Immigration Lawyer Blog
Even though most Americans are putting money into the Social Security fund, those taxes are falling short of what’s needed to break even. Commentator Robert Reich, NPR says letting more immigrants into the U.S. may be the answer.
The biggest reason Social Security is in trouble, and Medicare as well, is because America is aging so fast. The baby boom generation is retiring. Seniors are living longer. And families are having fewer children.
Add it all up and the number of people who are working relative to the number who are retired keeps shrinking.
Thirty years ago there were five workers for every retiree. Now there are three. Within a couple of decades, there will be only two workers per retiree. There’s no way just two workers will be able or willing to pay enough payroll taxes to keep benefits flowing to every retiree.
This is where immigration comes in. Most immigrants are young because the impoverished countries they come from are demographically the opposite of rich countries. Rather than aging populations, their populations are bursting with young people.
Once the American economy recovers, most new immigrants to the U.S. will be working for many decades.
Get it? One logical way to deal with the crisis of funding Social Security and Medicare is to have more workers per retiree, and the simplest way to do that is to allow more immigrants into the United States.