Does America Have Too Many People

Immigration, the working class, and the American Dream

While reading the book Second Class, a comment I made fifteen years ago came back to haunt me.

Here’s the line in the book that triggered my memory and bit at my conscience.

“The problem is when the restaurant you can afford to go to becomes a punchline in every show and movie…written by members of the elite with an elite audience in mind to whom Olive Garden…is a joke.” ¹ 

In 2010, my wife, my younger son, and I were vacationing in Morocco at a hotel aptly named La Reve, south of the Atlas Mountains, on a property large enough that to see another guest was a rare occasion. For each lunch and dinner, the hotel would choose a different setting for the three of us, sometimes inside in an alcove with candlelight playing on stone walls, sometimes outside in one of the flower gardens or in a grove of olive trees.

My joke to my wife and son was that the hotel would be a great candidate for an Olive Garden franchise. I thought at the time I was being quite clever, emphasizing the extreme contrast between the exclusive luxury we were enjoying and the mass market appeal of an Olive Garden.

My joke has not aged well.

Second Class and Immigration

The author of Second Class, Batya Sargon-Ungar spent a year interviewing members of the working class, which she defines as roughly the middle 60% of the country––anyone who works at a job not requiring a four year college degree and who is not a member of the top 20% of earners. She excludes the “dependent poor,” a class she defines as those who suffer from endemic poverty and live for the most part off government assistance.

Batya’s central point is that the two American political parties are dominated by elites who squabble over cultural issues, while ignoring the working class’s priority, which is the economic security and success of their families. Members of the working class, according to Batya, are far less politically polarized because they believe both parties ignore their priority.

Batya wrote her book for people like me so I could better understand the attitudes of the working class and in doing so become more sympathetic to their needs. As well, so I would treat the working class with respect, e.g., not make fun of the restaurants that are for them their places for special occasions.

In Batya’s reporting, the issue that stands out the most is immigration. Opposition to immigration, both legal and illegal, cuts across political and racial lines and is held by those at both the bottom and top tiers of the working class’s socioeconomic strata.

Batya’s interviewees believe that immigration is the major culprit holding down working class wages. That’s led to cheaper labor that makes the lives of the elites more convenient. And higher profit margins for the businesses that the elites own. In this way elites are enjoying almost all the benefits of an expanding economy.

There is a correlation between immigration and the perception that the American Dream is out of reach for natives. Currently, almost one in seven Americans are foreign born, a peak not reached since the late 19^thcentury. This current peak is the result of many decades of pro-immigration policies, sometimes by statute, sometimes through lax control of the border.

Contrary to the elite belief that only immigrants will do certain jobs, the working class say they can find dignity in any work done with care and responsibility. They define poor working conditions not as an unglamorous and physically demanding job like cleaning, but instead as a job that does not pay a living wage and lacks benefits. ²

Further, the working class resent implications by elites that their opposition to immigration is based on racial grounds. The people Batya interviewed have favorable opinions of the immigrants they know. Their hostility is toward the last forty years of immigration policy. And they are quick to point out that they, the working class, not the elite class, are the people who mix and socialize with immigrants in working class jobs and working class neighborhoods.

A few important facts on immigration, fertility, and demographics

Immigration

The chart below from Gallup shows a significant uptick over the last few years in opposition to increased immigration, although not nearly as high as in the mid 1990s.

This spike in opposition both lately and in in the 1990s is correlated with a surge in attempted border crossings. (See the chart in the footnote below.) ³

Another important consideration: in a poll of registered voters taken in March of this year, immigration was chosen as the most important issue facing the country. It beat out inflation 37% to 33%. ⁴

To summarize, we have rising opposition to immigration, particularly within the less politically polarized and thus more independently minded working class (according to Second Chance) fueled by a peak in the percentage of immigrants currently living in America and a continued rise in attempted border crossings.

Fertility

The chart below shows the plunge in the American fertility rate, which hit a new low in 2023 of 1.61. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1. Americans are living longer so that helps overall population, but that doesn’t help increase the number of prime working age people. ⁵

Demographics

A very important ratio for any developed economy with significant entitlements like Social Security and Medicare promised to its elderly is the ratio of working age people (25 to 64) to retired age people (65+). Essentially the workers are paying into the entitlement programs to support all current and future retirees.

Right now that ratio for the United States is 3 “workers” for every “retiree.” Of course not every person 25-64 will be working and not everyone 65 and older will be retired. But still this ratio is an important guide in assessing the future of our economy.

Given our current pace of immigration, projections of life expectancy, and our current fertility rate, Penn Wharton’s Budget Modeling Center projected the ratio of workers to retirees over time. It falls from its current number of 3 to 2.25 by 2040. That’s only 16 years away. The ratio drops to 2.0 by 2066.  If these projections are accurate, that would put tremendous pressure on the obligations of Medicare and Social Security. (Chart in the footnote) ⁶

In fact, the  percentage of immigrants who are of prime working age (25-54) is 55% vs. 36% for the native born population. And of course the children of immigrants will be counted as native born. So immigration helps the ratio of workers to retirees in a number of ways. ⁷

If immigration becomes more restrictive than current policy, the pressure on entitlements will grow greater. Gradually and all at once might be a saying that we will one day apply to the destruction of our entitlement programs.

Of course, any long term projection is by its nature highly uncertain. Yet, this is a disturbing scenario if the status quo holds.

My position on immigration

My takeaway is that in the near term immigration is likely to become more restrictive as both political parties compete to see who can be tougher. You can reach your own conclusions about which candidate in 2024 can make a better pitch on being tough on immigration.

I understand the working class view that more immigrants depress wages. Start with a fixed supply of jobs, add more workers, and the price of labor goes down. It seems like common sense.

But I think this view rests on flawed logic because it’s based on the premise that when immigrants arrive, the supply of jobs will remain fixed. That may be true momentarily but it soon becomes false. Many immigrants create businesses both large ––e.g., Google–– and small––e.g., convenience stores, dry cleaners, nail salons and so forth. These businesses create jobs and incomes and have a multiplier effect on our economy.

Further, America has benefitted from successive waves of immigrants who have not only created jobs and new businesses but have added their native language, music, art, and food to our national culture. The best part of America’s identity is based on our openness to immigrants.

A canard worth dismissing is the lie that immigrants commit more crime than natives. They don’t. Given such a large immigrant population, politicians and tabloids can always exploit individual incidents to lead the uninformed to reach false conclusions. ⁸

Undoubtedly, my views on immigration are influenced by living in New York City and having the opportunity to see how hard immigrants work to achieve the American dream. As well, since I feel connected and grateful to my own ancestors who were immigrants, I’m positively disposed to new arrivals to America, often enduring great hardship to come here.

So when I meet someone like Jose, I can’t help but be moved toward wanting to welcome more immigrants to America.

Jose

This past week I met with “Jose,” a fifteen year old boy who migrated alone late last year from Mexico to NYC to live with his grandfather. It was Jose’s idea to leave his family to make the arduous frontier crossing into America and then apply for asylum.

His dream is to be an American success story so he can help his parents and his younger siblings live a better life, perhaps helping them come to America one day.

I told Jose how similar he was to my great-grandfather Samuel Rottenberg who I wrote about a few weeks ago. Samuel came to America from Eastern Europe by himself at sixteen in 1888 with the same goal as Jose––to help his family by achieving success in America. ⁹

I only know about Samuel’s early immigrant years because he kept a written account. I was happy but not surprised to learn that Jose had already filled two notebooks of writing about his immigration journey. I predict that someday Jose’s descendants will read his notebooks and marvel at his bravery in service of his fierce love for his family. 

---

Question For the Comments: Your thoughts on immigration and whether Second Class accurately presents working class views on immigration.

1. Second Class by Batya Ungar-Sargon

2. This was also a theme of Adelle Waldman’s novel Help Wanted, which I discussed in my post “My Candor about Wealth Comes With A Price.”

3. Chart below:

4. A Link to the Harvard/Harris Poll.

5. WSJ Article “U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low; Fewer babies were born in the U.S. in 2023 than any year since 1979”

6. Chart below:

7. USA Facts

8. Politicians on the right love to exploit stories of individual immigrant crimes to allege that immigrants are more likely to commit crime than natives. Although it’s been proven again and again that the opposite is true, that doesn’t stop tabloid media, mostly rightwing, from shamelessly highlighting the statistically inevitable crimes committed by a population of illegal immigrants that number ten million.

See, for example this recent Stanford study, “The Mythical Tie Between Immigration and Crime.”

This week there was a tragedy in Florida where a drunk native caused a bus crash in Florida that killed at least eight migrant farm workers. No comment that I could find from Governor DeSantis. If the roles were reversed, I’m sure there would have been many comments.

9. My Family Story Of Generational Wealth