IMMIGRANTS WILL SUPPORT BOOMERS IN OLD AGE!

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GOOD MORNING FLINT !
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Date 02/12/08
By Terry Bankert Posted full article first to Flint Talk THEN summarized, for discussion, also posted to: http://flinttalk.com/posting.php?mode=editpost&p=24591

Full article at Google blog Good Morning Flint, http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/ with citations.(AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS POST) also posted to MLIVE Flint JOURNAL Flint Community blogs, Flint Citizen, Craigs list, Face Book, My Space and . Please circulate and post freely. Do you have suggestions for other sites to post to. Recent BANKERT VLOGG on :Mediation #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnHdn-Ilu0E ______________________

WHERE IS OUR US POPULATION HEADED?

Doubly Hispanic; vastly more Asian; equivalently African American; much less white. Overall: Older.[TPI]

How will this affect our policy decisions?[trb]
Demographers have long monitored U.S. census data in an effort to project current trends forward, providing a snapshot of the future that could help lay out policy questions facing the country.[TCT]

This data allows us to budget for education, health care and other social needs.[trb]

The number of Hispanics in the United States will triple by 2050 and represent nearly 30 percent of the population if current trends continue, according to a report released yesterday. [TWP]

Politically this emerging should shift our discussion on immigration policy. [trb]
The study by the nonpartisan, Washington-based http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Pew+Research+Center?tid=informlinePew Research Center also found that nearly one in five Americans will be foreign-born in 2050, compared with about one in eight today. Asian Americans, representing 5 percent of the population today, are expected to boost their share to 9 percent. [TWP]

This demographic shift will affect voting pattern. Which party will get the immigration vote. Will immigrants support the political party whose leader has a foreign sounding name?[trb]

Blacks are projected to maintain their current 13 percent share. Non-Hispanic whites will still be the nation's largest group, the report says, but would drop from 67 percent of U.S. residents to 47 percent. [TWP]

How will changing demographics change our public civil rights policies in the U.S..[trb]

WHAT AN IRONY!

What such an outcome could portend, other analysts have said, is a nation riven politically between older, whiter, voting retirees who are increasingly supported by a younger, darker, working population that, as immigrants, may be disproportionately ineligible to vote.[TNYT]
Its in the self interest of older whites to politically align with the immigrant populations and their American ethnic voting clusters.[trb]

In the future "...the country's needs and ethnic identity will be far more complex, predicted Jeffrey Passel, who co-wrote the Pew report."[TCT]

Jan Ting, a former assistant commissioner with the Immigration and Naturalization Service who teaches a course on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugees at Temple University's Beasley School of Law, thinks the most stunning finding of the report is its population projection. [TPI]

"The most troubling aspects," he said, "are the implications . . . on schools, the notion of universal health, our criminal-justice system, our infrastructure, our environment." [TPI]

WILL ANTI IMMIGRATION INTERESTS USE THIS REPORT TO CREATE NEW BARRIERS TO IMMIGRATION

Ting interpreted the report as a reason to crack down on illegal immigration. The report makes no distinction between documented and undocumented entry. [TPI]

"If we can address the illegal portion and reduce it somehow, we can put the brakes on this sort of growth, and hopefully not get to the scenario" that Pew outlines, he said. [TPI]

Overall, by 2050 the U.S. population is projected to increase by 47 percent, from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million. Newly arriving immigrants would account for 47 percent of the rise, and
their U.S.-born children and grandchildren would represent another 35 percent. [TWP]

Authors of the study, which roughly tracks similar analyses by the http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Census+Bureau?tid=informlineCensus Bureau and other sources, cautioned that their findings are projections based on immigration and demographic trends that may change. [TWP]

There is some debate concerning the methodology of PEW.[trb]

IMMIGRATION

Immigrants, particularly Hispanics, will play an increasingly important role in the work force. A combination of the aging of baby boomers and low birth rates among non-Hispanic whites will lead to a decrease in their percentage in the work force, from 68 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2050. Immigration and higher birth rates will see Hispanics, now 14 percent of the work force, increase to 31 percent.[THC]

WILL A QUOTA SYSTEM RETURN?

Nonetheless, the report offers an intriguing picture of the possible long-term effects of the immigration surge that began after 1965, when Congress abolished a quota system that had nearly ended immigration from non-European countries since the 1920s.[TWP]

Because of a declining birthrate among U.S.-born women, immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren already account for most of the nation's population increase over the past several decades. The study projects that by 2025, the foreign-born share of the population will surpass the peak recorded during the waves of immigration that occurred between 1860 and 1920, when foreign-born residents represented as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population. [TWP]

THE RISE IN IMMIGRATION WILL HAVE SHORT TERM COSTS AND LONG TERM GAIN.

He acknowledged education costs can increase as immigrants bring their children with them or start families here, but said the eventual payoff for the economy was worth the investment. Health care costs also can increase initially, but stabilize as immigrants become part of the mainstream work force.[THC]

Some groups felt left out. The Caribbean for instance . One Caribbean Newspaper questions why their population was left out of the study.[TCN]

SOME IMMIGRANTs COME TO THE UNITED UNITED STATES WITH THE ILLUSION OF OUR HORN OF PLENTY, OTHERS ARE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES.

I'm an innumerate, but the figures on this -- the saddest story of our Iraq debacle -- are so large that even I can do the necessary computations. The population of the United States is now
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/thenation/cm_thenation/storytext/15283420/26293427/SIG=120e6nsn6/*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_StatesJUST OVER $300,000 the population of Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion was perhaps in the 26-27 million range. Between March 2003 and today, a number of reputable sources place the total of Iraqis who have fled their homes -- those who have been displaced internally and those who have gone abroad -- at between 4.5 million and 5 million individuals. If you take that still staggering lower figure, approximately one in six Iraqis is either a refugee in another country or an internally displaced person. [YN]

DOUBLING SENIOR POPULATION

But the study's authors said that immigration will do little to offset the more than doubling of the nation's elderly population as baby boomers age. By 2050, people older than 65 will make up 19 percent of the population, compared with 12 percent in 2005, while the share of working-age people will shrink from 63 percent to 58 percent. [TWP]

Since I am about to become a senior I support getting immigrants education, health care and jobs so they can work pay taxes and support me.[trb]

DEPENDENCY RATION

This translates into a sharp rise in the "dependency ratio" of working-age people, compared with the number of young and elderly. Today, there are about 59 children or elderly people per 100 working-age adults. By 2050, that figure is expected to increase to 72 dependents per 100 working-age adults. [TWP]

Well its like having to support public schools when you have no school age children. Its just your turn.[trb]

SOCIAL SECURITY

Though advocates of immigration have suggested that the newcomers can help offset the pressure boomers put on Social Security, the report indicates that even if immigration were reduced by 50 percent, the dependency ratio would change only from 72 dependents to 75 per 100 working-age adults. [TWP]

Speaking for the boomers, we are for this.[trb]

Those who oppose allowing immigration to continue at its current pace interpreted the findings as vindication. "These numbers underline the fact that immigration is not a solution to the aging of the population," said http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Mark+Krikorian?tid=informlineMark Kirkorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors further limits on immigration. "And then we need to ask ourselves if we want the 100 million more people immigration will bring. Do you want 80 million more cars on the road, or 40 million homes occupying what's now open space?" [TWP]

John Fonte, a senior fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute, where he directs the Center for American Common Culture, said he believes the nation is experiencing "an assimilation crisis" that could intensify by mid-century. [TPI]

If Pew's projections are correct, he said, "we should get even more serious about ending anti-assimilation measures." [TPI]

"We have bilingual ballots. We have bilingual education. We have dual citizenship voting. All of these things are clashing" with what it means to have an American identity, he said. [TPI]

Wrong, we have an identity as the melting pot of the world. [trb]

As for the policy implications of the Pew report, "the levels of immigration ought to be connected to how well we are doing with assimilation. Since we are not doing so well right now, I would decrease it." [TPI]

I think we are doing great at assimilation. More educational resources are needed.[trb]

MOST OF US WILL NOT ADMIT HOW VALUABLE THE IMMIGRANTS ARE TO THE ECONOMY.

"This is something we are seeing in Connecticut," West Hartford economist Ron Van Winkle said. "Almost all the population increase we have is due to international migration."[THC]He described the state as having a "mature, slow-growing economy," and without the infusion of immigrants "we'd have a smaller economy, we'd have less wealth and we'd have jobs leaving the state because they couldn't be filled."[THC]

At a news conference to announce the report yesterday, co-authors D'Vera Cohn and Jeffrey S. Passel declined to draw policy conclusions. They also noted that even if their projections are accurate, the social implications may be different by 2050: Given the high rate of intermarriage between Latinos and members of other ethnic groups, many descendants of today's Latinos may not even identify themselves as such. [TWP]

Varsovia Fernandez, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce - 300 business owners and Latino professionals - said the Pew study seemed like a good argument for committing more educational resources to Hispanics, whose high school graduation rates are below 50 percent. [TPI]

"What it tells me is that we really need to giddy-up and start paying more attention. [TPI]
"If the workforce of the future is going to be a lot more Hispanics," she said, "we need to do a better job of educating them."[TPI]

A few conclusions have become clear: Latino and Asian populations are rapidly increasing because of both immigration and birth rates in the U.S.; non-Hispanic whites, meanwhile, are on their way to becoming a minority.[TCT]

_______________________end article----
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— WHERE DID THIS STUFF ABOVE COME FROM—

[TWP]
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/11/AR2008021101294.html?hpid=sec-nation

[TCT]
The Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-immigration-study_13feb12,1,2413723.story

[TPI]
The Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20080212_2050_U_S___Older_and_more_diverse.html

[TNYT]
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/us/12immig.html?ref=us

[THC]
The Hartford Courant
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-pewstudy0212.artfeb12,0,6241020.story

[TCN]
The Caribworld News
http://www.caribbeanworldnews.com/middle_top_news_detail.php?mid=284

[YN]
Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080211/cm_thenation/15283420

[trb]
Coments oF Terry Bankert
http://attorneybankert.com/
Who am I:
http://attorneybankert.com/about.php
POSTED HERE BY Terry Bankert 2/12/08

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