With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. An option that could help grow the economy should not be left off the table. Without addressing immigration at all, the options are much more limited - focusing mainly on cutbacks or higher taxes. Immigration policy will almost certainly need to be included as a part of any solution to the impending Social Security shortfall. And as we've pointed out before, there are also suggestions like the startup visa that attempts to attract immigrants who would create jobs. Jobs are a not a zero-sum game - studies have shown that an increase of H-1B visas resulted in an increase in jobs. Reich misses an opportunity to explain that bringing a fresh wave of skilled, smart immigrants into this country actually creates more jobs. Reich refutes this with a simple claim that "once the American economy recovers, there will be." He may be right, but he could have done a more convincing job. Faced with a global recession and high unemployment levels, it will be easy to find critics who will vehemently argue that there are not enough jobs here for American workers. Get it? One logical way to deal with the crisis of funding Social Security and Medicare is to have more workers per retiree, and the simplest way to do that is to allow more immigrants into the United States.Įasier said than done, perhaps. So, to correct this demographic imbalance, Reich proposes that the US opens itself up for more immigration: There's no way just two workers will be able or willing to pay enough payroll taxes to keep benefits flowing to every retiree. Within a couple of decades, there will be only two workers per retiree. The way Reich puts it, the nation's workers all put into the system to support the retirees - but the increasing number of retirees is outpacing the growth of the American workforce:įorty years ago there were five workers for every retiree. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, proposes a potential solution to the impending crisis: immigration. Though originally projected to become cash flow negative by 2016, it looks like Social Security will reach that mark this year, hastened by the early retirement taken by many boomers as a result of the global recession. As the baby boomers start to retire en masse, one of the fears is that the US will struggle to continue to fund Social Security.
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