Previous annual immigration numbers were at 1 million a year, whereas now, they have been cut by half (500,000). If this continues, it is predicted that the national GDP (gross domestic product) will drop by 700 million by 2030. The number one argument against immigration is that domestic wages suffer because of immigrants taking jobs, but the evidence behind that is limited. This is seen to only happen with a small population of the labor force that ended up dropping out of high school. Even with this being an issue, economists have proposed a simple different design can solve the problem. The United States has a high supply of high-skilled workers and because of that, there are less and less low-skilled workers to do the lower level jobs. Over the years, the people that have been doing these jobs have been poor immigrants that came to the U.S. in search of a better life. With the slow-down of immigration, these jobs will be in more and more demand, without the supporting labor force to take these jobs, there may be an economic crisis. The article argues that with a continued immigration constrain, and a lowering fertility rate, the economy will suffer in the long-run and the nation's debt burden will increase.
Based on this, what do you think would be the best way to go about avoiding the consequences of cutting immigration?
3 comments:
I don't think there is any way to solve the problem of lower immigration. Mostly because immigration is part of the United States economy from the very beginning. Out low-skilled workers are still needed and with less immigration and not as many people joining the workforce as it is left, we have to be mindful of who will fill these jobs. The demand for labor is going to rise, but there will be a shortage in the long run.
It seems that slowing immigration coupled with falling birthrates of the developed world is happening to more than just the US, as population rates of change are slowing down this century. While $700million decrease in GDP seems like a large number, realistically this is only 0.00326 % of 2019's GDP which isn't that significant. I think that US businesses will have to adjust to hiring more unskilled Americans in order to fill the gaps left by unskilled immigrants, and to fill the skilled immigrant gap we will have to become more comfortable with outsourcing from places where these immigrants may have been coming from.
I don't think the drop in immigration is of any concern. Yes, political tensions are strange right now but I think that people are educating themselves more other countries are catching up with the US in terms of development. If this issue was really as devastating as they're trying to make it seem, I don't think Trump and other media outlets would be constantly talking about "how much better" the economy has been since his presidency.
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