Last updated on September 11, 2011
I have long believed that immigration is the key to our fiscal woes. The only way Americans will be able to afford and enjoy programs like Social Security and Medicare in the future (i.e., when the baby boom generation retires and there are relatively fewer workers to pay for social programs) is to allow would-be workers into the country so they can work (and stimulate demand) and pay taxes.
A post by the Center for Global Development’s Michael Clemens on the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters blog makes a broader point:
“What is the biggest single drag on the beleaguered global economy? Opponents of globalization might point to the current crisis, which shrank the world economy by about 5 percent. Proponents of globalization might point to the remaining barriers to international flows of goods and capital, which also serve to shrink the world economy by approximately 5 percent. That sounds like a lot.
But the truly big fish are swimming elsewhere. The world impoverishes itself much more through blocking international migration than any other single class of international policy. A modest relaxation of barriers to human mobility between countries would bring more global economic prosperity than the total elimination of all remaining policy barriers to goods trade — every tariff, every quota — plus the elimination of every last restriction on the free movement of capital.”
Michael also has an article (link opens a .pdf file) in the newest issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives on the topic, a summary of which should be recommended reading in civics classes throughout the country.