While traveling along the road on my journey, I came across a quote by J.F.K. that seems relevant today. He said ‘“The Great Enemy of truth is very often not a lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forbears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought’ (1962 Commencement Address at Yale).
This quote helps explain how the myth of “Trickle Down” has been able to take root in our culture and why members of both political tribes have been so tied to the neo-liberal economic policies that tell us: (1) You can’t raise the minimum wage, (2) You can’t increase the threshold that workers receive overtime benefits from $23,000 to $60,000., (3) That Medicare for All would ruin us, (4) That paid family leave and universal childcare are bad, and (5) Immigrants weaken, not strengthen our ecosystem.
As humans we gravitate towards stories and storytelling. It is why we spend our attention on the various entertainment vehicles that permeate our culture. Let’s admit it we like to be entertained. Those who seek power understand this and occasionally use this talent to develop myths that they desire to take root. The myth that some in power are seeking to spread is that immigrants take jobs, commit crimes, abuse the social safety net, and undermine what it means to be “American”.
We need to work hard to prevent this myth based in the dark arts from taking root, while admitting that the story we have told since our founding is based on an innocence we don’t have a right to claim. Part of our story has had chapters where the removal of natives, slavery, Jim Crow, Internment camps, call on us to acknowledge the truth of this; but begin to use the fundamental principles that formed the American Story to include those for whom are innocence has been lost.
In 1783, George Washington told a group of Irishmen that “America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions.” One of the founding fathers of our nation understood that America needed great people, that would continually help grow our economy. The part of the American myth we need to fight to preserve is that anyone willing to come to our shores, can become “American”. America was never based on an “ethnic” homogenous tribe, despite the horrors of slavery. Becoming “American” was a verb, not a noun. It was a product of your work, your commitment, and desire to add your story to the American story. Recognizing that we must admit that those not included in the historical record as “Americans” must be made whole.
Today in our ecosystem, immigrants, both legal and illegal, contribute to our ecosystem. There is firm consensus among economists that immigration raises incomes on average for native-born workers. In fact, it is newly arrived immigrants that compete against immigrants who arrived earlier for the same employment opportunities. Immigrants don’t generally compete for the same jobs as U.S. born employee’s but complement them and increase their productivity. Here is a little secret, most illegal immigrants use a false social security number, meaning they contribute to social security, but do not have a right to those benefits. Meaning that Native born Americans and U.S. Treasury are the greatest beneficiaries. Immigrants pay $329 billion in state, local, and federal taxes. Undocumented immigrants contribute roughly $11.74 billion a year in state and local taxes, including $7 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.1 billion in personal income taxes; funding our schools, hospitals, highways, and other essential services. If current legal immigration levels were cut by 50%, the Social Security fund who lose $1.5 trillion in revenue. If we gave them a path to citizenship, then their contribution to our ecosystem would increase by $2.18 billion.
Immigrant entrepreneurs and students are a vibrant and needed part of our ecosystem. In 2014, Immigrants had $927 billion in spending power that was used to purchase goods and services of their fellow Americans. Cuts currently proposed to immigration would exclude 22 million people from the U.S. over the next 50 years, causing a 2% drop in GDP by 2040, 12.5% decrease in economic growth, and 4.6 million fewer jobs. International Students are an economic asset, next year in 2020 researchers estimate that there will be 1.3 million unfilled science, technology, engineering, and math jobs, making our companies less vibrant and competitive. For every International Student who gets a S.T.E.M. degree and is hired by a U.S. Company, 2.6 jobs are added to our economy. For Dreamers, 91% percent are employed or in school, if Congress fails to protect this group, U.S. GDP will drop by $460 billion annually, but if given a path to citizenship they would add $1 trillion dollars over a decade.
Many of the businesses we are proud of in this country were formed by an educated immigrant. Over 40% of Fortune 500 businesses were founded by immigrants or their children, responsible for the employment of 10 million people worldwide. Immigrants start 20% of our businesses but only make up 13% of the population. They are responsible for creating the jobs that Native born Americans want to fill. Contrary to a myth that some want to take root, 43% of all recently arrived immigrants are college graduates, compared to 29% of Native-born Americans. Ask yourself if the “merit” based system they want to implement were applied to “whites without college degrees”, would those supporting it do so as forcefully as they are? These aspiring “immigrants” are demonstrating what it is to be “American”, living up to those ideals espoused in the founding of our nation.
In the recent Immigration raids in the South, we heard about how over 600 people where rounded up on the first day of school. Most of these people worked a job that put food in the mouths of all of us. If they have a positive impact on our ecosystem and local community, doesn’t providing them with a path to citizenship make sense? Where were the stories that sought to hold the large employers responsible for employing/exploiting these workers? Are these “owners” engaging in a cultural war demonizing the “other” with one hand, and exploiting their labor with the other, allowing them to feed that vacuum? Don’t know the answer, but is it a question we should be asking? Would a reasonable solution be to make employers of foreign-born workers pay an extra payroll tax, using the proceeds to subsidize low paid workers wages in our ecosystem? Just a thought.
We have competing myths that are at battle for the soul of our nation. We need to embrace the origin story of what being an “American” is, an action verb embraced by newcomers to this land, who through work, community, and caring, contribute to our story. Giving those that have been denied their rightful place in our national story an equal seat at the table. While rejecting the demonizing of “other”, claiming that you are only “American” if you look a certain way. At the same time busting the myth of “Trickle Down” that seeks to place the consequences, effects, outcomes, and shortcomings of neo-liberal economics at the feet of the immigrant whose pro-growth story and desire to become “American” is what has allowed us to renew our nation, and continue to tell our story. Limiting Immigration does not make us greater; it makes us older, whiter, poorer, and unable to solve our problems. We can tell a better story.
Economic Journeyman 