Why Immigration Matters! A look at how immigration helps the Aging in USA

A lot of opponents to immigration cite the argument of the sovereign state, where every country is expected and allowed to act in the best interests of its own people, i.e. people who are citizens of the country and then maybe to a lesser extent the legal permanent residents.

The Opposition to Immigration

Many advocates of the sovereign state theory, including President Trump, express the views that while Immigration is laudable on moralistic grounds, it should not be at the cost of citizens of the United States. In fact, many argue that the increasing number of Immigrants to America is taxing the country’s social security resources, lowering the average wages by settling to work for less and are taking away the jobs that would have otherwise gone to American Citizens and thus increasing unemployment. The opponents of welcoming policies argue that the USA as a sovereign nation is duty bound to put the interests of its own people above the interests of the immigrant by following a stricter policy. However as many pundits and experts on the issue have pointed out, immigration does less harm and more benefit to the host country

Why Immigrants are important

Global leaders and CEOs have time and again come forward to express their opinion in favor of immigration.  As recently as yesterday we had the Apple CEO, Tim Cook stating that he would encourage immigration as it would help to create more Jobs in USA, contrary to the popular myth. Prominent personalities from the business, political and cultural worlds such as Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Satya Nadella and Aziz Ansari have all spoken out in favor of more immigrants. In a recent analysis published in the Detroit Free Press[i], an American publication, journalist Mike Thompson laid out the argument for welcoming more immigrants.

According to Thompson, the people who are advocating for curbing immigration are not paying attention to the impact that reducing the immigrant population in America can have on the retirees of the country. There is a connection between the number of immigrants and retirement funding, as the benefits of social security that are enjoyed by the retired persons are funded for by the taxes of the working people. An imbalance in the number of employed can cause problems in the retirement funding. As seen from the facts. In 1940, the ratio of employed workers to a retired person was 16 to 1, whereas that number has dropped to 3 employees to 1 retired person. The resulting gap in the funding is made up out of the Social Security trust fund for now which however is expected to be exhausted by 2032 if things remain the same.

One way according to Mike Thompson to correct this imbalance is to bring in more and not fewer immigrants into the country. He cited that immigrants are mostly young people who come into US to work and pay taxes and who contribute significantly to the economy. He speaks of immigration as a revenue stream that the USA in its current state cannot afford to lose. He reiterated that while speaking against immigration is a way to win votes in certain quarters, the economic cost of reducing immigrant population will have a higher impact on the people of US than they expected.
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