USA Needs More Immigrants
Without immigration, our population would begin to decline in 2037, according to United Nations projections. Even continuing to admit a million legal immigrants a year would leave our population flatlining within half a century. Maintaining our historical population growth rate of 1 percent would suggest admitting nearly four million individuals a year.
While that may be more than today’s politics can withstand, we should care about keeping the number of Americans growing at a reasonable rate. Immigration is our defense against the challenges of an aging society. Fewer workers supporting more retirees makes it harder to adequately fund Social Security and Medicare.
Given that unemployment is at 3.7 percent, near the all-time low, no one can sensibly argue that these additions to the labor force would cost Americans jobs.
Steven Rattner and Maureen White
Opinion: "How to Fix America’s Immigration Crisis"; Steven Rattner and Maureen White; New York Times; 1/9/24
“Mr. Rattner served as counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration. Ms. White is a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, specializing in refugee issues.”