This week I will talk about the movement of immigrants and foreign students to America. This is a good segue from rebuilding public health care as immigrant labor fills the privatized health chains and is central to Johns Hopkins' global empire.
It is safe to say that upwards of 95% of citizens of Baltimore do not like having Hopkins as a FOXCONN Enterprise Zone----even students and staff know how power corrupts and knows Hopkins is front and center to the stagnant economy, high unemployment, and fraud and government corruption. So, only the few profiting from that with no care for the future generations would support this----
First let me describe other nations and autocratic despots that have a government structure and economy built like Baltimore's.
There is Assad of Syria who enriched a minority Alawite known to be from outside Syria and made up most of the government and high-paying jobs in his regime. Saadam Hussein empowered the minority Sunni to control the Shiite. Libya's Gaddafi was found at the end to be protected by African immigrants. In each case these autocratic dictators called themselves Socialists and controlled all the nation's assets for their own wealth and power and as is norm for autocratic dictatorships---they were ruthless and violent against their people. All of the Middle East dictators were installed by the US----Johns Hopkins is behind the Afghanistan presidents for example. Socialism does not have as a goal brutal supression by dictators folks-----right-wing Stalinism does and that is what we have seen across nations falling under US control. When these leaders decide to go Socialist and not capitalist----they meet with demise with US oil interests moving in. In Afghanistan's case it is rare earth minerals the US is after.
My point is this-----the last decades of American leadership has shown its predilection to these autocratic, dictatorial, and brutal regimes operating with minority casts filling government circles.
The form of government Assad presides over is an authoritarian regime.[4] The Assad regime has described itself as secular,[5] while experts have contended that the regime exploits ethnic and sectarian tensions in the country to remain in power.[6][7][8] The regime's narrow sectarian base relying upon the Alawite minority has also been noted
Below you see why the US spent last century installing what became autocratic dictatorships that repressed the nation's people often using minorities to control the majorities. Then think how the NEW WORLD ORDER has the first world Western nations brought to colonial international economic zones with an end to national sovereignty and US Constitutional rights and you can deduce the plan is to install the same kind of government in the US as these autocratic dictatorships had. Finally, think about how a neo-liberal and neo-con global corporate tribunal 'center' want to move US politics further right to neo-conservative Liberatarianism which will become/has been seen to be Stalinism as in Baltimore.
Those not living in Baltimore may not know how much Baltimore resembles these autocratic dictatorships----as a FOXCONN global corporate controlled city. This week is about sharing with my friends around the nation how cities being made International Economic Zones are exporting to smaller cities and towns this same autocratic structure as it intends to spread across the country. Baltimore is ground zero for this as is Texas so we are farther ahead of this curve. That is why dismantling all connections of Hopkins and Balitmore Development ----which is simply Wall Street----is the first step in reversing the NEW WORLD ORDER----and it is easy peasy. Qatar is Wall Street of the middle-east and was built by Wall Street and it is the model of the global corporate tribunal party for here in the US.
In all cases immigrants play a major role in autocratic dictatorships both as the administrators closest to the despots and as slave labor. The citizens of these nations are almost always left without jobs and deeply impoverished. SOUND FAMILIAR??????
Why is the United States supporting the Bahraini dictatorship?
Mo Battah,
The U.S. does not necessarily support the 'dictatorship' in order to oppress the Bahraini people. The U.S. wants to make sure its guys are in power and a dictatorship or an absolute monarchy is the way to go since the leader is somewhat stable and will remain unchallenged if the population is kept oppressed.
It is the same policy the U.S. has with all Middle Eastern countries. Look at Egypt, the U.S. opposed the democratically elected Morsi because he was against U.S. interests, a democracy isn't good for the U.S. if the people elect someone the U.S. does not like. The U.S. now supports Sisi, essentially a military dictatorship. You can say he ran in an election yet it was rigged. He barred many political parties from participating and jailed them.
There are many examples but I don't have the time right now so I will use two more uncontroversial examples.
1. Saudi Arabia. Saudi has one of the worst human rights records. Women will be able to vote in local elections in 2015, I am not kidding. Beheadings beat ISIS beheadings. Although, the U.S. gives weaponry and cash to these ruthless rulers. It is an absolute monarchy and a direct opposite to democracy.
2. Qatar. In 2013, Qatar's total population was 1.8 million. 278,000 of which were citizens. So who are these extra 1.5M people? They are expatriates working in the country. An extremely small minority make a lot of money there, but that accounts for maybe 1% of the expatriates. The rest are human slaves. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many other organizations have condemned Qatar but the U.S. relentlessly backs Qatar and Qatari efforts.
After these examples, Bahrain isn't too much of a surprise.
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Qatar is a Wall Street invention and note the dynamics---an extremely small minority earn a lot of money and the rest are human slaves. Most of the population are immigrant. This is where Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are going with this restructuring for the global corporate tribunal rule. Government is increasingly being filled with Ivy League grads and foreign nationals as consultants et al.
Florida, Texas, and California ----all early to this Trans Pacific Trade Pact transition are already a majority immigrant.
Again, immigrants are not bad----it is the policy goals that are bad and as we see with Qatar----slave labor for immigrants is getting more and more common.
Qatar's migrants: how have they changed the country?
Qatar has become almost unrecognisable from the tiny nation it once was. We look at the data to find out how migration changed everything and what happens when a nation swells so quickly.
Thursday 26 September 2013 07.34 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 13 January 2015 10.34 EST
Back in 1980, Qatar was a country of just 0.2 million people, making it one of the smallest in the world, and in terms of residents, 1/37th of what London is today. But things have rapidly changed, largely because of an explosion in immigration. Here are some of the numbers that show what happened.
Population size Early on, Qatar's expansion was fast - it's population grew at a rate of 10.2% between 1980 and 1985. That rate slowed from 1990 to 1995 but leapt again in 2005 when Qatar's numbers climbed by 15.3% over the space of five years.
And although the rate of growth is expected to slow, Qatar's population is forecast to continue its growth over the next 40 years.
Baby boomers? A quick look at the fertility of female Qataris shows that they're having far fewer children - on average, just 2.4 each compared to the 5.45 children per woman in 1980. The number of children dying before their 5th birthday has fallen - but not by enough to explain that growth.
So if it's not bigger families, what else is making Qatar grow?
Migration The real answer lies in Qatar's migrant population, otherwise bluntly referred to in government statistics as 'non-Qataris'. In terms of rights, migrants might not be powerful - but in numbers they are.
'Qataris' in work: 71,076
'Non-Qataris' in work: 1,199,107
That means immigrants make up an astounding 94% of Qatar's workforce, and 70% of it's total population. The numbers are closely watched by Qatar's statistics authority whose motto is:
Statistics are the eyes of the policymakers. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
Emigration numbers are small - just 1,078 Qataris left in 2011, of whom 615 headed to Canada, 193 went to the US and 121 went to Germany.
Where are they coming from? Surprisingly, those numbers are harder to find. Peoplemovin, which pulls together data from the World Bank estimates that in 2011, most migrants came from India and Pakistan.
What do they do? Only a handful of those migrants make it into skilled jobs as the Qatari census data shows.
Man man man woman Many of those migrants are men - which goes some way to explain why 3 out every 4 residents in Qatar is male.
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We are told this flood of immigrants is about the population decline from baby boomers leaving the workforce but the US has has around 25% unemployment these several years----lowest employment since the 1960s----and this coming economic crash will take those numbers much higher. Americans are being made more impoverished with less access to successful tracking to higher education----10% of Americans are slated to entrance in strong 4 year universities with the rest vocationally tracked into poverty jobs.
Americans are being pushed to smaller and smaller families through impoverishment or the need for both husband and wife to work. You can see where the long-term result will be much like Qatar-----
The immigrants at the lower wage scale we all know already face the worst of workplace conditions, wage theft, and exploitation. The new immigrants coming from Asia and Africa are seeing themselves transferred constantly -----not able to set roots and staying in the country for a handful of years. This is causing high unemployment especially in a city like Baltimore where unemployment is 35-50% for black citizens.
THIS IS NOT PROGRESSIVE IMMIGRATION POLICY----IT IS REGRESSIVE AND WILL END AS A MODEL OF THE ABOVE AUTOCRACIES.
Keep in mind this would be a conservative number if TPP is installed they will open the gate to global corporations bringing immigrant labor with temporary worker status.
Over one million immigrants to come to US in 2016
July 21, 2015
Over one million immigrants will arrive in the United States next year, according to the US Census Bureau, with future projections showing that the nation may add up to another 49 million new residents from overseas over the course of the next 35 years.
The agency’s new International Data Base has revealed that 2015’s net immigration figure is likely to rise to 1.25 million, with this figure reached by taking the number of immigrants leaving the United States and subtracting them from the figure for new arrivals. The net immigration figure is expected to rise a little next year and even further – to 1.31 million – by 2025.
Over the course of the next decade it is anticipated that 14 million new immigrants will move to the United States. The great majority of immigration to the US is legal, with foreign citizens able to get a green card by applying via overseas American diplomatic posts. The continual increase in the amount of newcomers is due to legislation introduced in the 1960s in the Coolidge administration to remove caps.
Back in 1970 less than 1 in 21 Americans were born overseas; however, this figure has now grown to one in seven, with around 80 million Americans being either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Americans seem generally unconcerned, however, with just 13% of those responding to a poll from ImmigrationWorks USA last month worried that immigrants were taking American jobs.
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Keep in mind that Maryland's middle-class is disappearing as are all state funding of scholarships and financial aid to 4 year universities. You will go to KIPP in Baltimore to get a scholarship or you will graduate from a Baltimore High School and get a scholarship to the Baltimore City Community College.
O'Malley spent his entire terms in office building these global structures for our state universities as it became more important to look overseas for the rich there than to make sure all Maryland students get a strong public education and pathway to higher education. Right now Maryland is becoming more and more selective about which students are chosen to go to college and it is the corporate structure that chooses.
All of this leads more and more away from citizens have Equal Rights and Opportunity and Access. It is eliminating a family's ability to decide and pay for higher education for their children.
This is why reversing course and returning to a domestic economy as the primary fuel. This brings back the emphasis on making sure all Marylanders are ready to contribute to workplace.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL BE HUMAN CAPITAL IN A GLOBAL LABOR POOL IF WE DO NOT GET RID OF THESE GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS.
If you live in Baltimore you see Hopkins revolving door of Asian students many becoming employees in the US or overseas with very few Maryland and Baltimore citizens involved other than paying ever higher taxes to support this global campus headquarters.
We are feeding the needs of the world's rich for higher education as the American people are loaded with education debt and unable to afford access for their children......this is where we see the goal of making Americans increasingly impoverished growing foreign force in our higher government and as consultants to state and local governments.
University of Maryland brings business education to Asia
Jun 29, 2012, 6:00am EDT Sarah Gantz Reporter Baltimore Business Journal Bizspace Huang Xu-Hong | oop of Republic of China (Taiwan)
University of Maryland’s Wallace Loh and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou.… more
The University of Maryland, College Park may partner with universities in Taiwan and South Korea to offer a dual business degree to Asian students who want to learn the ropes of American business.
The proposed degree program would allow Taiwanese and Korean students to earn a business degree from their home university and from the University of Maryland. The idea came out of UM President Wallace Loh’s recent trip to Taiwan and South Korea during which Loh made several connections that will allow students at UM and in Asia more interaction with each other and foreign culture.
“The graduates of the University of Maryland will be competing not only with graduates from Boston and San Francisco, they’re going to be competing with graduates from Shanghai and Bangalore,” Loh said. “To experience the global world we’re in, it’s absolutely essential students have some opportunity to spend time abroad.”
The University of Maryland is among many higher education institutes flocking to Asia as those countries gain status as economic and entrepreneurial players.
Asia — specifically China — has been a top area of focus for public colleges and universities for at least a decade, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
“I can’t imagine any state research university that is not deeply involved in expanding its international academic partnerships, specifically in Asia,” said Daniel Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the association.
Towson University sent representatives to China and Vietnam with Gov. Martin O’Malley in 2011, a trip Loh also made. Towson has robust math, business and actuarial science programs at universities in China and last fall launched a program to bring Chinese school administrators to Maryland to study the American educational system. On June 28, Towson hosted a conference for international school administrators.
Demand for college education as a middle class emerges within Asian countries, China especially, is also driving American institutions to set up shop there.
“It’s such a large market that is thirsting for access to post-secondary — and quality post-secondary — education. And American education is among the best,” Hurley said.
Asian universities have been launching at schools across the U.S. programs similar to the one proposed for UM, to satisfy a demand among students for a business education that will help them tap the American market, Loh said.
During his trip, Loh secured opportunities for Asian and UM students to interact:
• Twenty awards for UM students to teach English at Korean schools, funded by the National Institute for International Education Development in South Korea.
• Five scholarships for Taiwanese students to study at the University of Maryland, provided by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.
• More courses taught through an Internet video feed by professors in College Park and in Asia. The university already offers about five courses, including a course on culture and the environment in Russia, taught with a Moscow college class. Through the course, University of Maryland students partner with students in Moscow for projects and presentations and interact with both professors through the video feed.
• Six scholarships for UM students to spend August studying culture and language in Taiwan, through the National Central University in Taiwan.
The annual trips begin this August. Within days, all six slots were spoken for.
Mohammad Zia, a junior who created his own major in global development, was among the first to leap at the opportunity.
“When you’re a little kid, you love adventure and I think traveling presents you no matter how old you are a chance to have an adventure and be exposed to different cultures and experience new ideas,” Zia said.
“Classroom experience doesn’t give you enough of a challenge or real-life application of knowledge,” he added.
Zia said he hopes to leverage his experiences abroad into a job as an entrepreneur, developing resources for underdeveloped countries in Africa. As a growing economic power, Taiwan will have a lot to teach him, he said.
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This is not meant as a scare tactic. We should know the dynamics of our national population. Immigrants add vitality to our communities. It is the goal that is not good----and especially not good for immigrants.
'Even in the Washington-Baltimore CMSA, the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s (348,000) was equal to almost half of the 701,000-person increase in the area’s total population. If the 175,000 children born to immigrant parents in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area during the 1990s are added to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, then immigration is equal to almost 75 percent of the CMSA’s population growth'.
Please glance through this long article----also, if time allows go to this site for the tables that do not post in this blog. This is census from 2000----the numbers are much larger 15 years later. As this article states----many US states are seeing US citizens leaving as immigrant populations grow---and what does an autocratic society look like? High immigrant population and high impoverishment of sovereign citizens.
'This is because there is a significant out-migration of natives from these states'.
Immigrants in the United States — 2000 A Snapshot of America's Foreign-Born Population
By Steven A. Camarota January 2001
Download this Backgrounder as a pdf
Each month the Census Bureau conducts the Current Population Survey (CPS), the primary purpose of which is to collect employment data. The March CPS includes an extra-large sample of Hispanics and is considered the best source for information on persons born outside of the United States — referred to as foreign-born by the Census Bureau, though for the purposes of this report, foreign-born and immigrant are used synonymously.1 Analysis of the March 2000 CPS done by the Center for Immigration Studies indicates that 28.4 million immigrants now live in the United States, the largest number ever recorded in the nation’s history, and a 43 percent increase since 1990. As a percentage of the population, immigrants now account for more than one in 10 residents (10.4 percent), the highest percentage in 70 years.
Other findings in the new Center report:
In any discussion of immigration’s effect on the country it is important to keep in mind that the number of legal immigrants allowed in each year, the selection criteria used, and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration are all discretionary policies of the federal government. Given the sampling and non-sampling error that exists in any survey, the results of this Backgrounder for states and immigrant groups with relatively small populations should be interpreted carefully.
Historical Comparison
While immigration has played an important role in American history, the level of immigration and the size of the immigrant population has varied considerably. Figure 1 shows the number of immigrants living in the United States over the course of the last 100 years. The 28.4 million immigrants residing in the United States in 2000 are the most ever recorded. Even during the great wave of immigration at the turn of the century, the immigrant population was less than half what it is today.
Figure 1 shows that, after growing in the early part of this century, the immigrant population stabilized at around 10 or 11 million for about four decades. In the mid-1960s, changes in immigration law and other factors caused the annual level of legal immigration to rise steadily, from about 300,000 in the 1960s to 800,000 in the 1990s. As a result, between 1970 and 1980 the number of immigrants living in the United States grew by a record 4.5 million. Reflecting the continuing increase in legal and illegal immigration, the immigrant population grew by 5.7 million in the 1980s — another record — and by 8.6 million in the 1990s, again surpassing the previous record.
The foreign-born population’s growth rate since 1970 is higher than at any other time in history, far surpassing growth at the beginning of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1910, the immigrant population grew by 31 percent, less than the 47 percent increase in the 1970s, the 40 percent increase in the 1980s, and the 43 percent growth of the 1990s.
Additionally, immigrants now account for a much larger share of the increase in the total U.S. population. For most of last century, the growth in the immigrant population accounted for little or none of the increase in the size of the U.S. population. Even during the first decade of the last century, when immigration was an important part of population growth, the immigrant contribution to U.S. population growth was much less than it is today. The 3.2 million increase in the size of the immigrant population between 1900 and 1910 accounted for only 20 percent of the total increase in the U.S. population. In contrast, the 8.6 million-increase in the immigrant population from 1990 to 2000 accounted for 34 percent of U.S. population growth in the 1990s. Immigration now accounts for such a large percentage of population because the fertility of natives was much higher in the early 1900s. As a result, the population grew regardless of immigration. Today natives have only about two children on average, with the result that immigration now accounts for a very large share of population growth. Also in contrast to the past, a much higher percentage of today’s immigrants remain in the United States rather than returning home. Because so many immigrants in the early 20th century eventually returned to their home countries, immigration at that time did not add permanently to the overall size of U.S. population in the way that it does today.2
While the number of immigrants and the growth rate of the immigrant population are higher now than at any other time in the last 100 years, the immigrant percentage of the population was higher in the first few decades of the 1900s. Table 1 shows that in 1910, the immigrant population reached a high of 14.7 percent of the total U.S. population. As a result of World War I and changes in immigration law in the early 1920s, the level of immigration began to fall, as did the foreign-born percentage of the population. The 1930 Census was the last time the percentage of immigrants was as high as it is today.
In terms of the impact of immigrants on the United States, both the percentage of the population made up of immigrants and the number of immigrants are clearly important. The ability to assimilate and incorporate immigrants is partly dependent on the relative sizes of the native and immigrant populations. Still, 28.4 million immigrants are likely to have an enormous effect on the socio-economic life of the United States, regardless of whether this represents 10 or 15 percent of the nation’s population, especially because immigrants are largely concentrated in only a few states.
Population Growth
The CPS can be used to provide insight into the likely impact of immigrants on the size of the U.S. population. Table 2 reports six different methods using the March 2000 CPS to estimate the effect of immigration on U.S. population growth in the 1990s.
The first column in Table 2 shows the growth in the U.S. population based on a comparison of the total population as enumerated in the 1990 Census and the March 2000 population estimate prepared by the Census Bureau.3 The first three rows of Table 2 use the growth in the size of foreign-born population to estimate the effect of immigration on population growth between 1990 and 2000. As already pointed out, the 8.6 million increase in the size of the immigrant population between 1990 and 2000 is equal to approximately one-third of total U.S. population growth over this period. As shown in the second row, the impact of immigration on population growth is even larger (40 percent) if births to immigrants who arrived in the 1990s are added to the growth of the foreign-born population. The third row indicates that if births to all immigrant women during the 1990s, including those who arrived prior to 1990, are added to the growth in the immigrant population, then immigration is equal to almost 59 percent of population growth.
Instead of using the growth in the foreign-born population, the last three rows of Table 2 use the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s as the basis for estimating the impact of immigration on population growth. Analysis of this kind is possible because the CPS asks of foreign-born persons their year of arrival to the United States. In 2000, 11.2 million immigrants in the survey indicated that they had entered the country between 1990 and 2000.
The 11.2 million figure is larger than the 8.6 million growth in the foreign-born because the immigrant population shrinks as a result of deaths and out-migration. Thus, even though 11.2 million immigrants arrived in the 1990s, the immigrant population grew by only 8.6 million because 2.6 million immigrants here in 1990 had either died or gone home by 2000. It is reasonable to view the 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s as the basis for estimating immigration’s effect on population growth because this flow reflects current U.S. immigration policy — both legal immigration and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration.
The 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s are equal to 43.8 percent of population growth in the 1990s. If births only to immigrants who arrived during the 1990s are added to this figure, then immigration accounts for 50.3 percent of U.S. population growth. The last row in Table 2 adds all births to immigrants between1990 and 2000 to the 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s. Births to immigrants plus 1990s immigration are equal to 68.8 percent of population growth between 1990 and 2000. Taken together, the estimates in Table 2 make clear that no matter what assumption is used, immigration policy has very significant implications for U.S. population growth.
State Data
Table 3 ranks the states by the size of their immigrant populations. It also shows the number of immigrants who reported arriving in the 1990s. California clearly has the largest immigrant population; New York, the state with next largest number of immigrants, has fewer than half as many. Table 3 also shows how concentrated the immigrant population is: Only a few states represent the vast majority of the foreign-born population. The nearly 8.8 million immigrants in California account for 30.9 percent of the nation’s total immigrant population, followed by New York (12.8 percent), Florida (9.8 percent), Texas (8.6 percent), New Jersey (4.3 percent), and Illinois (4.1 percent). Despite having only 39.3 percent of the nation’s total population, these six states account for 70.5 percent of the nation’s immigrant population.
Table 4 ranks states by the percentage of their populations composed of immigrants. While the rankings by "percent immigrant" are similar to those in Table 3, there are some significant differences. Because of their relatively small total populations, several states such as Hawaii and Nevada, with high percentages of immigrants, rank lower in terms of number of immigrants.
Table 5 compares the 1990 Census counts of the immigrant population with the March 2000 CPS and ranks the top 15 states by the numerical increase in their immigrant populations. While the states that had large immigrant populations in 1990 continue to account for most of the growth in the immigrant population, Table 5 shows substantial growth in the foreign-born populations in such states as Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, and Nevada.
Table 6 examines immigration and state population growth for the top immigrant- receiving states. The first column in the table reports population growth between 1990 and 2000 by state. Columns 2, 3, and 4 show the number of 1990s immigrants in the state, births to 1990s immigrants, and births to all immigrants during the 1990s. Column 5 uses 1990s immigrants plus births to only 1990s immigrants, while column 6 uses 1990s immigrants and all births to immigrants to estimate immigration’s impact on state population growth. Table 6 shows that using either assumption, there are a number of states in which immigration has had a very large impact on population growth.
While the arrival of natives from other parts of the country plays a significant role in population growth in states like Arizona, Washington, and Colorado, immigration has also become an important component of population growth. For Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Florida, and Texas, immigration plays an even larger role — accounting for at least one-third to more than half of the increase in the population of these states between 1990 and 2000.
In New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California it appears that absent immigration, these states may have declined in population or at least grown very little. This is because there is a significant out-migration of natives from these states. There is, however, both anecdotal and systematic evidence indicating that in high- immigration states some natives leave because they are adversely affected by immigration. In particular, less-skilled native-born workers may leave to avoid job competition, and some parents may leave high-immigration areas because of the strains it creates on public schools. Therefore, it is by no means certain that without immigration all of these states would have declined in population.
Region and Country of Origin
Table 7 shows the distribution of immigrants by region of the world, with Mexico and Canada treated separately. Mexico accounts for 27.7 percent of all immigrants, with 7.9 million immigrants living in United States, more than the number of immigrants from any other part of the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia make up the majority of immigrants, with 69 percent of the foreign-born coming from these areas. For immigrants who have arrived in the 1990s, these regions account for 71.2 percent of the foreign-born. Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe make up a relatively small portion of the immigrant population, accounting for only 17.1 percent of all immigrants and 13.8 percent of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s.
Table 8 ranks the top-20 immigrant-sending countries by the number of post-1970 immigrants living in the United States as of March 2000. Mexico is, of course, the largest sending country, accounting for more than five times as many immigrants as the combined total for China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. As is clear from Table 8, Latin American, Caribbean, and East Asian countries dominate the list of immigrant-sending countries, accounting for 14 of the top-20 post-1970 countries.
Labor Market Characteristics
Immigrants now comprise 12.8 percent of the nation’s total workforce.4 This is somewhat higher than the 10.4 percent of the total U.S. immigrant population because, in comparison to natives, a slightly higher percentage of immigrants are of working age. Table 9 reports the educational attainment and other characteristics of immigrants and natives in the workforce. In 1998, almost 30 percent of immigrants who worked full time did not have a high school diploma, and of those who arrived in the 1990s, 34.4 percent were dropouts. In comparison, slightly less than 9 percent of natives lacked a high school education. At the highest level of education, immigrants tend to be slightly more educated than natives, with 10.7 percent of immigrants holding a graduate or professional degree compared to 9.3 percent of natives.
The large number of immigrants with low levels of education means that immigration policy has dramatically increased the supply of workers with less than a high school degree, while increasing other educational categories more moderately. The last column in Table 9 shows the portion of each educational category composed of immigrants. While immigrants comprise 13 percent of the total workforce, they comprise more than 35 percent of the high school dropouts in the workforce. This means that any effect immigration may have on the wages or job opportunities of natives will disproportionately affect less-skilled workers.
Given the large proportion of immigrants with few years of schooling, it is not surprising that the income figures reported in Table 9 show that as a group, immigrants have lower median incomes than natives. The annual median income of immigrants is only about 76 percent that of natives. And for the most recent immigrants, median income is only 58 percent that of natives. While as a group immigrants earn significantly less than natives, the income data by year of entry suggest significant progress over time.
Since the cohort data is only based on one point in time, March 2000, it is possible that the seeming economic progress of immigrants is at least partly caused by the departure of those immigrants who did not fare well in the U.S. labor market. Moreover, the age data in Table 9 indicate that 1970s immigrants are by 2000, on average, older than natives in the workforce. Because greater workforce experience comes with age, one would expect this to translate into higher income. Despite this, the median income of immigrants who arrived in the 1970s is actually slightly below that of natives, even though they are on average older than natives and have been in the United States for more than 20 years. Only the cohort that arrived before 1970 had higher incomes than natives, which is expected given that they are much older than natives on average. In addition to their age, the higher income of immigrants who arrived prior to 1970 may also be explained by the fact that most were admitted under the pre-1965 immigration system, which tended to produce a more educated flow of immigrants relative to natives than today’s policies.
Table 10 shows the occupational concentration of immigrants and natives by occupation. The upper half of the table lists those occupations in which the immigrant component is less than or nearly equal to their proportion in the overall workforce. The lower half lists those occupations in which immigrants comprise a proportion larger than their representation in the workforce (henceforth referred to as low-immigrant and high-immigrant occupations, respectively). Given the low level of educational attainment of a large proportion of immigrants, it is not surprising that high-immigrant occupations are those that tend to require fewer years of education. For example, while immigrants make up 18 percent of those holding non-private household service jobs, such as janitor, security guard, and child-care worker, they comprise only 10 percent of individuals in managerial and professional jobs.
Table 10 reveals that only 26 percent of natives are employed in occupations that have a high concentrations of immigrants. This suggests that most natives are not in competition with immigrants.5 However, as Table 10 shows, high-immigrant occupations pay an average of only 56 percent of what low-immigrant occupations pay. Additionally, high-immigrant occupations have an unemployment rate more than double that of low-immigrant occupations. By itself, this does not necessarily mean that immigrants have lowered the wages or increased unemployment in these occupations. What it is does mean, however, is that any negative effect from immigration will likely fall on the 26 million native-born workers who already have the lowest wages and the highest unemployment.
Table 10 also shows that 40 percent of native-born blacks work in high-immigrant occupations, compared to only 22.9 percent of whites. This means that blacks are much more likely to be affected by any decline in wages or benefits resulting from immigrant-induced increases in the supply of labor.
Self Employment
One of the most common perceptions of immigrants is that they are uniquely or distinctly entrepreneurial. Table 11 examines the self-employment rates of immigrants and natives. Consistent with other research, Table 11 shows that immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar levels of entrepreneurship. The table shows that 10.7 percent of immigrants and 11.6 percent of natives are self-employed. Thus, less than one percentage point separates the self-employment rate for immigrants and natives. Turning to self-employment income reported at the bottom of Table 11, we see that the average self-employment income (revenue minus expenses) or both immigrants and natives is very similar. While immigrants overall are not more entrepreneurial than natives, immigrants from some countries are significantly more likely than natives to be self-employed. Those from China, Korea, Canada, Poland, and Iran are much more likely to be self-employed than natives.
Clearly, entrepreneurship is neither a lacking nor a distinguishing characteristic of the nation’s immigrants. If one removed immigrants from the data, the overall rate of self-employment in the United States would be virtually unchanged. Therefore, one simply must look elsewhere to make an argument for or against current immigration.
Poverty
Based on the March 2000 CPS, 16.8 percent of immigrants compared to 11.2 percent of natives lived in poverty in 1999 (poverty statistics are based on annual income in the year prior to the survey). The poverty rate is 23.5 percent for immigrants who entered in the 1990s, 15.2 percent for 1980s immigrants, and 11.5 percent for 1970s immigrants. As is the case with the income data in Table 9, it is unclear to what extent this progress reflects the out-migration of unsuccessful immigrants, the different selection criteria used in the past, and the changing origins of immigrants over the last few decades.
Table 12 also reports poverty rates for persons from the top-20 post-1970 immigrant-sending countries. The data indicate that there is an enormous variation in poverty rates among immigrants from different countries. For example, the 32.5 percent poverty rate for Dominicans is more than six times that of persons from United Kingdom and five times that of immigrants from the Philippines. The last column in Table 12 shows the proportion of persons 21 years of age and older from each country who have not completed high school. These educational data indicate that those countries that have the highest percentage of adults without a high school education also tend to have the highest poverty rates.
The higher incidence of poverty among immigrants as a group has significantly increased the overall size of the population living in poverty. Immigrants accounted for almost 15 percent of all persons living in poverty. While this is a large percentage, it would be even larger if the native-born children (under age 21) of immigrants, who are included in the poverty figures for natives, are counted with their parents. The poverty rate for children and for most young adults reflects their parents’ income, therefore it is reasonable to view poverty among the U.S.-born children of immigrants as attributable to their immigrant parents. The bottom portion of Table 12 shows that the poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children together is 18.3 percent.
Of the 27.5 million natives living in poverty, 2.27 million (8 percent) are the U.S.-born children of immigrant mothers. If the native-born children of immigrants are excluded, poverty among natives drops from 11.2 percent to 10.7 percent. And if the 4.75 million immigrants in poverty are also excluded, along with their U.S.-born children, from the nation’s overall poverty counts, the overall number of people living in poverty drops by 7.02 million. This means that immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 21.8 percent of the 32.26 million people living in poverty in the United States. Among persons under age 21 living in poverty, 24.2 percent are the children of immigrants.
In addition to poverty, Table 12 also reports the percentage of immigrants and natives living in or near poverty, with near poverty defined as income less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold. As is the case with poverty, near poverty is much more common among immigrants rather than natives. Table 12 shows that 41.4 percent of immigrants compared to 28.8 percent of natives live in or near poverty. Among the children of immigrants (under age 21), 53 percent live in or near poverty, in contrast to 35.6 percent of the children of natives. If the native-born children of immigrants are excluded from the figures for natives, the rate of poverty/near poverty among natives drops from 28.8 percent to 27.8 and the poverty rate is 44 percent for immigrants and their native-born children combined. If the 11.7 million immigrants in or near poverty are excluded, along with their U.S.-born children (5.17 million), then the overall number of people living in or near poverty in the United States drops by 16.9 million. This means that immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 20.5 percent of the poor and near poor in the United States.
Welfare Use
Table 13 shows the percentage of immigrant- and native-headed households in which at least one member of the household receives public assistance (including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and general assistance programs), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Food Stamps, or Medicaid (health insurance for those with low incomes). Table 13 indicates that even after the 1996 welfare reforms, which curtailed eligibility for some immigrants, immigrant welfare use remains higher than that of natives for all four major programs and for all entering cohorts after 1970. In fact, the year of entry data suggest that in some cases immigrant welfare use actually rises over time as they “assimilate” into the welfare system.
As was the case with lower income and higher poverty rates, the higher welfare use rates by immigrant households are at least partly explained by the large proportion of immigrants with few years of schooling. Less-educated people tend to have lower incomes and higher levels of unemployment and poverty. Therefore, it is not surprising that immigrant use of welfare programs is significantly higher than that of natives.
While immigrants’ welfare use is higher than natives’, Table 13 shows that most households, immigrant or native, do not use means-tested programs. On the other hand, even though a relatively small portion of the population uses welfare, for 1999 the total costs of just the first three programs listed in Table 13 is more than $70 billion a year, and Medicaid by itself costs an additional $190 billion. Moreover, there are other welfare programs not listed in the table that are linked to those reported in Table 13. For example, 15.5 percent of immigrant households reported having at least one child receiving subsidized school lunches, compared to only 5.8 percent of native households. Finally, there is the question of whether native use of welfare is the proper yardstick by which to measure immigrants. Some may reasonably argue that because immigration is supposed to benefit the United States, our admission criteria should, with the exception of refugees, select only those immigrants who are self-sufficient.
In addition to welfare programs, Table 13 reports use of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). With an annual cost of $25 billion, the EITC is the nation’s largest means-tested cash assistance program for workers with low incomes. Persons receiving the EITC pay no federal income tax and instead receive cash assistance from the government based on their earnings and family size. Table 13 shows that immigrant households use the EITC at almost double the rate of natives.
While on the whole immigrant households have higher welfare use rates, this is not true for immigrants from all countries. Table 14 shows that immigrants from those countries with higher education levels tend to have lower welfare use rates. From the list of countries in Table 14, it is also clear that refugee-sending countries, such as Russia and Vietnam, tend to have higher rates of welfare use. On the other hand, Mexican and Dominican households have welfare use rates that are as high or higher than Russian or Vietnamese immigrants, and virtually none of these immigrants are refugees. Thus, it is clear that the higher rate of welfare use by immigrants overall is not caused simply by immigrants admitted for humanitarian reasons. In addition to being more likely overall to receive welfare, Table 14 indicates that the average payments received by immigrant households on public assistance, SSI, or the EITC are larger than those of natives.
Uninsured
According to the Census Bureau, since 1989 the uninsured population has grown by almost 9.2 million. and stood at 42.6 million (almost one-sixth of the total U.S. population) in 1999. (Figures for 1999 are based on the March 2000 CPS.) Much of this growth has been driven by immigration. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 along with their U.S.-born children account for 60 percent or 5.5 million of the increase in the uninsured population in the 1990s.6
Table 15 reports the percentage of immigrants and natives who where uninsured for all of 1999. The table shows that lack of health insurance is a significant problem for immigrants from many different countries, including countries that tend to have lower poverty rates and higher education levels, such as China and Korea. The lower portion of Table 15 reports the percentage of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 21) who are uninsured. Almost 31 percent of immigrants and their children lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. The large percentage of immigrants and their children without insurance has significantly increased the overall size of the uninsured population. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for almost 28 percent of all uninsured persons in the country, double their percentage of the overall population. The high percentage of immigrants without health insurance is even more striking when one recalls from Table 13 that immigrant households were more likely to use Medicaid.
The low rate of insurance coverage associated with immigrants is primarily explained by their much lower levels of education. Because of the limited value of their labor in an economy that increasingly demands educated workers, many immigrants hold jobs that do not offer health insurance, and their low incomes make it very difficult for them to purchase insurance on their own.
A larger uninsured population cannot help but strain the resources of those who provide services to the uninsured already here. Moreover, Americans with insurance have to pay higher premiums as health care providers pass along some of the costs of treating the uninsured to paying costumers. Taxpayers also are affected as federal, state, and local governments struggle to provide care to the growing ranks of the uninsured. There can be no doubt that by dramatically increasing the size of the uninsured population, our immigration policy has broad-ranging effects on the nation’s entire health care system.
School-Age Children
In the last few years, a good deal of attention has been focused on the dramatic increases in enrollment experienced by many school districts across the country. The Department of Education recently reported that the number of children in public schools has grown by nearly 8 million in the last two decades. All observers agree that this growth has strained the resources of many school districts. While it has been suggested that this increase is the result of the children of baby boomers reaching school age (the "baby boom echo"), it is clear from the CPS that immigration policy explains the growth in the number of children in public schools.
Table 16 shows that there are 8.6 million school-age children of immigrants (ages 5 to 17) in the United States. While fewer than one-third of the 8.6 million children are immigrants themselves, the use of public education by the native-born children of immigrants is a direct consequence of their parents having been allowed into the country. The children of immigrants account for such a large percentage of the school-age population because a higher proportion of immigrant women are in their childbearing years, and immigrants tend to have more children than natives. In addition, the effect of immigration on public schools will be even larger in the coming years because 17.6 percent of children approaching school age have immigrant mothers.
Table 16 also shows that immigration has significantly increased the school-age population in all of the top-eight immigrant-receiving states. Of course, a dramatic increase in enrollment may not create a problem for public education if tax revenue increases proportionately. But as we have seen, immigrants generally have lower incomes than natives, so their tax contributions are unlikely to entirely offset the costs they impose on schools. This is especially true because of the higher costs associated with teaching children whose first language is not English.
The absorption capacity of American public education is clearly an important issue that needs to be taken into account when formulating a sensible immigration policy. Table 16 suggests that the failure to consider this question may have significant consequences for America’s schools.
Characteristics of Immigrants by State
Table 17 reports selected characteristics for immigrants in the leading immigrant-receiving states. The first column reports the percentage of immigrants 18 and over in each state who indicated that they were naturalized citizens of the United States. While there is some variation, the percentage of immigrants in most states who are citizens falls near the national average of 40 percent. As a share of all eligible voters in each state, immigrants vary significantly: in California immigrants account for 15.7 percent of eligible voters; in New York, 11.8 percent; in Florida, 10.8 percent; in Texas, 5.6 percent; in New Jersey, 9 percent; in Illinois, 5.2 percent; in Massachusetts, 6.5 percent; and in Arizona, 6 percent. It is worth noting that research indicates that some immigrants, primarily those from Mexico and Central America, tend to report that they are naturalized citizens when in fact they are resident aliens. Thus, the actual citizenship rate of immigrants is likely to be somewhat overstated in the CPS.
The second and third columns of Table 17 report the percentage of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 21) who live in or near poverty, with near poverty defined as income below 200 percent of the poverty threshold. Despite the fact that the demographic characteristics of immigrants differ significantly by state, immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under age 21) have much higher rates of poverty and near poverty than natives, with the exception of Illinois. As a share of all persons in or near poverty, immigrants and their children account for more than one-half of the poor and near poor in California and roughly one-third in New York, Florida, and Arizona. In Texas, immigrants and their children represent 27 percent of all persons in or near poverty and 29.3 percent in New Jersey.
Turning to health insurance coverage by state, Table 17 shows a similar pattern to poverty. With the exception of Illinois, immigrants and their children in every major immigrant-receiving state are significantly more likely than natives to be uninsured. The impact of immigration on the overall size of the uninsured population in some states can only be described as enormous. In California, 58.8 percent of the uninsured are immigrants or the U.S.-born children (under age 21) of an immigrant. As Table 17 shows, if immigrants and their children are not counted in California, the uninsured rate would be 13 percent — precisely the rate for natives. But, because of immigration the actual state uninsured rate is 20 percent, making it one of the highest in the country. In New York, immigrants and their children represent nearly half (47.7 percent) of the uninsured; in Florida, 39.5 percent; in Texas, 32.5 percent; in New Jersey, 34.7; in Illinois, 22.6 percent; in Massachusetts, 27.5 percent; and in Arizona, 36.4 percent.
The last two columns in Table 17 show the percentage of immigrant and native households using at least one of the major welfare programs. Not surprisingly, with the exception of Illinois, immigrant household use of welfare is higher than that of natives in every state. As a result of their higher use rates, immigrant households account for a very significant percentage of the welfare caseloads in these states. In California, immigrant households account for 42.2 percent of all households using at least one major welfare program; in New York, it’s 31.8 percent; in Florida, 26.4 percent; in Texas, 21.8 percent; in New Jersey, 23.7 percent; in Illinois, 10.2 percent; and in Arizona, immigrant households account for 26.6 of all households receiving welfare. While higher than the rate of natives in almost every state, it is important to note that there is no state in which a majority of immigrant households are on welfare.
Metropolitan Statistical Areas
Table 18 reports figures for the nation’s top-six immigrant-receiving Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSA). While the Los Angles and New York CMSAs have the largest immigrant populations, the Miami CMSA ranks first in terms of the percentage of immigrants. These six metropolitan areas account for nearly 53 percent of all immigrants living in the United States but only 23.1 percent of the nation’s entire population. These six cities continue to attract a large share of new immigrants. Of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, 48.7 percent settled in these six CMSAs.
The fourth column in Table 18 reports population growth for each metro area between 1990 and 2000. All six metro areas grew significantly in population during in the 1990s. If we compare the population growth figures to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, it is clear that immigration has played a very large role in growing the population of all six metro areas. Even in the Washington-Baltimore CMSA, the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s (348,000) was equal to almost half of the 701,000-person increase in the area’s total population. If the 175,000 children born to immigrant parents in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area during the 1990s are added to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, then immigration is equal to almost 75 percent of the CMSA’s population growth.
Table 19 examines the distribution of immigrants and natives between the nation’s central cities, suburban, and rural areas. With 44.8 percent of immigrants living in the nation’s central cities compared to 26.2 percent of natives, immigrants are clearly much more likely than natives to live in central cities. But contrary to the general impression, most immigrants do not live in the nation’s central cities. In fact, immigrants are just as likely as natives to live in the suburbs. As Table 19 shows, the primary difference between the two groups is that natives are much more likely to live in rural areas while immigrants are more likely to live in central cities. The large number of immigrants who live in suburban areas may be a positive sign that immigrants are successfully integrating into American society and obtaining a middle class standard of living. On the other hand, it is in suburban areas where the problems of sprawl and congestion are most acutely felt. Thus, the nearly 13 million immigrants who have settled in suburbia are likely to have contributed to these problems.
Conclusion
While immigration’s impact continues to be the subject of intense national debate, there can be no doubt that the large number of immigrants now living in the United States represents an enormous challenge. With more than half of post-1970 immigrants and their U.S.-born children living in or near poverty and one-third having no health insurance, the situation for immigrant families is clearly precarious. While the current economic expansion may tempt some to ignore these facts, when the next economic downturn occurs the costs of immigration will likely become glaringly apparent. Setting aside the lower socio-economic status of immigrants, no nation has ever attempted to incorporate more than 28 million newcomers into its society. Moreover, without a change in immigration policy, the Census Bureau projects 11 to 12 million immigrants will arrive in the next decade alone. Thus, immigration’s impact will continue to grow if current trends in immigration are allowed to continue.
It is safe to say that upwards of 95% of citizens of Baltimore do not like having Hopkins as a FOXCONN Enterprise Zone----even students and staff know how power corrupts and knows Hopkins is front and center to the stagnant economy, high unemployment, and fraud and government corruption. So, only the few profiting from that with no care for the future generations would support this----
First let me describe other nations and autocratic despots that have a government structure and economy built like Baltimore's.
There is Assad of Syria who enriched a minority Alawite known to be from outside Syria and made up most of the government and high-paying jobs in his regime. Saadam Hussein empowered the minority Sunni to control the Shiite. Libya's Gaddafi was found at the end to be protected by African immigrants. In each case these autocratic dictators called themselves Socialists and controlled all the nation's assets for their own wealth and power and as is norm for autocratic dictatorships---they were ruthless and violent against their people. All of the Middle East dictators were installed by the US----Johns Hopkins is behind the Afghanistan presidents for example. Socialism does not have as a goal brutal supression by dictators folks-----right-wing Stalinism does and that is what we have seen across nations falling under US control. When these leaders decide to go Socialist and not capitalist----they meet with demise with US oil interests moving in. In Afghanistan's case it is rare earth minerals the US is after.
My point is this-----the last decades of American leadership has shown its predilection to these autocratic, dictatorial, and brutal regimes operating with minority casts filling government circles.
The form of government Assad presides over is an authoritarian regime.[4] The Assad regime has described itself as secular,[5] while experts have contended that the regime exploits ethnic and sectarian tensions in the country to remain in power.[6][7][8] The regime's narrow sectarian base relying upon the Alawite minority has also been noted
Below you see why the US spent last century installing what became autocratic dictatorships that repressed the nation's people often using minorities to control the majorities. Then think how the NEW WORLD ORDER has the first world Western nations brought to colonial international economic zones with an end to national sovereignty and US Constitutional rights and you can deduce the plan is to install the same kind of government in the US as these autocratic dictatorships had. Finally, think about how a neo-liberal and neo-con global corporate tribunal 'center' want to move US politics further right to neo-conservative Liberatarianism which will become/has been seen to be Stalinism as in Baltimore.
Those not living in Baltimore may not know how much Baltimore resembles these autocratic dictatorships----as a FOXCONN global corporate controlled city. This week is about sharing with my friends around the nation how cities being made International Economic Zones are exporting to smaller cities and towns this same autocratic structure as it intends to spread across the country. Baltimore is ground zero for this as is Texas so we are farther ahead of this curve. That is why dismantling all connections of Hopkins and Balitmore Development ----which is simply Wall Street----is the first step in reversing the NEW WORLD ORDER----and it is easy peasy. Qatar is Wall Street of the middle-east and was built by Wall Street and it is the model of the global corporate tribunal party for here in the US.
In all cases immigrants play a major role in autocratic dictatorships both as the administrators closest to the despots and as slave labor. The citizens of these nations are almost always left without jobs and deeply impoverished. SOUND FAMILIAR??????
Why is the United States supporting the Bahraini dictatorship?
Mo Battah,
The U.S. does not necessarily support the 'dictatorship' in order to oppress the Bahraini people. The U.S. wants to make sure its guys are in power and a dictatorship or an absolute monarchy is the way to go since the leader is somewhat stable and will remain unchallenged if the population is kept oppressed.
It is the same policy the U.S. has with all Middle Eastern countries. Look at Egypt, the U.S. opposed the democratically elected Morsi because he was against U.S. interests, a democracy isn't good for the U.S. if the people elect someone the U.S. does not like. The U.S. now supports Sisi, essentially a military dictatorship. You can say he ran in an election yet it was rigged. He barred many political parties from participating and jailed them.
There are many examples but I don't have the time right now so I will use two more uncontroversial examples.
1. Saudi Arabia. Saudi has one of the worst human rights records. Women will be able to vote in local elections in 2015, I am not kidding. Beheadings beat ISIS beheadings. Although, the U.S. gives weaponry and cash to these ruthless rulers. It is an absolute monarchy and a direct opposite to democracy.
2. Qatar. In 2013, Qatar's total population was 1.8 million. 278,000 of which were citizens. So who are these extra 1.5M people? They are expatriates working in the country. An extremely small minority make a lot of money there, but that accounts for maybe 1% of the expatriates. The rest are human slaves. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many other organizations have condemned Qatar but the U.S. relentlessly backs Qatar and Qatari efforts.
After these examples, Bahrain isn't too much of a surprise.
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Qatar is a Wall Street invention and note the dynamics---an extremely small minority earn a lot of money and the rest are human slaves. Most of the population are immigrant. This is where Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are going with this restructuring for the global corporate tribunal rule. Government is increasingly being filled with Ivy League grads and foreign nationals as consultants et al.
Florida, Texas, and California ----all early to this Trans Pacific Trade Pact transition are already a majority immigrant.
Again, immigrants are not bad----it is the policy goals that are bad and as we see with Qatar----slave labor for immigrants is getting more and more common.
Qatar's migrants: how have they changed the country?
Qatar has become almost unrecognisable from the tiny nation it once was. We look at the data to find out how migration changed everything and what happens when a nation swells so quickly.
Thursday 26 September 2013 07.34 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 13 January 2015 10.34 EST
Back in 1980, Qatar was a country of just 0.2 million people, making it one of the smallest in the world, and in terms of residents, 1/37th of what London is today. But things have rapidly changed, largely because of an explosion in immigration. Here are some of the numbers that show what happened.
Population size Early on, Qatar's expansion was fast - it's population grew at a rate of 10.2% between 1980 and 1985. That rate slowed from 1990 to 1995 but leapt again in 2005 when Qatar's numbers climbed by 15.3% over the space of five years.
And although the rate of growth is expected to slow, Qatar's population is forecast to continue its growth over the next 40 years.
Baby boomers? A quick look at the fertility of female Qataris shows that they're having far fewer children - on average, just 2.4 each compared to the 5.45 children per woman in 1980. The number of children dying before their 5th birthday has fallen - but not by enough to explain that growth.
So if it's not bigger families, what else is making Qatar grow?
Migration The real answer lies in Qatar's migrant population, otherwise bluntly referred to in government statistics as 'non-Qataris'. In terms of rights, migrants might not be powerful - but in numbers they are.
'Qataris' in work: 71,076
'Non-Qataris' in work: 1,199,107
That means immigrants make up an astounding 94% of Qatar's workforce, and 70% of it's total population. The numbers are closely watched by Qatar's statistics authority whose motto is:
Statistics are the eyes of the policymakers. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
Emigration numbers are small - just 1,078 Qataris left in 2011, of whom 615 headed to Canada, 193 went to the US and 121 went to Germany.
Where are they coming from? Surprisingly, those numbers are harder to find. Peoplemovin, which pulls together data from the World Bank estimates that in 2011, most migrants came from India and Pakistan.
What do they do? Only a handful of those migrants make it into skilled jobs as the Qatari census data shows.
Man man man woman Many of those migrants are men - which goes some way to explain why 3 out every 4 residents in Qatar is male.
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We are told this flood of immigrants is about the population decline from baby boomers leaving the workforce but the US has has around 25% unemployment these several years----lowest employment since the 1960s----and this coming economic crash will take those numbers much higher. Americans are being made more impoverished with less access to successful tracking to higher education----10% of Americans are slated to entrance in strong 4 year universities with the rest vocationally tracked into poverty jobs.
Americans are being pushed to smaller and smaller families through impoverishment or the need for both husband and wife to work. You can see where the long-term result will be much like Qatar-----
The immigrants at the lower wage scale we all know already face the worst of workplace conditions, wage theft, and exploitation. The new immigrants coming from Asia and Africa are seeing themselves transferred constantly -----not able to set roots and staying in the country for a handful of years. This is causing high unemployment especially in a city like Baltimore where unemployment is 35-50% for black citizens.
THIS IS NOT PROGRESSIVE IMMIGRATION POLICY----IT IS REGRESSIVE AND WILL END AS A MODEL OF THE ABOVE AUTOCRACIES.
Keep in mind this would be a conservative number if TPP is installed they will open the gate to global corporations bringing immigrant labor with temporary worker status.
Over one million immigrants to come to US in 2016
July 21, 2015
Over one million immigrants will arrive in the United States next year, according to the US Census Bureau, with future projections showing that the nation may add up to another 49 million new residents from overseas over the course of the next 35 years.
The agency’s new International Data Base has revealed that 2015’s net immigration figure is likely to rise to 1.25 million, with this figure reached by taking the number of immigrants leaving the United States and subtracting them from the figure for new arrivals. The net immigration figure is expected to rise a little next year and even further – to 1.31 million – by 2025.
Over the course of the next decade it is anticipated that 14 million new immigrants will move to the United States. The great majority of immigration to the US is legal, with foreign citizens able to get a green card by applying via overseas American diplomatic posts. The continual increase in the amount of newcomers is due to legislation introduced in the 1960s in the Coolidge administration to remove caps.
Back in 1970 less than 1 in 21 Americans were born overseas; however, this figure has now grown to one in seven, with around 80 million Americans being either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Americans seem generally unconcerned, however, with just 13% of those responding to a poll from ImmigrationWorks USA last month worried that immigrants were taking American jobs.
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Keep in mind that Maryland's middle-class is disappearing as are all state funding of scholarships and financial aid to 4 year universities. You will go to KIPP in Baltimore to get a scholarship or you will graduate from a Baltimore High School and get a scholarship to the Baltimore City Community College.
O'Malley spent his entire terms in office building these global structures for our state universities as it became more important to look overseas for the rich there than to make sure all Maryland students get a strong public education and pathway to higher education. Right now Maryland is becoming more and more selective about which students are chosen to go to college and it is the corporate structure that chooses.
All of this leads more and more away from citizens have Equal Rights and Opportunity and Access. It is eliminating a family's ability to decide and pay for higher education for their children.
This is why reversing course and returning to a domestic economy as the primary fuel. This brings back the emphasis on making sure all Marylanders are ready to contribute to workplace.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL BE HUMAN CAPITAL IN A GLOBAL LABOR POOL IF WE DO NOT GET RID OF THESE GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS.
If you live in Baltimore you see Hopkins revolving door of Asian students many becoming employees in the US or overseas with very few Maryland and Baltimore citizens involved other than paying ever higher taxes to support this global campus headquarters.
We are feeding the needs of the world's rich for higher education as the American people are loaded with education debt and unable to afford access for their children......this is where we see the goal of making Americans increasingly impoverished growing foreign force in our higher government and as consultants to state and local governments.
University of Maryland brings business education to Asia
Jun 29, 2012, 6:00am EDT Sarah Gantz Reporter Baltimore Business Journal Bizspace Huang Xu-Hong | oop of Republic of China (Taiwan)
University of Maryland’s Wallace Loh and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou.… more
The University of Maryland, College Park may partner with universities in Taiwan and South Korea to offer a dual business degree to Asian students who want to learn the ropes of American business.
The proposed degree program would allow Taiwanese and Korean students to earn a business degree from their home university and from the University of Maryland. The idea came out of UM President Wallace Loh’s recent trip to Taiwan and South Korea during which Loh made several connections that will allow students at UM and in Asia more interaction with each other and foreign culture.
“The graduates of the University of Maryland will be competing not only with graduates from Boston and San Francisco, they’re going to be competing with graduates from Shanghai and Bangalore,” Loh said. “To experience the global world we’re in, it’s absolutely essential students have some opportunity to spend time abroad.”
The University of Maryland is among many higher education institutes flocking to Asia as those countries gain status as economic and entrepreneurial players.
Asia — specifically China — has been a top area of focus for public colleges and universities for at least a decade, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
“I can’t imagine any state research university that is not deeply involved in expanding its international academic partnerships, specifically in Asia,” said Daniel Hurley, director of state relations and policy analysis for the association.
Towson University sent representatives to China and Vietnam with Gov. Martin O’Malley in 2011, a trip Loh also made. Towson has robust math, business and actuarial science programs at universities in China and last fall launched a program to bring Chinese school administrators to Maryland to study the American educational system. On June 28, Towson hosted a conference for international school administrators.
Demand for college education as a middle class emerges within Asian countries, China especially, is also driving American institutions to set up shop there.
“It’s such a large market that is thirsting for access to post-secondary — and quality post-secondary — education. And American education is among the best,” Hurley said.
Asian universities have been launching at schools across the U.S. programs similar to the one proposed for UM, to satisfy a demand among students for a business education that will help them tap the American market, Loh said.
During his trip, Loh secured opportunities for Asian and UM students to interact:
• Twenty awards for UM students to teach English at Korean schools, funded by the National Institute for International Education Development in South Korea.
• Five scholarships for Taiwanese students to study at the University of Maryland, provided by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.
• More courses taught through an Internet video feed by professors in College Park and in Asia. The university already offers about five courses, including a course on culture and the environment in Russia, taught with a Moscow college class. Through the course, University of Maryland students partner with students in Moscow for projects and presentations and interact with both professors through the video feed.
• Six scholarships for UM students to spend August studying culture and language in Taiwan, through the National Central University in Taiwan.
The annual trips begin this August. Within days, all six slots were spoken for.
Mohammad Zia, a junior who created his own major in global development, was among the first to leap at the opportunity.
“When you’re a little kid, you love adventure and I think traveling presents you no matter how old you are a chance to have an adventure and be exposed to different cultures and experience new ideas,” Zia said.
“Classroom experience doesn’t give you enough of a challenge or real-life application of knowledge,” he added.
Zia said he hopes to leverage his experiences abroad into a job as an entrepreneur, developing resources for underdeveloped countries in Africa. As a growing economic power, Taiwan will have a lot to teach him, he said.
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This is not meant as a scare tactic. We should know the dynamics of our national population. Immigrants add vitality to our communities. It is the goal that is not good----and especially not good for immigrants.
'Even in the Washington-Baltimore CMSA, the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s (348,000) was equal to almost half of the 701,000-person increase in the area’s total population. If the 175,000 children born to immigrant parents in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area during the 1990s are added to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, then immigration is equal to almost 75 percent of the CMSA’s population growth'.
Please glance through this long article----also, if time allows go to this site for the tables that do not post in this blog. This is census from 2000----the numbers are much larger 15 years later. As this article states----many US states are seeing US citizens leaving as immigrant populations grow---and what does an autocratic society look like? High immigrant population and high impoverishment of sovereign citizens.
'This is because there is a significant out-migration of natives from these states'.
Immigrants in the United States — 2000 A Snapshot of America's Foreign-Born Population
By Steven A. Camarota January 2001
Download this Backgrounder as a pdf
Each month the Census Bureau conducts the Current Population Survey (CPS), the primary purpose of which is to collect employment data. The March CPS includes an extra-large sample of Hispanics and is considered the best source for information on persons born outside of the United States — referred to as foreign-born by the Census Bureau, though for the purposes of this report, foreign-born and immigrant are used synonymously.1 Analysis of the March 2000 CPS done by the Center for Immigration Studies indicates that 28.4 million immigrants now live in the United States, the largest number ever recorded in the nation’s history, and a 43 percent increase since 1990. As a percentage of the population, immigrants now account for more than one in 10 residents (10.4 percent), the highest percentage in 70 years.
Other findings in the new Center report:
- More than 1.2 million legal and illegal immigrants combined now settle in the United States each year.
- The number of immigrants living in the United States has more than tripled since 1970, from 9.6 million to 28.4 million. As a percentage of the U.S. population, immigrants have more than doubled, from 4.7 percent in 1970 to 10.4 percent in 2000.
- By historical standards, the number of immigrants living in the United States is unprecedented. Even at the peak of the great wave of early 20th century immigration, the number of immigrants living in the United States was less than half what it is today (13.5 million in 1910).
- Immigration has become the determinate factor in population growth. The 11.2 million immigrants who indicated they arrived between 1990 and 2000 plus the 6.4 million children born to immigrants in the United States during the 1990s are equal to almost 70 percent of U.S. population growth over the last 10 years.
- The percentage of immigrants without a high school diploma is 30 percent, more than three times the rate for natives. Also, of all persons without a high school education, one-third are now immigrants. Immigrants are also slightly more likely than natives to have a graduate or professional degree.
- In 2000, 37.4 percent of immigrants are naturalized citizens, and immigrants account for 5.5 percent of all eligible voters.
- The poverty rate for immigrants is 50 percent higher than that of natives, with immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under age 21) accounting for 22 percent of all persons living in poverty.
- The proportion of immigrant households using welfare programs is 30 to 50 percent higher than that of native households.
- One-third of immigrants do not have health insurance — two and one-half times the rate for natives. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 and their U.S.-born children account for 60 percent or 5.5 million of the increase in the size the uninsured population.
- Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2000, there were 8.6 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.
- Immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar rates of entrepreneurship, with about 1 in 9 of both groups being self-employed.
In any discussion of immigration’s effect on the country it is important to keep in mind that the number of legal immigrants allowed in each year, the selection criteria used, and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration are all discretionary policies of the federal government. Given the sampling and non-sampling error that exists in any survey, the results of this Backgrounder for states and immigrant groups with relatively small populations should be interpreted carefully.
Historical Comparison
While immigration has played an important role in American history, the level of immigration and the size of the immigrant population has varied considerably. Figure 1 shows the number of immigrants living in the United States over the course of the last 100 years. The 28.4 million immigrants residing in the United States in 2000 are the most ever recorded. Even during the great wave of immigration at the turn of the century, the immigrant population was less than half what it is today.
Figure 1 shows that, after growing in the early part of this century, the immigrant population stabilized at around 10 or 11 million for about four decades. In the mid-1960s, changes in immigration law and other factors caused the annual level of legal immigration to rise steadily, from about 300,000 in the 1960s to 800,000 in the 1990s. As a result, between 1970 and 1980 the number of immigrants living in the United States grew by a record 4.5 million. Reflecting the continuing increase in legal and illegal immigration, the immigrant population grew by 5.7 million in the 1980s — another record — and by 8.6 million in the 1990s, again surpassing the previous record.
The foreign-born population’s growth rate since 1970 is higher than at any other time in history, far surpassing growth at the beginning of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1910, the immigrant population grew by 31 percent, less than the 47 percent increase in the 1970s, the 40 percent increase in the 1980s, and the 43 percent growth of the 1990s.
Additionally, immigrants now account for a much larger share of the increase in the total U.S. population. For most of last century, the growth in the immigrant population accounted for little or none of the increase in the size of the U.S. population. Even during the first decade of the last century, when immigration was an important part of population growth, the immigrant contribution to U.S. population growth was much less than it is today. The 3.2 million increase in the size of the immigrant population between 1900 and 1910 accounted for only 20 percent of the total increase in the U.S. population. In contrast, the 8.6 million-increase in the immigrant population from 1990 to 2000 accounted for 34 percent of U.S. population growth in the 1990s. Immigration now accounts for such a large percentage of population because the fertility of natives was much higher in the early 1900s. As a result, the population grew regardless of immigration. Today natives have only about two children on average, with the result that immigration now accounts for a very large share of population growth. Also in contrast to the past, a much higher percentage of today’s immigrants remain in the United States rather than returning home. Because so many immigrants in the early 20th century eventually returned to their home countries, immigration at that time did not add permanently to the overall size of U.S. population in the way that it does today.2
While the number of immigrants and the growth rate of the immigrant population are higher now than at any other time in the last 100 years, the immigrant percentage of the population was higher in the first few decades of the 1900s. Table 1 shows that in 1910, the immigrant population reached a high of 14.7 percent of the total U.S. population. As a result of World War I and changes in immigration law in the early 1920s, the level of immigration began to fall, as did the foreign-born percentage of the population. The 1930 Census was the last time the percentage of immigrants was as high as it is today.
In terms of the impact of immigrants on the United States, both the percentage of the population made up of immigrants and the number of immigrants are clearly important. The ability to assimilate and incorporate immigrants is partly dependent on the relative sizes of the native and immigrant populations. Still, 28.4 million immigrants are likely to have an enormous effect on the socio-economic life of the United States, regardless of whether this represents 10 or 15 percent of the nation’s population, especially because immigrants are largely concentrated in only a few states.
Population Growth
The CPS can be used to provide insight into the likely impact of immigrants on the size of the U.S. population. Table 2 reports six different methods using the March 2000 CPS to estimate the effect of immigration on U.S. population growth in the 1990s.
The first column in Table 2 shows the growth in the U.S. population based on a comparison of the total population as enumerated in the 1990 Census and the March 2000 population estimate prepared by the Census Bureau.3 The first three rows of Table 2 use the growth in the size of foreign-born population to estimate the effect of immigration on population growth between 1990 and 2000. As already pointed out, the 8.6 million increase in the size of the immigrant population between 1990 and 2000 is equal to approximately one-third of total U.S. population growth over this period. As shown in the second row, the impact of immigration on population growth is even larger (40 percent) if births to immigrants who arrived in the 1990s are added to the growth of the foreign-born population. The third row indicates that if births to all immigrant women during the 1990s, including those who arrived prior to 1990, are added to the growth in the immigrant population, then immigration is equal to almost 59 percent of population growth.
Instead of using the growth in the foreign-born population, the last three rows of Table 2 use the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s as the basis for estimating the impact of immigration on population growth. Analysis of this kind is possible because the CPS asks of foreign-born persons their year of arrival to the United States. In 2000, 11.2 million immigrants in the survey indicated that they had entered the country between 1990 and 2000.
The 11.2 million figure is larger than the 8.6 million growth in the foreign-born because the immigrant population shrinks as a result of deaths and out-migration. Thus, even though 11.2 million immigrants arrived in the 1990s, the immigrant population grew by only 8.6 million because 2.6 million immigrants here in 1990 had either died or gone home by 2000. It is reasonable to view the 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s as the basis for estimating immigration’s effect on population growth because this flow reflects current U.S. immigration policy — both legal immigration and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration.
The 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s are equal to 43.8 percent of population growth in the 1990s. If births only to immigrants who arrived during the 1990s are added to this figure, then immigration accounts for 50.3 percent of U.S. population growth. The last row in Table 2 adds all births to immigrants between1990 and 2000 to the 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s. Births to immigrants plus 1990s immigration are equal to 68.8 percent of population growth between 1990 and 2000. Taken together, the estimates in Table 2 make clear that no matter what assumption is used, immigration policy has very significant implications for U.S. population growth.
State Data
Table 3 ranks the states by the size of their immigrant populations. It also shows the number of immigrants who reported arriving in the 1990s. California clearly has the largest immigrant population; New York, the state with next largest number of immigrants, has fewer than half as many. Table 3 also shows how concentrated the immigrant population is: Only a few states represent the vast majority of the foreign-born population. The nearly 8.8 million immigrants in California account for 30.9 percent of the nation’s total immigrant population, followed by New York (12.8 percent), Florida (9.8 percent), Texas (8.6 percent), New Jersey (4.3 percent), and Illinois (4.1 percent). Despite having only 39.3 percent of the nation’s total population, these six states account for 70.5 percent of the nation’s immigrant population.
Table 4 ranks states by the percentage of their populations composed of immigrants. While the rankings by "percent immigrant" are similar to those in Table 3, there are some significant differences. Because of their relatively small total populations, several states such as Hawaii and Nevada, with high percentages of immigrants, rank lower in terms of number of immigrants.
Table 5 compares the 1990 Census counts of the immigrant population with the March 2000 CPS and ranks the top 15 states by the numerical increase in their immigrant populations. While the states that had large immigrant populations in 1990 continue to account for most of the growth in the immigrant population, Table 5 shows substantial growth in the foreign-born populations in such states as Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, and Nevada.
Table 6 examines immigration and state population growth for the top immigrant- receiving states. The first column in the table reports population growth between 1990 and 2000 by state. Columns 2, 3, and 4 show the number of 1990s immigrants in the state, births to 1990s immigrants, and births to all immigrants during the 1990s. Column 5 uses 1990s immigrants plus births to only 1990s immigrants, while column 6 uses 1990s immigrants and all births to immigrants to estimate immigration’s impact on state population growth. Table 6 shows that using either assumption, there are a number of states in which immigration has had a very large impact on population growth.
While the arrival of natives from other parts of the country plays a significant role in population growth in states like Arizona, Washington, and Colorado, immigration has also become an important component of population growth. For Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Florida, and Texas, immigration plays an even larger role — accounting for at least one-third to more than half of the increase in the population of these states between 1990 and 2000.
In New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California it appears that absent immigration, these states may have declined in population or at least grown very little. This is because there is a significant out-migration of natives from these states. There is, however, both anecdotal and systematic evidence indicating that in high- immigration states some natives leave because they are adversely affected by immigration. In particular, less-skilled native-born workers may leave to avoid job competition, and some parents may leave high-immigration areas because of the strains it creates on public schools. Therefore, it is by no means certain that without immigration all of these states would have declined in population.
Region and Country of Origin
Table 7 shows the distribution of immigrants by region of the world, with Mexico and Canada treated separately. Mexico accounts for 27.7 percent of all immigrants, with 7.9 million immigrants living in United States, more than the number of immigrants from any other part of the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia make up the majority of immigrants, with 69 percent of the foreign-born coming from these areas. For immigrants who have arrived in the 1990s, these regions account for 71.2 percent of the foreign-born. Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe make up a relatively small portion of the immigrant population, accounting for only 17.1 percent of all immigrants and 13.8 percent of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s.
Table 8 ranks the top-20 immigrant-sending countries by the number of post-1970 immigrants living in the United States as of March 2000. Mexico is, of course, the largest sending country, accounting for more than five times as many immigrants as the combined total for China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. As is clear from Table 8, Latin American, Caribbean, and East Asian countries dominate the list of immigrant-sending countries, accounting for 14 of the top-20 post-1970 countries.
Labor Market Characteristics
Immigrants now comprise 12.8 percent of the nation’s total workforce.4 This is somewhat higher than the 10.4 percent of the total U.S. immigrant population because, in comparison to natives, a slightly higher percentage of immigrants are of working age. Table 9 reports the educational attainment and other characteristics of immigrants and natives in the workforce. In 1998, almost 30 percent of immigrants who worked full time did not have a high school diploma, and of those who arrived in the 1990s, 34.4 percent were dropouts. In comparison, slightly less than 9 percent of natives lacked a high school education. At the highest level of education, immigrants tend to be slightly more educated than natives, with 10.7 percent of immigrants holding a graduate or professional degree compared to 9.3 percent of natives.
The large number of immigrants with low levels of education means that immigration policy has dramatically increased the supply of workers with less than a high school degree, while increasing other educational categories more moderately. The last column in Table 9 shows the portion of each educational category composed of immigrants. While immigrants comprise 13 percent of the total workforce, they comprise more than 35 percent of the high school dropouts in the workforce. This means that any effect immigration may have on the wages or job opportunities of natives will disproportionately affect less-skilled workers.
Given the large proportion of immigrants with few years of schooling, it is not surprising that the income figures reported in Table 9 show that as a group, immigrants have lower median incomes than natives. The annual median income of immigrants is only about 76 percent that of natives. And for the most recent immigrants, median income is only 58 percent that of natives. While as a group immigrants earn significantly less than natives, the income data by year of entry suggest significant progress over time.
Since the cohort data is only based on one point in time, March 2000, it is possible that the seeming economic progress of immigrants is at least partly caused by the departure of those immigrants who did not fare well in the U.S. labor market. Moreover, the age data in Table 9 indicate that 1970s immigrants are by 2000, on average, older than natives in the workforce. Because greater workforce experience comes with age, one would expect this to translate into higher income. Despite this, the median income of immigrants who arrived in the 1970s is actually slightly below that of natives, even though they are on average older than natives and have been in the United States for more than 20 years. Only the cohort that arrived before 1970 had higher incomes than natives, which is expected given that they are much older than natives on average. In addition to their age, the higher income of immigrants who arrived prior to 1970 may also be explained by the fact that most were admitted under the pre-1965 immigration system, which tended to produce a more educated flow of immigrants relative to natives than today’s policies.
Table 10 shows the occupational concentration of immigrants and natives by occupation. The upper half of the table lists those occupations in which the immigrant component is less than or nearly equal to their proportion in the overall workforce. The lower half lists those occupations in which immigrants comprise a proportion larger than their representation in the workforce (henceforth referred to as low-immigrant and high-immigrant occupations, respectively). Given the low level of educational attainment of a large proportion of immigrants, it is not surprising that high-immigrant occupations are those that tend to require fewer years of education. For example, while immigrants make up 18 percent of those holding non-private household service jobs, such as janitor, security guard, and child-care worker, they comprise only 10 percent of individuals in managerial and professional jobs.
Table 10 reveals that only 26 percent of natives are employed in occupations that have a high concentrations of immigrants. This suggests that most natives are not in competition with immigrants.5 However, as Table 10 shows, high-immigrant occupations pay an average of only 56 percent of what low-immigrant occupations pay. Additionally, high-immigrant occupations have an unemployment rate more than double that of low-immigrant occupations. By itself, this does not necessarily mean that immigrants have lowered the wages or increased unemployment in these occupations. What it is does mean, however, is that any negative effect from immigration will likely fall on the 26 million native-born workers who already have the lowest wages and the highest unemployment.
Table 10 also shows that 40 percent of native-born blacks work in high-immigrant occupations, compared to only 22.9 percent of whites. This means that blacks are much more likely to be affected by any decline in wages or benefits resulting from immigrant-induced increases in the supply of labor.
Self Employment
One of the most common perceptions of immigrants is that they are uniquely or distinctly entrepreneurial. Table 11 examines the self-employment rates of immigrants and natives. Consistent with other research, Table 11 shows that immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar levels of entrepreneurship. The table shows that 10.7 percent of immigrants and 11.6 percent of natives are self-employed. Thus, less than one percentage point separates the self-employment rate for immigrants and natives. Turning to self-employment income reported at the bottom of Table 11, we see that the average self-employment income (revenue minus expenses) or both immigrants and natives is very similar. While immigrants overall are not more entrepreneurial than natives, immigrants from some countries are significantly more likely than natives to be self-employed. Those from China, Korea, Canada, Poland, and Iran are much more likely to be self-employed than natives.
Clearly, entrepreneurship is neither a lacking nor a distinguishing characteristic of the nation’s immigrants. If one removed immigrants from the data, the overall rate of self-employment in the United States would be virtually unchanged. Therefore, one simply must look elsewhere to make an argument for or against current immigration.
Poverty
Based on the March 2000 CPS, 16.8 percent of immigrants compared to 11.2 percent of natives lived in poverty in 1999 (poverty statistics are based on annual income in the year prior to the survey). The poverty rate is 23.5 percent for immigrants who entered in the 1990s, 15.2 percent for 1980s immigrants, and 11.5 percent for 1970s immigrants. As is the case with the income data in Table 9, it is unclear to what extent this progress reflects the out-migration of unsuccessful immigrants, the different selection criteria used in the past, and the changing origins of immigrants over the last few decades.
Table 12 also reports poverty rates for persons from the top-20 post-1970 immigrant-sending countries. The data indicate that there is an enormous variation in poverty rates among immigrants from different countries. For example, the 32.5 percent poverty rate for Dominicans is more than six times that of persons from United Kingdom and five times that of immigrants from the Philippines. The last column in Table 12 shows the proportion of persons 21 years of age and older from each country who have not completed high school. These educational data indicate that those countries that have the highest percentage of adults without a high school education also tend to have the highest poverty rates.
The higher incidence of poverty among immigrants as a group has significantly increased the overall size of the population living in poverty. Immigrants accounted for almost 15 percent of all persons living in poverty. While this is a large percentage, it would be even larger if the native-born children (under age 21) of immigrants, who are included in the poverty figures for natives, are counted with their parents. The poverty rate for children and for most young adults reflects their parents’ income, therefore it is reasonable to view poverty among the U.S.-born children of immigrants as attributable to their immigrant parents. The bottom portion of Table 12 shows that the poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children together is 18.3 percent.
Of the 27.5 million natives living in poverty, 2.27 million (8 percent) are the U.S.-born children of immigrant mothers. If the native-born children of immigrants are excluded, poverty among natives drops from 11.2 percent to 10.7 percent. And if the 4.75 million immigrants in poverty are also excluded, along with their U.S.-born children, from the nation’s overall poverty counts, the overall number of people living in poverty drops by 7.02 million. This means that immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 21.8 percent of the 32.26 million people living in poverty in the United States. Among persons under age 21 living in poverty, 24.2 percent are the children of immigrants.
In addition to poverty, Table 12 also reports the percentage of immigrants and natives living in or near poverty, with near poverty defined as income less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold. As is the case with poverty, near poverty is much more common among immigrants rather than natives. Table 12 shows that 41.4 percent of immigrants compared to 28.8 percent of natives live in or near poverty. Among the children of immigrants (under age 21), 53 percent live in or near poverty, in contrast to 35.6 percent of the children of natives. If the native-born children of immigrants are excluded from the figures for natives, the rate of poverty/near poverty among natives drops from 28.8 percent to 27.8 and the poverty rate is 44 percent for immigrants and their native-born children combined. If the 11.7 million immigrants in or near poverty are excluded, along with their U.S.-born children (5.17 million), then the overall number of people living in or near poverty in the United States drops by 16.9 million. This means that immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 20.5 percent of the poor and near poor in the United States.
Welfare Use
Table 13 shows the percentage of immigrant- and native-headed households in which at least one member of the household receives public assistance (including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and general assistance programs), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Food Stamps, or Medicaid (health insurance for those with low incomes). Table 13 indicates that even after the 1996 welfare reforms, which curtailed eligibility for some immigrants, immigrant welfare use remains higher than that of natives for all four major programs and for all entering cohorts after 1970. In fact, the year of entry data suggest that in some cases immigrant welfare use actually rises over time as they “assimilate” into the welfare system.
As was the case with lower income and higher poverty rates, the higher welfare use rates by immigrant households are at least partly explained by the large proportion of immigrants with few years of schooling. Less-educated people tend to have lower incomes and higher levels of unemployment and poverty. Therefore, it is not surprising that immigrant use of welfare programs is significantly higher than that of natives.
While immigrants’ welfare use is higher than natives’, Table 13 shows that most households, immigrant or native, do not use means-tested programs. On the other hand, even though a relatively small portion of the population uses welfare, for 1999 the total costs of just the first three programs listed in Table 13 is more than $70 billion a year, and Medicaid by itself costs an additional $190 billion. Moreover, there are other welfare programs not listed in the table that are linked to those reported in Table 13. For example, 15.5 percent of immigrant households reported having at least one child receiving subsidized school lunches, compared to only 5.8 percent of native households. Finally, there is the question of whether native use of welfare is the proper yardstick by which to measure immigrants. Some may reasonably argue that because immigration is supposed to benefit the United States, our admission criteria should, with the exception of refugees, select only those immigrants who are self-sufficient.
In addition to welfare programs, Table 13 reports use of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). With an annual cost of $25 billion, the EITC is the nation’s largest means-tested cash assistance program for workers with low incomes. Persons receiving the EITC pay no federal income tax and instead receive cash assistance from the government based on their earnings and family size. Table 13 shows that immigrant households use the EITC at almost double the rate of natives.
While on the whole immigrant households have higher welfare use rates, this is not true for immigrants from all countries. Table 14 shows that immigrants from those countries with higher education levels tend to have lower welfare use rates. From the list of countries in Table 14, it is also clear that refugee-sending countries, such as Russia and Vietnam, tend to have higher rates of welfare use. On the other hand, Mexican and Dominican households have welfare use rates that are as high or higher than Russian or Vietnamese immigrants, and virtually none of these immigrants are refugees. Thus, it is clear that the higher rate of welfare use by immigrants overall is not caused simply by immigrants admitted for humanitarian reasons. In addition to being more likely overall to receive welfare, Table 14 indicates that the average payments received by immigrant households on public assistance, SSI, or the EITC are larger than those of natives.
Uninsured
According to the Census Bureau, since 1989 the uninsured population has grown by almost 9.2 million. and stood at 42.6 million (almost one-sixth of the total U.S. population) in 1999. (Figures for 1999 are based on the March 2000 CPS.) Much of this growth has been driven by immigration. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 along with their U.S.-born children account for 60 percent or 5.5 million of the increase in the uninsured population in the 1990s.6
Table 15 reports the percentage of immigrants and natives who where uninsured for all of 1999. The table shows that lack of health insurance is a significant problem for immigrants from many different countries, including countries that tend to have lower poverty rates and higher education levels, such as China and Korea. The lower portion of Table 15 reports the percentage of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 21) who are uninsured. Almost 31 percent of immigrants and their children lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. The large percentage of immigrants and their children without insurance has significantly increased the overall size of the uninsured population. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for almost 28 percent of all uninsured persons in the country, double their percentage of the overall population. The high percentage of immigrants without health insurance is even more striking when one recalls from Table 13 that immigrant households were more likely to use Medicaid.
The low rate of insurance coverage associated with immigrants is primarily explained by their much lower levels of education. Because of the limited value of their labor in an economy that increasingly demands educated workers, many immigrants hold jobs that do not offer health insurance, and their low incomes make it very difficult for them to purchase insurance on their own.
A larger uninsured population cannot help but strain the resources of those who provide services to the uninsured already here. Moreover, Americans with insurance have to pay higher premiums as health care providers pass along some of the costs of treating the uninsured to paying costumers. Taxpayers also are affected as federal, state, and local governments struggle to provide care to the growing ranks of the uninsured. There can be no doubt that by dramatically increasing the size of the uninsured population, our immigration policy has broad-ranging effects on the nation’s entire health care system.
School-Age Children
In the last few years, a good deal of attention has been focused on the dramatic increases in enrollment experienced by many school districts across the country. The Department of Education recently reported that the number of children in public schools has grown by nearly 8 million in the last two decades. All observers agree that this growth has strained the resources of many school districts. While it has been suggested that this increase is the result of the children of baby boomers reaching school age (the "baby boom echo"), it is clear from the CPS that immigration policy explains the growth in the number of children in public schools.
Table 16 shows that there are 8.6 million school-age children of immigrants (ages 5 to 17) in the United States. While fewer than one-third of the 8.6 million children are immigrants themselves, the use of public education by the native-born children of immigrants is a direct consequence of their parents having been allowed into the country. The children of immigrants account for such a large percentage of the school-age population because a higher proportion of immigrant women are in their childbearing years, and immigrants tend to have more children than natives. In addition, the effect of immigration on public schools will be even larger in the coming years because 17.6 percent of children approaching school age have immigrant mothers.
Table 16 also shows that immigration has significantly increased the school-age population in all of the top-eight immigrant-receiving states. Of course, a dramatic increase in enrollment may not create a problem for public education if tax revenue increases proportionately. But as we have seen, immigrants generally have lower incomes than natives, so their tax contributions are unlikely to entirely offset the costs they impose on schools. This is especially true because of the higher costs associated with teaching children whose first language is not English.
The absorption capacity of American public education is clearly an important issue that needs to be taken into account when formulating a sensible immigration policy. Table 16 suggests that the failure to consider this question may have significant consequences for America’s schools.
Characteristics of Immigrants by State
Table 17 reports selected characteristics for immigrants in the leading immigrant-receiving states. The first column reports the percentage of immigrants 18 and over in each state who indicated that they were naturalized citizens of the United States. While there is some variation, the percentage of immigrants in most states who are citizens falls near the national average of 40 percent. As a share of all eligible voters in each state, immigrants vary significantly: in California immigrants account for 15.7 percent of eligible voters; in New York, 11.8 percent; in Florida, 10.8 percent; in Texas, 5.6 percent; in New Jersey, 9 percent; in Illinois, 5.2 percent; in Massachusetts, 6.5 percent; and in Arizona, 6 percent. It is worth noting that research indicates that some immigrants, primarily those from Mexico and Central America, tend to report that they are naturalized citizens when in fact they are resident aliens. Thus, the actual citizenship rate of immigrants is likely to be somewhat overstated in the CPS.
The second and third columns of Table 17 report the percentage of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 21) who live in or near poverty, with near poverty defined as income below 200 percent of the poverty threshold. Despite the fact that the demographic characteristics of immigrants differ significantly by state, immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under age 21) have much higher rates of poverty and near poverty than natives, with the exception of Illinois. As a share of all persons in or near poverty, immigrants and their children account for more than one-half of the poor and near poor in California and roughly one-third in New York, Florida, and Arizona. In Texas, immigrants and their children represent 27 percent of all persons in or near poverty and 29.3 percent in New Jersey.
Turning to health insurance coverage by state, Table 17 shows a similar pattern to poverty. With the exception of Illinois, immigrants and their children in every major immigrant-receiving state are significantly more likely than natives to be uninsured. The impact of immigration on the overall size of the uninsured population in some states can only be described as enormous. In California, 58.8 percent of the uninsured are immigrants or the U.S.-born children (under age 21) of an immigrant. As Table 17 shows, if immigrants and their children are not counted in California, the uninsured rate would be 13 percent — precisely the rate for natives. But, because of immigration the actual state uninsured rate is 20 percent, making it one of the highest in the country. In New York, immigrants and their children represent nearly half (47.7 percent) of the uninsured; in Florida, 39.5 percent; in Texas, 32.5 percent; in New Jersey, 34.7; in Illinois, 22.6 percent; in Massachusetts, 27.5 percent; and in Arizona, 36.4 percent.
The last two columns in Table 17 show the percentage of immigrant and native households using at least one of the major welfare programs. Not surprisingly, with the exception of Illinois, immigrant household use of welfare is higher than that of natives in every state. As a result of their higher use rates, immigrant households account for a very significant percentage of the welfare caseloads in these states. In California, immigrant households account for 42.2 percent of all households using at least one major welfare program; in New York, it’s 31.8 percent; in Florida, 26.4 percent; in Texas, 21.8 percent; in New Jersey, 23.7 percent; in Illinois, 10.2 percent; and in Arizona, immigrant households account for 26.6 of all households receiving welfare. While higher than the rate of natives in almost every state, it is important to note that there is no state in which a majority of immigrant households are on welfare.
Metropolitan Statistical Areas
Table 18 reports figures for the nation’s top-six immigrant-receiving Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSA). While the Los Angles and New York CMSAs have the largest immigrant populations, the Miami CMSA ranks first in terms of the percentage of immigrants. These six metropolitan areas account for nearly 53 percent of all immigrants living in the United States but only 23.1 percent of the nation’s entire population. These six cities continue to attract a large share of new immigrants. Of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, 48.7 percent settled in these six CMSAs.
The fourth column in Table 18 reports population growth for each metro area between 1990 and 2000. All six metro areas grew significantly in population during in the 1990s. If we compare the population growth figures to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, it is clear that immigration has played a very large role in growing the population of all six metro areas. Even in the Washington-Baltimore CMSA, the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s (348,000) was equal to almost half of the 701,000-person increase in the area’s total population. If the 175,000 children born to immigrant parents in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area during the 1990s are added to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, then immigration is equal to almost 75 percent of the CMSA’s population growth.
Table 19 examines the distribution of immigrants and natives between the nation’s central cities, suburban, and rural areas. With 44.8 percent of immigrants living in the nation’s central cities compared to 26.2 percent of natives, immigrants are clearly much more likely than natives to live in central cities. But contrary to the general impression, most immigrants do not live in the nation’s central cities. In fact, immigrants are just as likely as natives to live in the suburbs. As Table 19 shows, the primary difference between the two groups is that natives are much more likely to live in rural areas while immigrants are more likely to live in central cities. The large number of immigrants who live in suburban areas may be a positive sign that immigrants are successfully integrating into American society and obtaining a middle class standard of living. On the other hand, it is in suburban areas where the problems of sprawl and congestion are most acutely felt. Thus, the nearly 13 million immigrants who have settled in suburbia are likely to have contributed to these problems.
Conclusion
While immigration’s impact continues to be the subject of intense national debate, there can be no doubt that the large number of immigrants now living in the United States represents an enormous challenge. With more than half of post-1970 immigrants and their U.S.-born children living in or near poverty and one-third having no health insurance, the situation for immigrant families is clearly precarious. While the current economic expansion may tempt some to ignore these facts, when the next economic downturn occurs the costs of immigration will likely become glaringly apparent. Setting aside the lower socio-economic status of immigrants, no nation has ever attempted to incorporate more than 28 million newcomers into its society. Moreover, without a change in immigration policy, the Census Bureau projects 11 to 12 million immigrants will arrive in the next decade alone. Thus, immigration’s impact will continue to grow if current trends in immigration are allowed to continue.
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