The country’s aging population and low fertility rate jeopardizes the solvency of Social Security and the Medicare program, according to a new study by Brookings
The immigration crisis has become a recurring theme in social gatherings and political debates, and is the main issue of the U.S. presidential election. Amid this discussion, one certainty stands out: while it’s well known that migrants have a need to live in the United States, a study has highlighted that the country needs them too.
Twenty percent of U.S. workers were not born in the United States, and it is expected that in the near future more than seven million more migrants will be needed for the labor market. That’s according to a study by Brookings, which warns about how the higher-than-expected increase in pensioners following the Covid-19 pandemic will affect the U.S. economy.
As the baby boomer generation approaches age 80, two challenges are facing the U.S. economy: providing staff to care for the elderly and ensuring the solvency of Social Security and the Medicare program.
Why do they need immigrants? There are people here now who need jobs, they can do it.
If I hear “immigrants will accept lower wages” one more fucking time I’m going to lose it, that’s just an intentional creation of a lower class, it’s feudalistic and coercive. Same thing with farm labor. Pay a reasonable amount and local people will do it.
Right! Long-term care sucks for a myriad of reasons - low pay, chronic short staffing, physical demand, dealing with combative demented patients, wiping asses all day. But if you PAY people enough, they will work it.
Because unemployment isn’t really that low. When we talk about “people here now who could use those jobs”, we’re usually talking about people in dead end jobs that could use a career job.
So great, pull them into our elder care system, give them a career level up…now their old jobs are still unfilled. And while we’re super shitty as a country towards entry level service workers, we also as a country really want those jobs to be filled. So we’d need to fill that gap in the employment pool somehow.
Maybe we shouldn’t have the idea of a dead end job in the first place. Almost all work should be valid and provide livable wages. There shouldn’t be a class of jobs “just for kids”. As if their time is less valuable anyways. This is a super late stage capitalist viewpoint.
A job can be well paid and still be considered “dead end”. Just means there’s no room for advancement or growth. Has nothing to do with capitalism or wages, really.
Only if constant growth and expansion of capital IE capitalism is your goal. If it’s a job you simply enjoy or people you enjoy working with Etc there may not be room for advancement. But why would you want to? Granted many people do not have that. They’re wage slaves for capitalists. Point is the whole concept of a dead-end job is inherently a capitalist thing. If a job takes care of your needs and is Pleasant enough. Who cares if there’s room for advancement.
You’re hearing what you want to hear. “Growth” is not financial growth. It’s not wages, I thought that was made clear in the end sentence. Growth is like personal growth or professional growth. Learning things. Becoming more. No stagnating.
But hey, if you’re happy in a “dead end” job more power to you. I wasn’t necessarily arguing against it. I was just trying to clarify that “dead end” does not refer (solely) to wages.
Or eliminate the cap on the tax so they actually pay their fair share. That would fix all the problems that Social Security and Medicare have in an instant.
I make a little more than double the cap. I’m in favor of increasing or eliminating the cap but that would double my check in the future. (Not quite, I haven’t made double the cap my entire working life, but it would increase it a lot.) That would still help a bit because not all of our withholdings go to basic social security. Some goes to disability, spousal benefits, etc. Increasing taxes and benefits proportionally, which is the way benefits are structured now, doesn’t solve anything.
I believe social security has a lot of value so I’m in favor of not just fixing the funding, but expanding it as well. But if you want to make it healthier just with payroll taxes they would have to be progressive, like income tax, without increasing benefits.
Seems like you don’t know how the SS bend points work.
