A View on Immigration 4
This is the first explanation of the “why” for the wave of illegal immigration that I have seen. The author has a hypothesis as to why illegal immigration has exploded in the past two decades.
What do y’all think?
On Immigration and Population Demographics Raymond Krauss Lost in the current debate on immigration reform is the decline of fertility rates in the latter part of the 20th century in the United Stated. The fertility rate during the post WW II baby boom (1946-1965) averaged 3.5. After 1965, the rate dropped below 2.0 and stayed there. This baby boom bulge is about to cause the graying of America and with it serious problems for our economy, social security and Medicare.
The high fertility rate of the baby boomers (more children were born between 1948 and 1953 than the previous 30 years combined) would have spelled disaster in most other parts of the world. But here and in Europe, it caused an economic boom the likes of which the world had never seen. American business rode high on a mighty demographic wave. Sales in everything from hula hoops to personal computers rose thanks to a steadily growing customer base. As this baby boom wave recedes into retirement, sales will fall, and the economy will need to contract, rather than expand. The 60 year economic boom we have enjoyed may well turn into a bust. Real estate will be hard hit. Fewer young and middle aged people mean lower demand for housing and lower prices. This has already started. A slower economy also means lower tax revenues for the government.
This brings us to the social security crisis. The baby boomers will live longer and collect benefits longer than ever before, and lower rates of fertility are restraining the growth of the working age population who pay social security taxes. Under the current system, this will mean severe increases in social security withholding taxes for the same working age population.
Depopulation will cause even more problems with the working man’s Medicare deductions. Medicare problems are two fold: the rising number of enrollees and the rapidly climbing costs of medical treatment. The expansion of the elder population would not in itself be a problem if the number of workers paying into the program were growing at an equally rapid pace. Unfortunately, the labor force will be growing much more slowly than the retiree population for decades after 2010. It all comes back to the baby boom phenomenon. Again, the net result, less take home pay for working age people.
November 4, 2007 at 7:28 am
Have to think on this & get back
November 4, 2007 at 10:09 am
Ok, if you look at it in the “why” area, less US born workers. But, what he started to say is true.
Illegal immigrants don’t pay into Social Security or Medicare. Unless they’re using a stolen number. Generally they’re paid under the table, no deductions, if they really are here on the sly.
For people like Chris & I, we don’t count on Social Security to be there for us, when we’re of an age to want to retire. Between the ‘boomers’ living longer, the people on it who shouldn’t be, & less paid in, I figure it’ll be gone. It’s up to us to take care of ourselves. Even now benefits don’t cover all that needs to be covered. My mother & her husband worked all their lives. They live on $2200.00 a month from Social Security. Medicare won’t pay his emergency room hospital visits, unless he’s admitted. She doesn’t go to the doctor as often as she should, because of money. There are months that they get into trouble, that we send them money.
There are ways of combating the illegal immigration, but it would effect the corporate dollar earnings, so that won’t happen.
I wonder if there is any correlation between the slowing down of the birth rate, & Roe vs. Wade? Look at the dates.
November 4, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Chris told me once that the day Social Security was passed Congress he knew it was a bad idea.
But anyway, I don’t think you even need to look at any dates – just look at the number of abortions that have taken place and each one of those is a baby our country could have had. We were part of the ZPG generation that figured too many babies were bad. Are we going to wind up paying for that?
November 5, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Oh that’s funny steve. . .how old would that make me?