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The United States will need 7 million migrants to cover old age support programs for baby boomers (english.elpais.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

56 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Okay okay, but no body will bring up the pose on the photo? WTF people! What are those fools doing? It's like a hybrid between tobacco harvesting and processing and maybe some sort of naughty yoga thing for TikTok or the P hub? ... Free use tabaco leave processing?...hey Pedro! I see you're hard at work!... Well you don't mind if....

Anyway, I don't know what the guys are supposed to be doing just by looking at the photo. It's missing some sort of explanatory legend.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"We need 7 million migrants!"

"Sorry, best I can do is a border wall made out of shipping containers. Promises made, promises kept."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Don’t forget the abortion bans and the push from people like Elon Musk to have more children (with no financial incentive to do so, of course)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If you look at a chart, it's easy to see where the money should come from.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 4 months ago (2 children)

"The United States needs 7 million immigrants to keep the blood of the capitalist machine running or else it'll have to add taxes to the rich 😱"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

You know the ones who, at the same time, want to pay people to "support boomers" a non-livable wage are many of the same ones who need the boomers' vote to stay in power... Something tells me the solution to both problems is in there... 🤷🏼‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Or ya know, pay people more

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Am I crazy or does that not even sound like much? I'm not even sure if I'd notice 7 million immigrants coming into the country, at least if they were relatively spread out. The US is big and we already have lots of different types of people.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Seems like you don't know how the SS bend points work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Removing the cap would go a long way, but it's not enough by itself. We'll still need more people, or a time machine with a fertility clinic in it. From what I can tell, boomers seem to be thinking we're going to find that time machine somehow.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

That's why abortion has been under fire for decades and contraceptives are next, which i bet wil make the Korean 4b movement explode here.

Which then begs the question of will we back off cause birth rates are generally unaffected but with less "for fun" sex or go full handmaids tale.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I've never seen any math that disproved that. Now if you're looking at actual federal income tax paid, maybe, but social security tax is based on income, it doesn't get reduced by often fraudulent deductions and credits. So a lot more income is taxable under social security tax than federal income tax which is laden with loopholes and complexities. So when Jeff Bezos in 2007 paid $0 in income tax, he likely would have paid tens or hundreds of millions in Social Security tax if there wasn't a cap, because he did have income. Of course, we aren't legally able to get the actual numbers because of privacy laws, but there have been some leaks recently if you want to see some of the numbers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2022/11/social-security-reform-options-to-raise-revenues

There's a ton of right wing sites that would tell you eliminating the cap is a complete waste of time horrible for the economy, bringer of the end of days, etc.

Bezos, like many ultra wealthy, most likely paid himself some token amount in wages. Many CEO's used to pay themselves $1, just to say they had an income. They have accountants that decide how much he should claim as wages, just to maximize the returns from Social Security, without paying into it any more than needed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

And the guy who leaked the tax info of the billionaires got sentenced to prison beyond the maximum threshold - because the judge explicitly wanted to make an example of him.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Good thing we have all those open borders with people flowing over constantly. /s

[–] [email protected] 94 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The US will do anything except tax rich people

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It’ll trickle down. Ronnie said it would.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Old age support programs? Ah, I thought that was just called "I had to quit my job 7 months ago to take care of my father."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

One of the good things about abusive parents is to tell them to eat shit when they get older.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

My mom spent 6 months giving her mother around the clock care before my grandmother died. Afterwards, my mom told me to put her ass in a care facility if she ever needed care like that. I said okay, but didn't tell her that I had already planned on doing that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

This is where technology advancement need to be focused. I'm looking at smart home stuff right now so that I can automate as much of my house before I get old. Memory? We currently have AI transcription and context processing medallions, think of a decade of progress on that could get us to (please keep it opensource and the transcripts out of corporate hands). Walking? Well, lots of exo-skeletons out there. One might take off - I'm hopping for a balloon powered one. Dementia? Actual good use of context-aware genAI. Medications? Diabetics already have smart pumps, why not work on something like that for other medications?

I think once the babyboomers pass through the system, hopefully the next generations will finally begin to embrace technology and lessen the need for so many healthcare workers. I want LAN parties at my nursing home, not shuffleboard.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Tangential to the topic, these photos choices are wild. The out of focus grammy photo bomb, and what does tobacco farming have to do with the problem?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Well, it's extremely unfortunate then that the last half-century of zoning and building policies have put us two million homes in the hole. Where y'all plan on putting millions of surplus people, broken down RVs in the Walmart parking lot? (Except now it's also illegal to be homeless in many places... It's hard to pay into social security when you've been fired for your job after getting arrested for "loitering"!)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

According to this 2022 YouGov poll, respondents over the age of 65:

31% want to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
22% support increasing the number of legal immigrants vs 36% who want to decrease the number of legal immigrants. 42% either want no change or are not sure.
61% think that immigrants detained at the Mexico border are being treated humanely.

Overall, it looks like the plurality (42%) of Americans believe immigration has made the U.S. better. A minority (25%) of Americans believe immigration has made the US worse, and less than that (16%) believe it has not made much of a difference.

So for boomers specifically, it looks like around two-thirds are digging their own grave here.

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