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‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

washingtonpost.com

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Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#11

Post by rhaway84773 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #6

Is it a welcome slowdown to improve worker bargaining power and wages? It is hurting corporate profits though…

Is it though? The evidence suggests (caveat below) that most salary increases have been eaten up in inflation. In the meanwhile businesses are suffering and customers are getting poorer service.

Caveat: The actual numbers show that salary increases at the bottom have been slightly higher than inflation. However, food, energy and housing inflation have all been higher than overall inflation, which are items people at the bottom face more. So those who’ve seen their salaries increase the most have also almost certainly seen higher inflation than the headline number.

Also, wages were already increasing prior to the pandemic due to several successful efforts to increase minimum wages, etc. So even without the pandemic and the associated immigrant slowdown, there would likely have been some continued wage increases.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#12

Post by aperson_hello »

mullingitover wrote: post #7

It's interesting how the roles reversed between the two parties over the decades. Here's a video of George Bush and Ronald Reagan tag-teaming pro-immigration policy speeches[1] that would have them tarred and feathered by the republican party of today. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok

You're hard pressed to find a democrat who is actually earnestly pushing for immigration reform either. I'd claim the republicans largely swapped and the democrats are only for it just enough to foil the republicans!

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#13

Post by odysseus »

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.)

> 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1

> While labor force participation may rise in the short run due to mothers choosing to work instead of taking time off to raise kids, unrestricted abortion is likely to decrease labor supply in the long run. Since the Roe decision in 1973 an estimated 63 million abortions have occurred in the United States. If all of these aborted babies had been otherwise carried to term and survived until today, they would add nearly 20 percent to the current U.S. population, and nearly 45 million would be of working age (18 to 64).^2

(1) https://www.hli.org/resources/abortion-affect-united-states/ (pro-life site warning, but it cites sources including the Census Bureau and Planned Parenthood's own research arm, the Guttmacher Institute)

(2) https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/b8807501-210c...

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#14

Post by dradtke »

odysseus wrote: post #13

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.) > 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1 > While labor force participation may rise in the short ru…

Declining birth rates as a whole are to blame for this, not just abortion. Plus, legalized abortion helped reduce crime rates. https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalize...

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#15

Post by bojan »

odysseus wrote: post #13

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.) > 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1 > While labor force participation may rise in the short ru…

Out of those 45 million, how many of those unwanted kids would end up getting enough education that they can participate in a modern knowledge economy? And how many would end up needing society's support to make ends meet?

Restricted abortion leads to the availability of plentiful cheap, low-level labor, but mostly not the sort of labor that the modern economy really needs.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#16

Post by jjulius »

odysseus wrote: post #13

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.) > 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1 > While labor force participation may rise in the short ru…

Are you suggesting that abortion be illegal for the sake of maintaining a sizeable workforce?

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#17

Post by nonameiguess »

odysseus wrote: post #13

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.) > 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1 > While labor force participation may rise in the short ru…

Presumably, hormonal birth control, condoms, and allowing women to get educations and have careers has slowed population growth far more than legalizing abortion. That and just becoming a rich country. If we could have stayed more like Niger, we might have 2 billion people by now and wouldn't need immigration at all.

I guess that's what sucks about public policy. You have to pursue many goals and some of them may conflict with others.

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#18

Post by cko »

odysseus wrote: post #13

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.) > 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1 > While labor force participation may rise in the short ru…

> Nearly 45 million would be of working age.

And how many of those would be well-adjusted productive members of society?

Re: ‘Two years of lost immigration’ is responsible for half of missing workforce

#20

Post by bibanez »

odysseus wrote: post #13

Unpopular opinion, but I'd argue the last ~50 years of legalized abortion, with over 60 million lives lost, also accounts for a large percentage of the missing workforce. (Even more so when you consider the loss of their children and their children's children.) > 18% of the workforce has been wiped out by abortion, and this number will climb to 23% by 2035.^1 > While labor force participation may rise in the short ru…

I can't see any systems in place for raising 60 million unwanted children. Would you be able to raise any yourself?

There's a gap between understanding the numbers and practice.

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