It’s been two years since Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey joined other Republican governors in cutting unemployment benefits. Ivey and her cohort of conservatives insisted that businesses were having trouble finding enough workers because the extra financial support — $300 a month that congressional Democrats had pushed through in a COVID relief bill — was making folks lazy.
That conservative maneuver, of course, has failed to produce more workers. Businesses are still desperate for help. That’s just one reason why the United States ought to happily invite in more migrants from south of the border: We need more workers. According to economists, payrolls show that about 2.5 million fewer people are employed now than before the pandemic.
Early retirements explain some of the drop-off. When COVID struck, some workers in their 50s decided the risks presented by leaving their homes and mingling every day simply weren’t worth it. But even without the pandemic, the United States could have expected a wave of retirements to hit the workforce. That’s because the population is aging.
I’ve been slightly bemused by the fierce French protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s insistence on raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. Here in the United States, the retirement age for anyone born in 1960 or later — the age at which Social Security benefits pay in full — is 67. And some in Congress are considering raising it. Full pensions at 64 seem generous.
If the French seem a bit, well, indulged, they share with Americans the fundamental demographic conundrum that has led to the critical state of retirement funds: a lot of retirees, not enough younger workers. Those younger workers pay for the pensions enjoyed by the retirees.
The U.S. and Western Europe share the fate of advanced nations where decent health care has led to longer life spans, while at the same time, younger adults have decided to have fewer children. This country’s birth rate is now below what demographers call the “replacement rate” — enough children born so that younger workers can fully replace older folks leaving the workforce. As it is, the cohort of Americans 65 and older is expected to rise from 17% of the population to 23% by 2060.
(China, too, is faced with a rapidly aging population. Its problem stems from its decades-long policy of restricting families to just one child. By the time it finally reversed the policy in 2015, the demographic shift was already underway.)
Immigrants, though, have helped the U.S. avoid the plight of nations such as Greece and Italy, which are facing what some have called a “silver tsunami.” Those countries face not only severe strains on public pension funds but also slowing economies, constrained by the lack of younger workers.
The Greeks and Italians, however, have not exactly been welcoming toward immigrants. Three years ago, Greek authorities, for example, took to pushing refugee boats back out to sea, frustrated by the waves of migrants reaching their shores. Across Western Europe, including Italy and France, xenophobic politicians have gained support as immigrants have sought — unsuccessfully, in many cases — to assimilate and gain an economic toehold.
Sadly, the U.S. is following the pattern. While anti-immigration sentiment had been burning hotter among conservative voters through the start of the 21st century, Donald Trump threw gasoline on it, opening his presidential campaign by bashing Mexicans. Since then, xenophobia has become such a widespread sentiment among Republicans that Congress couldn’t even agree on a bill to grant the well-vetted “Dreamers,” brought to the U.S. as children, a path to citizenship.
What a mistake. While jingoistic critics contend that many immigrants are a drain, studies simply don’t bear that out. Most of them work and pay taxes. They start businesses. They revive neighborhoods. As a group, immigrants tend to commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans.
Even those who are less skilled benefit the economy and the social order. They take jobs that Americans don’t want — cleaning, butchering, harvesting. And who is going to take care of the seniors who end up in nursing homes, which are already experiencing staff shortages?
We call ourselves a nation of immigrants. We need to let more of them in.
Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2007. She can be reached at [email protected].
