Tag: University of North Florida

Wall Street Journal Editorial: U.S. Needs More Immigrants

The Wall Street Journal on July 24, 2023, published an editorial calling for increased U.S. recruitment and admission of immigrants.[1] Here are its reasons for that conclusion.

“The U.S. has a people problem. The birth rate has been sliding for years, and it’s about to translate into a shrinking labor force. By 2040, according to a study out this week, America could have more than six million fewer working-age people than in 2022. The only way to counter the domestic trend is by attracting workers from abroad.”

According to the editorial, “’The working-age U.S. population has peaked absent additional immigration,’ writes Madeline Zavodny, in a forthcoming paper from the National Foundation for American Policy. ‘New international migrants are the only potential source of growth in the U.S. working-age population over the remainder of the next two decades.’ Ms. Zavodny is an economics professor at the University of North Florida, and her analysis is based on data from the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

“At a time when some Americans view foreign workers as cheap competition, she offers a prescription for growth and vigor. In particular she notes that, although foreign-born workers accounted for nearly half the gain in U.S. employment from January 2021 through May 2023, ‘employment among prime-aged U.S.-born workers also soared during this period.’”

“Unemployment has been historically low, she adds, and difficulty of finding good workers will increase if the pool of working-age people shrinks.”

“The domestic trend lines aren’t good, for two big reasons. The declining birthrate is one. The other is Baby Boomers are both living longer and aging out of the work force. Anyone who imagines that a shrinking population is pleasant should spend some time in Japan and Italy. As these countries are finding, decline means fewer people to produce goods and services, as well as less innovation. Even China’s Communists now admit that owing to their pursuit of a one- child policy, they now face, as Milton Friedman predicted, a huge worker shortage that will challenge economic growth.”

“So far the U.S. has been able to compensate via immigration, which was ‘the sole source of growth in the U.S. working-age population in 2021 and 2022,’ Ms. Zavodny says. But this isn’t guaranteed. She suggests a future of competition among countries hit by the double whammy of a declining birth rate and aging society. Canada recently rolled out a new work permit to lure away foreigners in the U.S. on high-skill H-1B visas. The target of 10,000 applicants was met in two days.”

“Amid Donald Trump’s talk about a wall and Joe Biden’s chaos at the southern border, it’s hard to imagine any solutions from Congress before 2025. But Ms. Zavodny identifies labor-force trends that will have damaging consequences if they aren’t addressed. Someone needs to make the case that admitting foreign workers is good for Americans.”

In her underlying  paper for the National Foundation for American Policy, Zavodny adds, “Technological change, including ongoing advances in generative AI, is unlikely to eliminate the need for additional workers. In the long run, technological progress raises labor demand by increasing productivity and incomes. In the short to medium run, domestic workers are unlikely to be sufficient to meet labor demand as federally funded infrastructure projects roll out and domestic semiconductor production ramps up. The U.S. will need workers with specialized skills that are in short supply and take years of education and training to acquire. Now and in the future, the U.S. will still need workers, and it risks not having enough of them, particularly those with desired skills, absent additional immigration.”[2]

Comment

 This blog agrees with this W.S.J. editorial as evidenced by many blog posts and comments regarding U.S. immigration.[3]

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[1] Editorial: America’s Choice: Immigration or Bust, W.S.J. (July 24, 2023).

[2] Zavodny, Why the United States Still Needs Foreign-Born Workers, Nat’l Foundation for American Policy (July 2023).

[3] E.g., Posts and Comments to dwkcommentaries.com: Iowa State Government Encouraging Refugee and Migrant Resettlement (Feb. 3, 2023); Comment: National Worker Shortages in U.S. (Feb. 3, 2023); Comment: Economists Surprised by January New Jobs Data (Feb. 4, 2023); Comment: Migrant Workers Being Paid Premium Wages in Tight U.S. Job Market (Feb. 8, 2023); More Details on U.S. and Other Countries’ Worker Shortages (Feb. 9, 2023); Other States Join Iowa in Encouraging Immigration to Combat Aging, Declining Population (Feb.22, 2023); COMMENT: More Support for Immigrants’ Importance for U.S. Economy (Feb. 23, 2023); U.S. High-Tech Layoffs Threaten Immigrants with Temporary Visas (Feb. 25, 2023).

 

Others Factors Favoring More U.S. Immigration

On May 17, the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics reported “the fertility rate in the United States fell to a record low for a second straight year, federal officials reported Thursday, extending a deep decline that began in 2008 with the Great Recession.” This latest rate “fell to 60.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, down 3 percent from 2016. . . . It was the largest single-year decline since 2010, when families were still feeling the effects of a weak economy.”[1]

If such rates “are too low, a country can face challenges replacing its work force and supporting its older adults, like in Russia and Japan. In the [U.S.], declines in rates have not led to drops in the population, in part because they have been largely offset by immigration.”

An apparent cause is women “postponing marriage, becoming more educated and . . .more likely to be the primary breadwinners for their households.” Yet, Donna Strobino, a demographer at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, says, “It’s hard to tell whether this is a dip that we periodically see in fertility or this is a long-term trend due to major social changes.”

“The most recent decline has been deepest for minorities. The fertility rate among Hispanic women dropped more than 27 percent between 2007 and 2016, the most recent year of data by race. The rate for whites has dropped about 4 percent, for blacks about 11 percent and for Asians about 5 percent.

The Wall Street Journal recognizes this problem. Its May 17 editorial states, “the immigration destructionists are detached from the reality of the American farm economy and a worker shortage that’s driving food production overseas.” Moreover, the U.S. “farm labor shortage is growing more serious as the overall U.S. jobless rate falls. The Labor Department says about half of the 1.2 million or so workers employed in agriculture are undocumented, and if they were deported the shortage would become a crisis.”[2]

A related Wall Street Journal article quotes “a study from former regional Fed economist Madeline Zavodny, now at the University of North Florida, suggesting that new talent doesn’t hurt our existing talent and may even help. She finds that ‘having more immigrants reduces the unemployment rate and raises the labor force participation rate of US natives within the same sex and education group.” These “results may be surprising, but they are consistent with research that finds immigration has little adverse effect on native-born workers’ wages and employment. The results do not deny, however, not all workers in America are doing well. The results simply point to the fact that immigrants are not to blame for deeper structural forces or circumstances that may have led to dim labor market prospects for some workers.”[3]

A similar report comes from Minnesota. “The strength of Minnesota’s manufacturing industry has obscured a potentially serious challenge ahead for the sector: finding enough workers.” A Minnesota industry group said a “looming worker shortages [is]  a top concern for manufacturers, as baby boomer retirements shrink the labor pool at the same time the sector continues to grow.” Nearly one-half of survey respondents ‘identified hiring and retention as their number one challenge.”  April data “provided more evidence that hiring has slowed sharply in the state this year amid an ultratight supply of workers. The [state] agency said the number of unemployed workers is at a 17-year low.” [4]

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[1] Nat’l Ctr for Health Statistics, Births: Provisional Data for 2017 (May 17, 2018); Tavernise, Fertility Rate Fell to a Record Low, for a Second Straight Year, N.Y. Times (May 17, 2018).

[2] Editorial, Exporting Jobs Instead of Foods, W.S.J. (May 17, 2018) See also U.S. Needs More Immigrants, dwkcommentaries.com (April 14, 2018).

[3] Freeman, Trump and America’s Immigrant Shortage, W.S.J.(May 17, 2018).

[4] DePass, Minnesota manufacturers’ profits soar, but a labor shortage looms, StarTribune (May 18, 2018); Ramstad, Minnesota’s employers, with fewer people to hire, are hiring fewer, StarTribune (May 18, 2018).