Demographics
The Economic and Political Stakes of an Accurate Census Count
originally posted by Walter Ewing for Immigration Impact [click here]
Mar 4th
This week, the U.S. Census Bureau began distribution of the questionnaires for the 2010 Census. The results of the Census will form the basis for the apportionment of congressional districts and the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds, as well as serving to guide community-planning decisions across the country. However, Census 2010 has not been without its share of controversy. In October of last year, for instance, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) proposed an amendment to the Commerce, Justice and State appropriations legislation which would cut off financing for the 2010 Census unless the survey includes questions about immigration status. Additionally, some pro-immigrant activists have suggested that immigrants sit out the Census this year to protest the federal government’s failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Yet this would be self-defeating given the high economic and political stakes of an accurate count, and that fact that immigrants are already among those demographic groups who are typically under-counted in the Census.
Anyone living in an area that suffers from a large under-count of immigrants stands to lose out on political representation and federal funds. For instance, an undercount of Latino immigrants would impact anyone living in a state such as California, New York, or Illinois that has a large population of Latino immigrants—meaning that everyone in those states stands to lose political representation and access to economic and educational opportunities if immigrant residents aren’t fully counted in 2010.
According to a 2009 research report from the Census Bureau, roughly $435.7 billion in federal grant and direct assistance money “was allocated based on Census Bureau data”—including “annual population estimates, Decennial Census data, and other Census Bureau sources”—in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007. The 10 federal programs accounting for 83.4 percent of all funding “allocated annually using population and/or income statistics,” as of FY 2007, were:
- Medical Assistance Program {Medicaid} ($203.5 billion)
- Unemployment Insurance ($35.9 billion)
- Highway Planning and Construction ($34.2 billion)
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ($30.3 billion)
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ($16.5 billion)
- Federal Pell Grant Program ($13.7 billion)
- Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies ($12.8 billion)
- Special Education Grants to States ($10.8 billion)
- National School Lunch Program ($7.8 billion)
- Head Start ($6.9 billion)
As the National Research Council notes in a 2009 study, “historically, a key issue has been, and remains, the differential net undercount of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, which has resulted in the repeated underrepresentation of areas in which those groups make up a large fraction of the residents. In particular, the differential net undercount of these groups has led to their receiving less than their share of federal funds and political representation.” In other words, because blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans tend to live in particular areas, everyone in those areas receives less political representation and federal funding if blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans are under-counted.
Photo by thomasclaveirole.
The Who, What, When, Where, and Why of the Latino Vote
originally posted by Wendy Sefsaf for Immigration Impact [click here]
Mar 1st
A new report by America’s Voice (AV) “The Power of the Latino Vote in the 2010 Elections” highlights several things even the most amateur political bystander knows by now: Latino voters are growing in number, states with large immigrant and Latino populations are likely to gain congressional seats after the 2010 Census, and Latinos are a growing force in non-traditional states (like Georgia and the Carolinas). However, two very interesting insights emerge deeper into the report. The first is a discussion of not just how but why Latinos vote as they do and the second is a look into a unique Latino “sub group” called “Spanish Dominant Voters: A Hidden Swing Demographic.”
AV’s analysis explains that Latinos vote as they do, in many cases, as a result of how a particular politician handles the issue of immigration:
The immigration issue serves as a way to define the “good guys” and the “bad guys” for Latinos. Because of the way many Republican policymakers have handled the immigration issue in Congress and campaigns over the last several years, the GOP brand is increasingly identified with people who want to deport Latino immigrants, while Democrats are generally seen as more welcoming.
In other words, immigration has become a basic measurement of who you are as a politician (and a political party) and is an easy way for a Latino voter to size you up. Particularly for “Spanish Dominant Voters” who are close to the issue of immigration.
AV explains:
In 2004, Republican strategist Karl Rove and President George W. Bush recognized that Spanish dominant Latino voters—slightly less than half of the overall Latino electorate— were a potent audience for GOP political appeals. Most of these voters are foreign‐born, naturalized U.S. citizens, and the Republican emphasis on “family values” resonated with many of them. According to NDN, the GOP more than doubled its share of the Latino vote from 1996 to 2004 by prioritizing outreach to Spanish‐dominant Latinos.
This report becomes increasingly important as the mid-term election cycle begins in earnest and also warns that Congressional silence on immigration reform—a key issue to Latinos, particularly the “Spanish Dominant Voters”—could be catastrophic for those who thought they could depend easily on the Latino vote. It is likely to impact why (or why not) these voters come out in November.
The report asks some simple questions that both parties must reckon with this year:
Do the Democrats advance comprehensive immigration reform this year as promised, or do they push the issue off for the future? If they wait, will delay dampen enthusiasm for Democrats among the Latino electorate, and impact key races? Does the Republican Party “sue for peace” and embrace a more inclusive stance on immigration reform in order to compete for these voters, as some in the party have advised? Or does the GOP continue to embrace a restrictionist agenda, ignoring the demographic and political realities of a growing electorate that is gaining stature and getting energized.
The rallying cry of immigrants around the country has become “?Si, no Ahora, Cuando?” (If not now, when?). Will those cries fall of deaf ears? And if so, what will be the fall out in November?
Photo by whiteafrican.
Nativist Group Discovers Most Immigrants Don’t Vote Republican
originally posted by Walter Ewing for Immigration Impact [click here]
Feb 23rd
While some high-profile Republicans are looking for ways to increase their support among Latino voters, a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies calls for the Republican Party to basically give up on Latinos for the time being, while sticking to its anti-immigrant guns.
The report begins with the less-than-astounding discovery that the declining electoral fortunes of the Republican Party are inextricably linked to the demographic and political rise of the Latino population in the United States. However, rather than calling for any ideological readjustment on the part of Republican candidates who are so often perceived by Latinos as being hostile towards Latino issues, the report calls for Republicans to redouble their anti-immigration stance? Why? Because, only by reducing the flow of new Latino immigrants, who tend to have low incomes and little education and to therefore vote Democratic, will Latinos who are already here achieve the upward socio-economic mobility over time which is needed to become Republican. In other words, the CIS report offers not only a grim view of Republican political prospects, but a stereotypical and insulting portrayal of Latino voters who are perceived as too poor and ignorant to vote Republican, and who should therefore be ignored by Republican political strategists until they grow out of their Democratic phase.
The report, entitled Immigration, Political Realignment, and the Demise of Republican Political Prospects, was authored by James G. Gimpel, a professor of government at the University of Maryland, College Park, and occasional contributor to the white supremacist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant journal known as The Social Contract Press. (One of Social Contract’s more prominent publications is an edition of the 1973 racist French novel The Camp of the Saints, in which Western civilization is destroyed by dark-skinned immigrants from India.) Gimpel expends an inexplicable amount of effort demonstrating statistically the already well-known fact that the growth in the Latino electorate has yielded few votes for Republicans. He then explains that the only “hope for Republican success with immigrant voters lies mainly with the upward mobility and prosperity of Latinos, Asians, and others, something that will occur only with great difficulty given current levels of low-skill, wage-corrosive immigration.” That is, new immigrants will never become Republicans, so forget about them and focus instead on those Latinos and Asians who have become more “assimilated” and, therefore – presumably – more likely to vote Republican.
The report concludes that the Republican “party’s elites have failed to deliver a clear message that they want a pro-immigrant policy of reduced immigration and that these two goals are complementary. Such a policy would also prove to be the best means for moving immigrants toward the middle and upper income status that will promote their geographic and political mobility.” Put differently, Republicans must persuade wealthier and more established Latinos and Asians to turn against their more recently arrived family members, co-workers, and neighbors, who “concentrate in areas monopolized by Democratic Party politics into which they are easily socialized.” Apparently, an immigrant has not really become fully part of American society until he or she fervently supports a Republican Party that officially looks down upon immigrants.
Photo by Dom Dada.
Can Immigrants Give America’s Rust Belt a Tune-Up?
originally posted by Seth Hoy for Immigration Impact [click here]
Feb 19th
Immigrants have long been a driving economic force in America’s large thriving metropolitan areas—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Dallas—where immigrants’ economic output produces a large and growing share of the U.S. gross domestic product. But what about the once thriving industrial heartland of the United States known as the Rust Belt? In a roundtable discussion yesterday in Akron, Ohio, authors Richard Herman and Robert Smith discussed their new book which points out how “immigrants and the businesses they create” can “provide rundown neighborhoods with a powerful jolt of new investment and spinoff job opportunities” and how our broken immigration system is taking away at least one tool for economic recovery in the cities that need the most help.
As a Washington Post article points out, the story of immigrant entrepreneurship is nothing new. Immigrants are behind many of the country’s largest corporations—Dow Chemical, DuPont, Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, Carnegie, Google, Yahoo, Intel, PayPal and YouTube—which provide thousands of jobs for working Americans. And while every small business owner in the Rust Belt may dream of being the next multi-millionaire, the day to day economic contributions of immigrants in these states are equally important.
Immigrants at all ends of the skill spectrum—high skilled, low skilled, entrepreneurs and laborers alike—pay taxes and generate consumer spending which in turn spurs American job growth. According to data from the Immigration Policy Center’s (IPC) state-wide studies:
In Wisconsin, migrant workers’ direct spending generates roughly $14.9 million per year in income to Wisconsin residents and business, and creates 417 jobs for Wisconsinites annually.
Immigrants are a large part of Illinois’ advancing job sectors, representing 27.7% of all net job creation in the “health diagnosing” sector from 2000 to 2005. In the Chicago metro area, consumer expenditures of undocumented immigrants generated more than 31,000 jobs in the local economy and added $5.45 billion annually to the gross regional product.
Immigrants in Indiana paid an estimated $2.3 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2007, according to a study by the Sagamore Institute.
Central Ohio is home to more than 45,000 Somali Americans—making it the second largest Somali population in the United States; second only to Minneapolis, MN. Somalis own more than 400 small businesses in Columbus, Ohio, which contribute revenue to the local economy.
Arab American employment accounted for $7.7 billion in total earnings in the four counties of the Detroit metropolitan area in southeast Michigan, generating an estimated $544 million in state tax. Arab American business and consumer spending supported an estimated 141,541 jobs in the four-county region in 2005.
You get the idea. Immigrants’ consumer spending, new businesses and tax revenue make up large portions of ailing state and local economies and are critically important to America’s economic recovery. Herman and Smith’s point is, given America’s long history of immigrant entrepreneurship, why make it harder for skilled immigrants to invest in the American economy on the state and local level? A working immigration system—one that encourages the creation of small businesses—benefits all Americans.
According to Newsweek:
Immigrants are good for our economy. The most skilled create jobs in technology and engineering, says Duke professor Vivek Wadhwa, who estimates that in 2005 immigrant-founded engineering and tech companies employed 450,000 people and generated $52 billion in sales.
Two highly respected Australian economists, Maureen Rimmer and Peter Dixon, studied the issue for the libertarian Cato Institute. “The net impact on U.S. households from tighter border enforcement is unambiguously negative,” they found, because even low-skilled immigrants expand the economic pie and create jobs farther up the ladder. Cato’s Dan Griswold says the study shows a $250 billion difference between the most and least restrictive immigration policies.
Clearly, our broken immigration system is not doing anyone any favors. We can’t build a strong robust economy on a system that doesn’t work. Smarter immigration policies, however, which harness immigrants’ raw economic and entrepreneurial power and integrate them into our society will not only speed the economic recovery process, but create jobs for Americans and help America—in both large and small cities—grow in the long term.
Photo by ex.libris.
How Immigrants Can Help America Rise Again
originally posted by Seth Hoy for Immigration Impact [click here]
Feb 16th
With the U.S. unemployment rate still hovering around 10 percent, it’s only natural for people to worry whether America’s recent economic decline is reversible. In this month’s issue of Atlantic Monthly, correspondent James Fallow takes a step back to address just that—what he calls “the fear of American declinism.” In his historical and economic analysis of America’s overall well-being, Fallow finds that while America’s governing system is old, broken and in desperate need of reform, Americans should find comfort in “America’s cycle of crisis and renewal.” We’ve been here before, Fallow says, and if we want to move forward, we need to maintain and nurture the driving economic forces that have lined the road to renewal in the past—a thriving university system, a culture of innovation and a receptiveness to immigrants.
In How American Can Rise Again, Fallow addresses the most current wave of declinists—in particular, those who fear that America’s economy is falling behind other nations’. “Will the rise of other economies mean the decline of opportunities within America? What happens when China or India have all the jobs and all the money?” America’s economic advantage may have more to do with immigration than you’d think.
According to Fallow, a prospering China means a larger world economy and a larger world economy means a greater opportunity for America to step up and flex one its biggest muscles: its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest. How does this translate into an economic advantage? America’s economic and cultural advantage over competing nations is dependent on innovation, a thriving education system and a working immigration policy—which if fostered correctly, will allow American businesses to compete and win on the international stage—keeping America’s economic engine ahead of the curve.
Fallow writes:
The American advantage here is broad and atmospheric, but it also depends on two specific policies that, in my view, are the absolute pillars of American strength: continued openness to immigration, and a continued concentration on universities that people around the world want to attend… As the only truly universal nation, the United States continually refreshes its connections with the rest of the world—through languages, family, education, business—in a way that no other nation does, or will.
Immigrants have consistently played a role in America’s economic vitality and the growth of small and large businesses. Consider these facts:
- Immigrants have had a disproportionate role in innovation and technology—founding such companies as Yahoo, eBay and Google.
- Half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants, up from 25% a decade ago.
- A recent study by the Kauffman Foundation found that immigrants are 50% likelier to start businesses than natives.
- Immigrant-founded technology firms employ 450,000 workers in the U.S. And according to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants have started one quarter of all U.S. venture-backed firms.
- Last year, three Nobel Prize winners were naturalized U.S. citizens.
While it’s easy for critics of immigration to shift the blame for our country’s job loss or our economic woes on immigrants—despite evidence to the contrary—they might do well to consider the role immigrants have played, and will continue to play, in America’s continued economic growth. America’s advantage is our open economy—and the opportunity to succeed exists for anyone with the ambition and drive to do so. And, as Fallow points out, it’s ours to lose.
Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times, says it best:
Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.
Photo by cwalker71.
