Would Accepting More Immigrants Help Or Hurt The Economy?

[Toronado3800]

I am kicking around an idea that accepting more immigrants and making them real citizens would help the economy but am not sold on it. Not even sure the number. 10 million over four years and see how it goes?

What I am thinking is:

+One of our problems is a stagnant housing market. Interest rates are as low as they can go and the income of both bread winners are already counted towards what you can borrow so those tricks to raise home values are already played out. More people means more demand though. Folks from other countries would presumably be coming here to raise their standard of living. Judging from my area's Bosnian infusion in the 90's they don't move into brand new neighborhoods but help keep functional working areas functioning and thus raise home values.

+More young people move across the globe so this would help our baby boomer problem. Having more working age young people would offset our baby boomer age related problems of retirement funding (private and public) and health insurance.

~Immigrants seem to come here ready to work.
~More competition for jobs would lower the wages needed to hire anyone. But at least one poster on here has credited low wages in China as a reason for their economic boom. I also have a sick feeling when I look at the lower end of our labor pool that many are not ready for work . Jobs like i have now generally will not go to refugee type immigrants and if we somehow import that much skilled labor it is a problem I can deal with.

-More people means more sprawl and more use of our infrastructure. At least then we can have something to upgrade with our next stimulus lol.

I am open to ideas though.

 

[pismoe]

who cares , help the economy , maybe , maybe not but hurt the country for sure !!

 

[High_Gravity]

I am kicking around an idea that accepting more immigrants and making them real citizens would help the economy but am not sold on it. Not even sure the number. 10 million over four years and see how it goes?

What I am thinking is:

+One of our problems is a stagnant housing market. Interest rates are as low as they can go and the income of both bread winners are already counted towards what you can borrow so those tricks to raise home values are already played out. More people means more demand though. Folks from other countries would presumably be coming here to raise their standard of living. Judging from my area's Bosnian infusion in the 90's they don't move into brand new neighborhoods but help keep functional working areas functioning and thus raise home values.

+More young people move across the globe so this would help our baby boomer problem. Having more working age young people would offset our baby boomer age related problems of retirement funding (private and public) and health insurance.

~Immigrants seem to come here ready to work.
~More competition for jobs would lower the wages needed to hire anyone. But at least one poster on here has credited low wages in China as a reason for their economic boom. I also have a sick feeling when I look at the lower end of our labor pool that many are not ready for work . Jobs like i have now generally will not go to refugee type immigrants and if we somehow import that much skilled labor it is a problem I can deal with.

-More people means more sprawl and more use of our infrastructure. At least then we can have something to upgrade with our next stimulus lol.

I am open to ideas though.

Actual legal immigrants who have waited and have all their papers in order sure, I think they will help.

 

[Ropey]

Help

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

I am kicking around an idea that accepting more immigrants and making them real citizens would help the economy but am not sold on it. Not even sure the number. 10 million over four years and see how it goes?

What I am thinking is:

+One of our problems is a stagnant housing market. Interest rates are as low as they can go and the income of both bread winners are already counted towards what you can borrow so those tricks to raise home values are already played out. More people means more demand though. Folks from other countries would presumably be coming here to raise their standard of living. Judging from my area's Bosnian infusion in the 90's they don't move into brand new neighborhoods but help keep functional working areas functioning and thus raise home values.

+More young people move across the globe so this would help our baby boomer problem. Having more working age young people would offset our baby boomer age related problems of retirement funding (private and public) and health insurance.

~Immigrants seem to come here ready to work.
~More competition for jobs would lower the wages needed to hire anyone. But at least one poster on here has credited low wages in China as a reason for their economic boom. I also have a sick feeling when I look at the lower end of our labor pool that many are not ready for work . Jobs like i have now generally will not go to refugee type immigrants and if we somehow import that much skilled labor it is a problem I can deal with.

-More people means more sprawl and more use of our infrastructure. At least then we can have something to upgrade with our next stimulus lol.

I am open to ideas though.

Actual legal immigrants who have waited and have all their papers in order sure, I think they will help.

an economy grows from the stone age to here because of new inventions. So, those most likely to invent new things are the ones we should invite if we want economic growth.

 

[Toronado3800]

I am kicking around an idea that accepting more immigrants and making them real citizens would help the economy but am not sold on it. Not even sure the number. 10 million over four years and see how it goes?

What I am thinking is:

+One of our problems is a stagnant housing market. Interest rates are as low as they can go and the income of both bread winners are already counted towards what you can borrow so those tricks to raise home values are already played out. More people means more demand though. Folks from other countries would presumably be coming here to raise their standard of living. Judging from my area's Bosnian infusion in the 90's they don't move into brand new neighborhoods but help keep functional working areas functioning and thus raise home values.

+More young people move across the globe so this would help our baby boomer problem. Having more working age young people would offset our baby boomer age related problems of retirement funding (private and public) and health insurance.

~Immigrants seem to come here ready to work.
~More competition for jobs would lower the wages needed to hire anyone. But at least one poster on here has credited low wages in China as a reason for their economic boom. I also have a sick feeling when I look at the lower end of our labor pool that many are not ready for work . Jobs like i have now generally will not go to refugee type immigrants and if we somehow import that much skilled labor it is a problem I can deal with.

-More people means more sprawl and more use of our infrastructure. At least then we can have something to upgrade with our next stimulus lol.

I am open to ideas though.

Actual legal immigrants who have waited and have all their papers in order sure, I think they will help.

an economy grows from the stone age to here because of new inventions. So, those most likely to invent new things are the ones we should invite if we want economic growth.

who do you think IS more likely to forward the economy?

Ideally I guess we would pull well educated immigrants out of places at least. Doesn't seem likely wealthy folks will leave en masse....

 

[Rikurzhen]

Each person that we add to society incurs a cost. A main road through a city can only handle X amount of traffic per hour before it needs expanding. Same with a highway. A sewer pipeline can only handle X gallons of waste per minute, a sewage treatment plant can only handle X tons on waste per day. An electrical grid can only handle X megawatts of power. A neighborhood school can only handle so many students per classroom. You get the picture.

It costs $12,000 per year to support one public school kid. It costs millions of dollars per mile to widen a freeway. It costs people X minutes of wasted time sitting in traffic jams due to overcrowded roads.

So when we add people to society these people present costs which get spread to the rest of us. For these new people to be a benefit they need to produce more in both economic value and in taxes than they consume.

Most people don't produce that value. Most people don't contribute more to society than they consume.

Housing, in my opinion, is the wrong focus. There is no economic benefit to raising house prices because as they increase you shut more people out of the market. Who here wants Flat Screen TV prices to double? If not, why not? Doesn't it seem silly for people to argue that they want to Flat Screen TV prices to increase because they're using their own TV as a savings program and if they can sell their TV for more than they bought it then they can make money? Well, how about all the people who now can't afford to buy a Flat Screen TV? They're shut out of the market.

The best economy that the US had was back in the late 40s to late 60s. This was also a period of miniscule immigration, and the lowest level of income inequality. This was brought about by labor scarcity. One working man could earn enough to buy a house, have a stay at home wife/mom and raise 2 or 3 kids.When you keep flooding the labor market with immigrants you drive down the bargaining power of labor. When that happens women no longer have a choice and must enter the labor force. As they enter they put more downward pressure on wages and, in turn, force even more women to enter as the income their husbands earn can't keep pace with inflation because labor surplus is driving down the ability of labor to bargain with Capital.

Lastly, I'm curious, how large of a population is finally too large. I'm sure we have people on this board who were alive in, say 1960 when the population was 152 million. Today it's 316 million, more than doubled in one lifetime. Are commutes in big cities better today than they were in 1950? If a 90 minute commute is tolerable today what do we do with a 3 hour commute in the future? What is too big for the US? Too big for a city?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Ideally I guess we would pull well educated immigrants out of places at least. ....

good now you're catching on. Best would be to pay people with Ph.Ds( or those who are getting Ph.Ds) in engineering and computer science to be citizens.

 

[Toronado3800]

Ideally I guess we would pull well educated immigrants out of places at least. ....

good now you're catching on. Best would be to pay people with Ph.Ds( or those who are getting Ph.Ds) in engineering and computer science to be citizens.

Ok...and you are catching on about being nice to others who are not calling you names.....

Is there anything we can do short of paying them? Allow all refugees who have a diploma from Syria or wherever to enter? It would mean more Cubans or Syrians or whatever would go to school there in an attempt to immigrate in the future. Might be slow working but I like it. Might also leave a couple more well educated folks in their own country.

 

[pismoe]

the slower the better !!

 

[Rikurzhen]

Ideally I guess we would pull well educated immigrants out of places at least. ....

good now you're catching on. Best would be to pay people with Ph.Ds( or those who are getting Ph.Ds) in engineering and computer science to be citizens.

Ok...and you are catching on about being nice to others who are not calling you names......

I did make an effort to address your OP so you could extend to me the courtesy of telling me where you think I'm wrong. That would also be a nice behavior.

 

[Toronado3800]

Each person that we add to society incurs a cost. A main road through a city can only handle X amount of traffic per hour before it needs expanding. Same with a highway. A sewer pipeline can only handle X gallons of waste per minute, a sewage treatment plant can only handle X tons on waste per day. An electrical grid can only handle X megawatts of power. A neighborhood school can only handle so many students per classroom. You get the picture.

It costs $12,000 per year to support one public school kid. It costs millions of dollars per mile to widen a freeway. It costs people X minutes of wasted time sitting in traffic jams due to overcrowded roads.

So when we add people to society these people present costs which get spread to the rest of us. For these new people to be a benefit they need to produce more in both economic value and in taxes than they consume.

Most people don't produce that value. Most people don't contribute more to society than they consume.

Housing, in my opinion, is the wrong focus. There is no economic benefit to raising house prices because as they increase you shut more people out of the market. Who here wants Flat Screen TV prices to double? If not, why not? Doesn't it seem silly for people to argue that they want to Flat Screen TV prices to increase because they're using their own TV as a savings program and if they can sell their TV for more than they bought it then they can make money? Well, how about all the people who now can't afford to buy a Flat Screen TV? They're shut out of the market.

The best economy that the US had was back in the late 40s to late 60s. This was also a period of miniscule immigration, and the lowest level of income inequality. This was brought about by labor scarcity. One working man could earn enough to buy a house, have a stay at home wife/mom and raise 2 or 3 kids.When you keep flooding the labor market with immigrants you drive down the bargaining power of labor. When that happens women no longer have a choice and must enter the labor force. As they enter they put more downward pressure on wages and, in turn, force even more women to enter as the income their husbands earn can't keep pace with inflation because labor surplus is driving down the ability of labor to bargain with Capital.

Lastly, I'm curious, how large of a population is finally too large. I'm sure we have people on this board who were alive in, say 1960 when the population was 152 million. Today it's 316 million, more than doubled in one lifetime. Are commutes in big cities better today than they were in 1950? If a 90 minute commute is tolerable today what do we do with a 3 hour commute in the future? What is too big for the US? Too big for a city?

My apologies. I have mixed feelings about your view.

In regards to the single bread winner I agree but think that time has passed us by. We have some new expenses folks in the 50's did not. My wife wants a car and a cell phone, not to mention cable tv so she better work. Not to mention the advances in medical science and associated costs. If my ACL tore in the 50's I think I would have been out of luck. Now they fix it.

Far as population I think 500 million could be done here with current tech. Commute legnth in St Louis anyway is a case of poor individual planning. Our jobs are spread out enough there is barely an economic center. Perhaps with our trend towards Suburban campuses here I don't have enough respect for the urban centers.

Your point about house prices is also valid. I guess I could contend if my home is worth more I can borrow against it to finance a new company. Also if its value goes up predictably I have an easier time moving when I need to for work. It is this weird economy of borrowed money we have that makes home prices important. Plus, my city has tons of lots and homes people just don't value enough to maintain. Google earth shows blocks with only a few homes on them and piles of rubble. New houses get built on farmland....maybe that brings up a rezoning problem...

Really I am more making conversation than strongly disagreeing.

The part about people not covering their cost is also true. IMO that is why we have a deficit. Don't know if putting more folks into the dying city here would really cost that much more. It seems like it would fix the Social Security math if we import young productive workers. Then again, the 300+ million we have do run a net deficit. I can not deny that.

Sometimes I think of the problems Europeans had in the Middle Ages after the plague wouod come through and decimate the population.

I'm grasping straws here. Feel like I mostly rehashed my OP.

 

[pismoe]

FUNNY , 500 million , its easy to do as far as feeding and housing but I sure don't want to see it .

 

[Rikurzhen]

My apologies. I have mixed feelings about your view.

In regards to the single bread winner I agree but think that time has passed us by. We have some new expenses folks in the 50's did not. My wife wants a car and a cell phone, not to mention cable tv so she better work. Not to mention the advances in medical science and associated costs. If my ACL tore in the 50's I think I would have been out of luck. Now they fix it.

This is all fundamental economics and it boils down to one simple dynamic - how do we allocate the wealth in society when it is produced by combining Labor and Capital. You always see liberals yapping on about this topic but they always focus on high taxes and then government benefits to the low income people. That's a completely backwards solution. The most effective solution is to allocate the wealth AS IT'S CREATED and for that to happen we have to change the relative bargaining power of both Capital and Labor. Note this graph, the share of wealth which went to the top 1% was at its lowest point in a century during the exact period when immigration was restricted and labor markets were tightest:

Do you remember what the job market was like in the late 90s? In many places we had employers desperately searching out potential employees, bidding up wages in order to staff their businesses. That's what labor scarcity does, it takes away some of the profits of capital and delivers that wealth to employees in the form of higher wages.

In therms of what that means for you and your wife, we can turn to an interesting natural experiment which is taking place in Alberta, a province which suffered from labor shortages. One would think that labor shortages would induce a massive flow of housewives into the labor market due to the high wages being offered. Not quite:

Ms. Carvey found refuge from that panic in the manner of any driven Type-A professional: She made a list of the pros and cons of staying home. The pros won out, and she became part of an enigmatic exodus in Alberta.

The working women of the province are disappearing, just as the province's superheated economy is becoming increasingly short-handed. Unemployment has fallen to unimaginably low levels, and help-wanted signs plaster the windows of retail businesses throughout the province. Businesses are scouring Alberta, indeed the entire country, for workers, going so far as to launch recruiting drives in prisons.

And while that desperate search goes on, women such as Ms. Carvey are turning away from work to become not-so-desperate housewives. Ten years ago, Alberta had nearly the highest proportion of working women (or women looking for work) with daycare-age children and a spouse, second only to Prince Edward Island.

In the ensuing decade, those numbers changed dramatically as large numbers of working mothers moved into the work force. Quebec, close to the bottom of the pack, rose to near the top, a change largely coinciding with its introduction of inexpensive and near-universal daycare. But the change was not limited to Quebec: Every Canadian province saw substantial increases in the number of working women with children under 6.

In every province, that is, except Alberta, where that number has been declining steadily this decade. Ten years ago, nearly seven in 10 women in this group were working, or looking for work -- above the national average. Now, it's closer to six in 10, and well below the nationwide average. Statistics Canada has documented this decline, but doesn't have a definitive explanation for it. Differences in daycare -- Alberta has among the lowest public funding in the country -- are likely part of the explanation. The introduction of a flat tax rate and a doubling of spousal deductions in 2001 certainly eased the financial burden on single-income families.

And some researchers believe that conservative social attitudes, and the resulting workplace expectations for women, are to blame.
…

Prosperity has, at a minimum, arrived at the same time as working mothers were dropping out of the work force. Statscan analyst Vincent Ferrao said it is possible that it might be more than mere coincidence: The rising wealth of Alberta could be enabling some women to stay at home without undue financial hardship. "Wages have been increasing quite rapidly," he said. "Is it possible you only need one person working?"

That hypothesis certainly lines up with Ms. Carvey's experience. Ms. Carvey and her husband, Darby Parker, had the relatively unusual luxury of being free from the financial worries of moving to a single income. Her salary of $70,000, while substantial, was lower than the six-figure compensation her spouse brought home from his oil-patch job. With a small mortgage, a modest home and a six-year-old car, the couple had avoided an overhang of debt.
…

And here emerges another paradox: Alberta's prosperity might have given some families the means to live on a single income. But the fact that they are doing so is dampening future growth, as the province's businesses run short of workers. If Alberta women (again those with children under 6) were working at the same rate as their Quebec counterparts, there would be close to another 17,000 female employees on the market -- a godsend in a province running short of everything from oil-patch executives to coffee-house clerks.
…

If the future prosperity of Canada hinges on convincing women like Ms. Carvey to stay in the work force, or at least to return quickly, it might just be time to start sweating. The proud mother of Cadence, now 15 months old, says she might not ever go back to work. "That career used to define me. Now, I'm not so sure."​

Far as population I think 500 million could be done here with current tech. Commute legnth in St Louis anyway is a case of poor individual planning. Our jobs are spread out enough there is barely an economic center. Perhaps with our trend towards Suburban campuses here I don't have enough respect for the urban centers.

Immigrants will flock to existing cities. We're not going to see little towns like Grover's Corners turned into new Chicagos. So if you doubled the population of your town or city, what is that going to do to your commute, to the price of getting a ticket for a ball game (same seats but 2x the number of ticket buyers increases the ability of the team to sell tickets for a higher price). Is there a limit to how large you want your city to become? Cities don't continually expand outwards, they almost always increase in density, which means big yards, distance between homes decreases, and instead we get more condo developments, postage stamp sized yards for private homes, etc. Cramming more people into the same space.

Your point about house prices is also valid. I guess I could contend if my home is worth more I can borrow against it to finance a new company. Also if its value goes up predictably I have an easier time moving when I need to for work. It is this weird economy of borrowed money we have that makes home prices important. Plus, my city has tons of lots and homes people just don't value enough to maintain. Google earth shows blocks with only a few homes on them and piles of rubble. New houses get built on farmland....maybe that brings up a rezoning problem...

Do you have kids? If so, are they starting out in life? Back when we had less population our kids go be independent of their parents at an earlier age and be homeowners sooner too. Take a look:

The average age of a first-time homeowner is 34, according to the most recent American Housing Survey data collected in 2009. Once first-time homeowners made up nearly half of all existing-home sales, but they now make up 35 percent, according to a recently released National Association of Realtors report. Daron Young, project manager at Ivory Homes, said young people are hesitant to buy a home . . .

Other trends such as the average age of marriage may play a role. The average age of marriage is currently 26.1, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, a drastic jump from 20.3 in 1960.

In 1960 the average age of a first-time homeowner was 24-25, according to David Berson in the journal Business Economics.​

As with Flat Screen TVs, the higher the price the more people who can't afford to buy. So those high home prices are certainly good for the people who are already homeowners but there is no benefit to those young people still out of the market, for many of them the prices are so high that they can't afford to buy in. Look at that 1960 homeowner AGE. ObamaCare still treats 26 year olds as children on their parents health plans while 50 years ago more than half of 26 year olds were already homeowners.

When we increase the population, then we create more demand for finite land. As they say, we're not making any more of it.

The part about people not covering their cost is also true. IMO that is why we have a deficit.

Exactly. If we have, let's simplify it, 10,000 taxpayers "overpaying" and we have 100,000 taxpayers "underpaying" then we have this ration 10/100 now if we continue adding more people to the population and all of them are not pulling their weight, then we get this ratio 10/200. If you, or I, happen to be an "underpayer" and we get subsidized by the "overpayers" then what has happened to our subsidy?

Don't know if putting more folks into the dying city here would really cost that much more. It seems like it would fix the Social Security math if we import young productive workers.

That doesn't work. It's like getting new credit cards to borrow cash advances to pay your existing credit cards. The white physician retiring today is being replaced by a young Hispanic gardener. That Hispanic gardener is not going to be paying enough in taxes to fund the SS of the physician and meanwhile he too will retire one day and unlike the physician who also has independent means to fund his retirement, that Hispanic gardener is going to be looking for more taxpayer support in his old age.Here's what is going on in Texas:

Today’s Texas population can be divided into two groups, he said. One is an old and aging Anglo and the other is young and minority. Between 2000 and 2040, the state’s public school enrollment will see a 15 percent decline in Anglo children while Hispanic children will make up a 213 percent increase, he said.

The state’s largest county – Harris – will shed Anglos throughout the coming decades. By 2040, Harris County will have about 516, 000 fewer Anglos than lived in the Houston area in 2000, while the number of Hispanics will increase by 2.5 million during the same period, Murdock said. The projection assumes a net migration rate equal to one-half of 1990-2000. . . .

The state’s future looks bleak assuming the current trend line does not change because education and income levels for Hispanics lag considerably behind Anglos, he said.

Unless the trend line changes, 30 percent of the state’s labor force will not have even a high school diploma by 2040, he said. And the average household income will be about $6,500 lower than it was in 2000. That figure is not inflation adjusted so it will be worse than what it sounds.

“It’s a terrible situation that you are in. I am worried,” Murdock said.​

What we're doing is this - we're in a full lifeboat and we're adding more and more people to the lifeboat and slowly sinking all of us. The original lifeboat could have stayed afloat but when everyone is in the lifeboat, then we all sink.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Unless the trend line changes, 30 percent of the state’s labor force will not have even a high school diploma by 2040,​

yes, liberals always want more and more crippling welfare; when it does indeed cripple they then want even more welfare until eventually all are on welfare and no one is working.

Read "Never Enough" to track the growth of the deadly and crippling welfare programs.​