first.
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@Sarah99: Yes, let's the care of America's down-trodden, poor and uneducated *before* those of other countries.
Unfortunately many of my fellow Democrats seem to feel that out policy should be the reverse of this.
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@Sarah99
American cities have a very low population density compared to cities anywhere else in the world. All this nonsense about "you can't move around any more" is clearly from people who have never been in any city ever.
@Sarah99 - "Let's take care of our own down trodden, poor, uneducated first" - Yes, by all means, pass parental failure on to those of us who were not responsible for creating them... I'm sure we will all thank you!
Your stats are backed up by history. It is probably the #1 reason why this country (until maybe recently) has always been the biggest country with the highest standard of living.
If you want to see what happens when you stop immigration, look at the western Roman Empire circa 410-478. After centuries of incorporating conquered people into their empire as full citizens, they could not accept the "barbarians" ie Goths, Vandals, Huns etc. as full citizens.
The empire quickly fell right after that.
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@Paul You need to read history. Political corruption ended the Roman Empire just as it's likely to do here in the US.
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@Sarah99-Thank you for your reply. I respectively disagree with you. Political corruption was always present in the Roman Empire but conquered people were always considered full citizens.
Only in the 400s AD when they could not accept the "barbarians" as citizens did it end.
Political corruption will not end the US, but stopping immigration will.
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@Paul So you actually think that things from then apply today, how foolish. If we stopped all immigration and deported all the illegals in say the next two years things would change, better for some worse for others. Let's do it and find out.
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The US does need immigrants but this is OUR country and we have the right to control who comes to the country and who becomes a citizen.
It is appalling that the politicians, despite talking about creating a reasonable immigration policy, have done absolutely nothing to accomplish it.
The Republican and Democrat must compromise and get this done.
How long has the DACA thing dragged out. Will some of the DACAs reach retirement age before the government gives them a path to citizenship?
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@Bob in Pennsyltucky - FWIW, in '06 and again, in '13, the Senate, w/ 2/3 majority support, including most of the (D)s and many (R)s, passed comprehensive immigration reform bills. Both bills were slain in The House by the TeaPartyFreedomCaucus (R)egressives.
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@Miss Anne Thrope, this is incorrect. The 2013 "Gang of 8" immigration reform effort was largely defeated because of the Tea Party Caucus within the Republican Party.
However, the 2006/2007 effort, under Bush, Jr., was defeated because the Democrats refused to stay united. The Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives and the US Senate in the 2006 elections. Bush, Jr. indicated willingness to do immigration reform. In spring of 2007, a major effort was made (and the proposed legislation was about 90 to 95% identical to the "Gang of 8" legislation proposed in 2013). Ted Kennedy implored his fellow Democrats, in control of both branches of Congress, to stay united because this was, in his words, "the last, best chance." They rejected Kennedy's pleas. Enough Democrats (and independents who caucus with Democrats, like Bernie Sanders) voted against to defeat the legislation. The Democrats did not want to share any credit with GOP or Bush for an immigration "win" and were worried it would strengthen McCain for 2008 election (McCain supported the 2007 effort, as well as 2013).
Yes, a faction of GOP was against it in 2007 but not enough to defeat it if all Democrats voted unanimously in favor. This was before the Tea Party "revolt," which was not until 2010 elections.
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