WSJ Article: The West Virginia Dilemma

[River_Dog]

I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and come across an article that has to do with a couple of pet peeve issues of mine, immigration and the labor shortage. I've copied and pasted the entire article as I did so in an email to a friend of mine with whom I've debated both topics with. As it states, it's a 9-minute read, but I think it's worth it.

Desperate for Workers but Dead Set Against Migrant Labor: The West Virginia Dilemma

Story by Paul Kiernan
• 5d • 9 min read

FRANKLIN, W.Va.—Not many places need warm bodies more than this picturesque town in the Appalachian Mountains. There are so many elderly people and so few workers to take care of them that some old folks have died before getting off the wait list for home visits by health aides.

“We advertise all the time,” said Janice Lantz, the local senior center’s director. “We can’t hire a direct-care worker.”
West Virginia shares a demographic dilemma afflicting many parts of the country: an aging population and unfilled jobs. Decades of migration out of Appalachia have left West Virginia older, less educated and less able to work than other parts of the U.S. Its labor-force participation rate—the share of the 16-and-older population either working or looking for work—was 55.2% in March, the second-lowest in the country.
Some other states, including Maine, Indiana and Utah, have sought immigrants to shore up their workforces. But while West Virginia represents one extreme in its labor needs, it represents another in its resistance to immigration.

Since last year, Republican Gov. Jim Justice has signed legislation banning “sanctuary cities” in West Virginia and deployed that state’s own National Guard troops to the Mexican border in Texas. State lawmakers have introduced bills that would: require businesses to conduct additional screening for unauthorized workers; punish companies for transporting migrants who are deportable under U.S. law; create a program to enable state authorities to remove even some immigrants with legal status to work; and appropriate money for Texas to install more razor wire along the Rio Grande.

In a recent television ad, Moore Capito, a former Republican state legislator running to succeed Gov. Justice in November, enacted a scene in which he blocks a van of migrants from entering the state.

There is little evidence that many recent immigrants—either those who entered the country legally or those who didn’t—have had any inclination to go to West Virginia, the only state with fewer residents than it had in 1940. The portion of its population that is foreign-born is 1.8%, the lowest of any state.

Local business groups representing manufacturers, bankers, real-estate agents, builders and auto dealers are lobbying against the proposed worker-screening legislation, which they say would deter needed workers and create burdensome and duplicative requirements.
“We should avoid sending messages, either overtly or through our actions, that this is not a good place to come if you’re willing to work,” said Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce. The state doesn’t need only doctors and engineers, he said, but manual laborers to “do the work that some of us have just gotten too old to do.”

West Virginia’s elected officials say they aren’t opposed to immigrants who have entered the country legally, only those who haven’t. Lawmakers intent on preventing a feared influx of migrants say they are motivated by rule of law—and a desire to put West Virginians first.
The worker shortage is especially dire in sparsely populated Pendleton County, where Franklin is the county seat.

The dining room at Franklin’s Star Hotel & Restaurant, adorned with taxidermied creatures including a black bear and a bobcat, has had to stop serving breakfast on weekdays or opening on weekends. “We can’t find help anywhere,” said Felicia Kimble, whose family owns the place.
General contractor Jay Nesselrodt said he has to turn down work every week because he can’t hire enough workers. A recent Tuesday found him juggling emails, phone calls and a paint roller at the Fisher Mountain golf course, where he is renovating the clubhouse.

“I’m supposed to be managing people,” he said. “Instead, I’m painting.” So was his wife, a lawyer.

Nesselrodt said he has long relied on Latin American immigrants who drive in from northern Virginia to do most of the painting, drywall and tile work at his jobs. They were tied up that day. When his brother died two years ago, they came to the funeral. “They’re like family,” he said.
Later that evening, at the Pendleton County High School boys’ basketball game, the gray-haired spectators outnumbered the students. Declining enrollment has meant that for the school to field teams, many athletic students need to play football, basketball and baseball, said Athletic Director Jackee Propst.

Local historians said the state has long been wary of outsiders, not just from other countries but from other states. “West Virginians don’t want immigration—of any kind,” said Stephen Smoot, editor of the Pendleton Times newspaper. There is even antipathy toward “come-heres” from nearby metropolitan areas who move in and look down their noses at locals, Smoot said.

Voters picked “Wild and Wonderful” as the state official slogan in 2007. Wildlife officials have reintroduced elk, locally extinct for more than a century. For many residents who fish, hunt or simply seek solitude in the hills and hollows, fewer humans is a plus.
“There’s a quality of life that comes from living in a sparsely populated area,” said Smoot. “You don’t have the irritations of constant human contact.”

National issue

Many of the migrants who have streamed over the nation’s southern border recently have been granted permission to work. Those who enter the country illegally often turn themselves in to federal authorities and request asylum, and some get permission to work while waiting for their claims to be adjudicated. In addition, the Biden administration has made many migrants who entered illegally, including roughly 470,000 Venezuelans last year, eligible for work permits under “temporary protected status.”

West Virginia has attracted few migrants in recent decades. Its lack of existing immigrant communities in its cities and towns has made it less likely for new migrants to head to those places, immigration experts said.

Nonetheless, in West Virginia as in much of the country, the border and migration are potent political issues. Nationally, more respondents to The Wall Street Journal’s February poll cited immigration and border security than any other issue as their most important concern in this fall’s election. Former President Donald Trump, the presumed Republican nominee, has made it a central part of his campaign. Trump carried 68% of West Virginia’s votes in 2020, his highest share of any state.

West Virginia state Sen. Mike Stuart, a Republican who sponsored one of the bills to fund for razor wire along the border in Texas, said immigration is among the top concerns he hears from voters. “I think we’re in a pre-emptive mode right now to try to make sure we don’t become a tent community like what we see on television,” he said.

Rabbi Victor Urecki, who set up a short-lived refugee-resettlement program in Charleston in 2016, said the state has become less welcoming since he moved to the area in the 1980s. He said Trump has tapped into a distrust of outsiders that is part of human nature but more potent in a place that remembers better days. “When things are falling apart,” he said, “it’s hard for people to look in the mirror.”

Some other places have viewed the recent immigration wave as an opportunity to have more workers generating economic output and tax revenue.
The capital of Kansas has launched a Spanish-language marketing campaign, “Choose Topeka,” hoping to draw workers to fill thousands of open jobs. Maine, one of just three states with a population older than West Virginia’s, is creating an Office of New Americans tasked with “welcoming and supporting immigrants to strengthen Maine’s workforce.”

The Republican governors of Utah and Indiana have asked Congress to let states sponsor immigrant visas to help them fill hundreds of thousands of open jobs. Utah also has extended in-state tuition to refugees, asylum seekers and other migrant groups.

Not everyone necessarily benefits from increased immigration. An influx of migrants could exacerbate housing shortages or put downward pressure on competing workers’ wages. Neither is much of a risk in West Virginia, which had the nation’s fourth-highest rate of vacant housing and the second-highest rate of job openings in 2023.

‘Vicious cycle’

The number of locations where business is conducted in West Virginia declined 9.3% between 2011 and 2021, according to the Census Bureau, the biggest drop in the U.S.

“We suffer from this vicious cycle,” said John Deskins, director of West Virginia University’s bureau of business and economic research. “The people who move away tend to be younger, more educated, more prepared for the workforce. And it makes the remainers older.”
Elected officials have tried almost everything they can think of to shore up the workforce, except encourage immigration. Justice signed into law last year what he said was the biggest income-tax cut in West Virginia history, advertised as, among other things, a way to attract workers and business.

The legislature, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 31-3 in the Senate and 89-11 in the House of Delegates, has weighed tightening requirements on unemployment benefits in hopes of nudging some of the unemployed back to work.
The state also relaxed qualification standards for public-school teachers, expedited permitting for major projects and floated measures to draw retired veterans.

Former Intuit CEO and native son Brad D. Smith, now president of Marshall University in Huntington, launched a program in 2021 offering $12,000 checks and free co-working space and outdoor-gear rentals to remote workers who relocate to the state. The program is only open to U.S. citizens and green-card holders, a criteria intended to attract people likely to stay in West Virginia long-term, administrators said. Four of the 226 grantees so far are from other countries: Germany, Canada, Ukraine and Colombia.

The governor has talked up the state’s tourism prospects. Justice owns the historic Greenbrier resort in the southeastern corner of the state, which has long employed international students and other foreign workers in seasonal jobs. Justice didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Pendleton County, which boasts trout streams, caverns and a sizable rock-climbing area, is the sort of place that the governor’s tourism push is designed to benefit. County commissioners say revenue from Airbnb rentals and second-home purchases has kept their budget growing even though the population has declined 21% since 2010, to around 6,000.

While tourists increase demand for services, though, they don’t boost the local workforce, exacerbating labor shortages.

In the five years that Lantz has run the Pendleton County Senior Center, the number of direct-care workers has declined to 12, from 30. Such workers help old people get out of bed, bathe and prepare meals, and they sometimes call 911. They are essential for the growing number of elderly who don’t have family nearby.

Few locals are drawn by the pay of $10 to $12 an hour, though. As a result, about 15 people are on the wait list for at-home care—almost as many as the senior center serves, Lantz said. Around five people on the list have died in recent years.
In many places, eldercare is performed disproportionately by immigrants. They make up 14% of the U.S. population but 32% of home-care workers, according to PHI, a nonprofit that advocates for such services.

But immigrants aren’t coming to Pendleton County on their own, and the county hasn’t taken any measures to encourage them. Local officials cited the lack of public transportation, language barriers, shortages of teachers and potential strains on the volunteer-based emergency services among the reasons.

A closed Navy facility in Sugar Grove with scores of housing units has been empty since 2015, and local officials only informally discussed the possibility of using it to house migrant workers at a JBS chicken plant in the neighboring county. A JBS spokeswoman said the company wasn’t approached about the idea, and is building a 153-unit apartment complex to provide affordable housing to plant workers.

Some Franklin residents, asked whether migrants are a potential solution to their labor woes, brought up a variety of concerns. “If they don’t work, there’s going to be crimes and drugs,” said one man who was chatting with the owner of the town’s used-furniture store.
Franklin’s representative in the state’s House of Delegates, Republican Elias Coop-Gonzalez, moved to West Virginia from Guatemala as a teenager—his father is American—making him one of the few foreign-born residents of his 94% white district.

This year, he co-sponsored a bill that would apply to a category of immigrants called “inspected unauthorized aliens”—those who haven’t entered the U.S. through an official port of entry but whom the federal government has allowed to stay and work while their legal status is in limbo.

If the bill becomes law, it would establish a program to transport them out of West Virginia.

“If people cross the border, and they can get away with breaking the law…it’s just going to exacerbate the problem,” Coop-Gonzalez said. Because the federal government is failing to secure the border, he said, “the state has to take some measures to push back.”

[Aseahawkfan]

I always wonder if it were still heavily European immigrants coming here we would have such a big anti-immigration push. But Europeans don't find America attractive any longer as a place to migrate to. Their nations have better living conditions than we do now in a lot of places. Better food. Better protections. More affordable healthcare. They take care of their people better in general.

So we're mostly getting darker skinned immigrants from poorer nations with very different religions and values from mainstream America. Which I think frightens white Americans and makes them feel overwhelmed, especially the older ones.

Given the birth rate and the fact that most white Americans don't want to work some s*** care job, there isn't going to be much of a choice but to bring in more immigrants. At least until robots become much more advanced and capable. If people can have robot caregivers that never tire or complain and always sound pleasant, they will use them and grow to prefer them.

[River_Dog]

One of the things I took away from that article is that it's not just racism or immigrants. Many West Virginians don't like outsiders period. My wife is somewhat like that. She's not a racist, but she hates meeting strangers, feels threatened and uncomfortable. I'm the exact opposite. I'm completely at ease in almost any social situation, especially if I have a drink in my hand. So West Virginia really has a double-edged sword, both the racial component and a general fear of any outsider.

One of the problems is that WV is essentially a segregated society. They don't like immigrants because they don't know them, and you fear most what you know least. If you hear someone talking in a language you don't understand, it unnerves you. It's a completely natural reaction that I've experienced myself but learned to cope with it because I had a couple of subordinates who I really liked and who liked me that talked to each other in Spanish all the time. Now if I go into a store and hear someone talking in Spanish, it doesn't bother me a bit.

I think that WV is a microcosm of white America, or at least the part of white America that's causing all the problems.

Robots and AI can help solve the work problem, but they don't pay taxes. We don't have enough young people paying into Social Security, Medicare, pensions, insurance, et al. That's as much of a reason for admitting more immigrants as the need for work to be done. We have a severe age demographic imbalance.

[Aseahawkfan]

One of the things I took away from that article is that it's not just racism or immigrants. Many West Virginians don't like outsiders period. My wife is somewhat like that. She's not a racist, but she hates meeting strangers, feels threatened and uncomfortable. I'm the exact opposite. I'm completely at ease in almost any social situation, especially if I have a drink in my hand. So West Virginia really has a double-edged sword, both the racial component and a general fear of any outsider.

One of the problems is that WV is essentially a segregated society. They don't like immigrants because they don't know them, and you fear most what you know least. If you hear someone talking in a language you don't understand, it unnerves you. It's a completely natural reaction that I've experienced myself but learned to cope with it because I had a couple of subordinates who I really liked and who liked me that talked to each other in Spanish all the time. Now if I go into a store and hear someone talking in Spanish, it doesn't bother me a bit.

I think that WV is a microcosm of white America, or at least the part of white America that's causing all the problems.

Robots and AI can help solve the work problem, but they don't pay taxes. We don't have enough young people paying into Social Security, Medicare, pensions, insurance, et al. That's as much of a reason for admitting more immigrants as the need for work to be done. We have a severe age demographic imbalance.

The age demographic imbalance seems to be a worldwide problem for first world nations. Seems prosperity and longer lifespans make people want to have less children.

[River_Dog]

The age demographic imbalance seems to be a worldwide problem for first world nations. Seems prosperity and longer lifespans make people want to have less children.

A lot of it has to do with access to contraceptives. In the US, the bottom fell out of the birth rate in the 60's due in large part to "the pill", oral contraceptives. Africa and other third world nations are just now catching up.

In addition to access to contraceptives, there are economic, social, and cultural factors at work. When I was a child, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. The economy was such that my dad could be the sole provider, at least until us kids were old enough to go to school. There was no such thing as day care. There weren't nearly as many jobs available for women, especially jobs where they could work while raising a family. Nowadays, with two working couples, many don't feel that they have the time or resources to start a family. That's likely part of what's going on in the third world as they become more modernized.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

We need the workers, that's for sure. There are too many jobs out there that our population doesn't want to do that these people will do. The issue comes from these jobs continuing to be under the table jobs that dodge payroll taxes, so it won't help with sustaining SS and Medicare. That's something that will have to be enforced, and, when that happens, prices of goods and services tied to formerly cheap immigrant labor will go up. I think that's ultimately necessary, but the public always wants low prices and low taxes. It is an odd dynamic where people want those two things, but then they get upset with societal cost of supporting cheap labor. Pick your poison.

[River_Dog]

We need the workers, that's for sure. There are too many jobs out there that our population doesn't want to do that these people will do. The issue comes from these jobs continuing to be under the table jobs that dodge payroll taxes, so it won't help with sustaining SS and Medicare. That's something that will have to be enforced, and, when that happens, prices of goods and services tied to formerly cheap immigrant labor will go up. I think that's ultimately necessary, but the public always wants low prices and low taxes. It is an odd dynamic where people want those two things, but then they get upset with societal cost of supporting cheap labor. Pick your poison.

Serious question: How much "under the table" work is being done with immigrants? What kinds of work is being paid under the table?

There always has been, and always will be, companies and individuals that skirt the rules and hire undocumented workers. But the large employers don't. They can't afford the bad PR if 60 Minutes were to break a story on them hiring illegals. Wouldn't Fox News love to get ahold of a story like that!

My former employer of which I worked nearly 30 years for, is an extremely ethical company, sometimes to a fault. They'll shut a plant down and layoff a hundred people before they'll knowingly hire 1 illegal. Any HR manager that did so would be fired on the spot. I can assure you that they don't hire undocumented workers and they don't contract with companies that do. Each of their 11 North American processing facilities have a minimum of 50 unfilled positions, and that includes skilled positions like electricians and welders. It is to the point where they can't run as many lines for as many hours as they would like to.

Anyhow, I'm sorry if that sounded like I'm a little testy, but you hit a raw nerve.

[c_hawkbob]

I don't think your old employer is typical. The meat packing plant that the last plant I worked at in Colorado sold steam to would get an ICE raid and lose fully a third of their workforce. And those were decent paying jobs ($14/hr and up in 2000's). I guarantee the ones working the fields for farmers were a much higher percentage illegal working for a whole lot less.

These crackdowns can be crippling to businesses and they're unnecessary. We need the labor and they're happy to supply it. And most of them are decent hard working folk that are sending half of their meager earnings back home to Guatemala or wherever to help their families. Our focus should be on pathways to legality rather than sending them all back to the "sh!thole countries" they're fleeing. Most Americans by birth won't take that sort of work, but it still needs to be done.

[River_Dog]

I don't think your old employer is typical. The meat packing plant that the last plant I worked at in Colorado sold steam to would get an ICE raid and lose fully a third of their workforce. And those were decent paying jobs ($14/hr and up in 2000's). I guarantee the ones working the fields for farmers were a much higher percentage illegal working for a whole lot less.

These crackdowns can be crippling to businesses and they're unnecessary. We need the labor and they're happy to supply it. And most of them are decent hard working folk that are sending half of their meager earnings back home to Guatemala or wherever to help their families. Our focus should be on pathways to legality rather than sending them all back to the "sh!thole countries" they're fleeing. Most Americans by birth won't take that sort of work, but it still needs to be done.

Yeah, and I can remember an ICE crackdown when I was on graveyard back in the late 70's working for Carnation Company in Moses Lake. But they weren't getting paid under the table. Most of the illegals were hired by an employment agency then contracted to us. But we paid them full wages. I know, because I used to hand out the paychecks.

I can also remember during that same period of time Pete Taggares sending old school busses to Eagle Pass, TX to pick up wet backs and bring them back to Othello to break a strike. I can cite other instances. But my experience is that these practices, although I don't doubt that it still goes on, it isn't nearly as prevalent as it once was.

I agree completely with your 2nd paragraph. If any of us were in the situation those folks are, we'd do the same thing. Hard working is an understatement. They'll bust their balls for you, and all they need in return is a smile and a thumbs up. And like I said in a different thread, 2 out of 3 illegals are such because they've overstayed their visas, meaning that they've come here legally and gone through a vetting process. Getting those people square with the law should be the focus. If they're supporting themselves, then extend their visas. Trump's villainization of immigrants is my #1 reason for not voting for him.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

But my experience is that these practices, although I don't doubt that it still goes on, it isn't nearly as prevalent as it once was.

All of us tend to really only know what goes on in our immediate sphere. This statement appears very difficult to apply across the entire nation. No, I don't know how prevalent it is either. I also am using the phrase "under the table" liberally. Undocumented workers may very well be getting an ITIN, file a tax return, and their employers may by paying the proper payroll taxes, but that doesn't amount to much if they aren't making proper wages with no benefits to boot. They are willing to work for less, and businesses take advantage of that. That doesn't help SS and Medicare as much as it would if they were making more.

I'm not knocking undocumented workers. I know many of them work hard and are willing to do the jobs most Americans won't. All I'm saying is there is a cost associated with having a cheap labor force of undocumented workers. What they can afford on their own, they'll obtain whatever additional assistance they can. We (as in general US population) can't have both low prices of goods and services on the back so a cheap labor force and then not expect to pay to support them through government services.

[Aseahawkfan]

A lot of it has to do with access to contraceptives. In the US, the bottom fell out of the birth rate in the 60's due in large part to "the pill", oral contraceptives. Africa and other third world nations are just now catching up.

In addition to access to contraceptives, there are economic, social, and cultural factors at work. When I was a child, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. The economy was such that my dad could be the sole provider, at least until us kids were old enough to go to school. There was no such thing as day care. There weren't nearly as many jobs available for women, especially jobs where they could work while raising a family. Nowadays, with two working couples, many don't feel that they have the time or resources to start a family. That's likely part of what's going on in the third world as they become more modernized.

It is my experience that what you say is partly true, but there is also just a straight up, "I don't want kids" mentality that grew from the increased prosperity which led to increased entertainment options and such. Contraceptives have had a net positive in my opinion as you don't want a bunch of people having kids that don't want them with no plan or resources to raise them.

Even someone like myself and quite a few friends and colleagues male and female find kids to be something we don't want. Some people love taking care of kids and all that comes with them, some folks find it tedious and unrewarding. We live a long time now. There is a lot to distract us from going to kid's ball games and such. Some of us, in fact quite a few, just don't want the cost and time sink of kids. Even many who do have kids don't want more than 1, maybe 2. The allure of children when you live a long time and have a lot of stuff you can do just isn't there even if you aren't using contraceptives. Survival pressures usually drive breeding rates and we don't have a lot of survival pressures now.

You would think increased prosperity and living a long time would lead to more children. I imagine when you consider it the longer lived you are and with less survival pressures less breeding is required to maintain your species dominance and survival, which would lead to a sort of malaise in breeding as you wouldn't feel a great deal of pressure to produce children to ensure species survival. It makes you wonder if this is occurring on an almost subconscious scale as some nations have instituted increased breeding directives in their economies like Germany and Japan and they don't appear to be working. Natives of those nations still have low interest in expanded breeding.

It will be interesting to watch as our lives are made even easier with even fewer survival pressures due to expanded use of robotics and AI. Economies will have to adjust to lower breeding rates and find ways to scale to take into account people who don't care about having kids. I imagine they could eventually create external wombs capable of breeding children at need outside the female, but not sure how far away that technology is or it will be obviated by AI and robotics.

[Aseahawkfan]

I don't think many undocumented workers are getting paid under the table by businesses myself, but definitely lots of undocumented or expired visa workers remain in the United States working. They're still paying payroll taxes.

I would imagine the majority of under the table workers would be in day work, food trucks, or small businesses that do lawn work or something that gets paid cash immediately and can pay out a reasonably small amount and not have the IRS breathing down their necks. Big businesses though I doubt are doing this.

Fox News don't run stories about ICE raids and under the table workers and wouldn't because huge Republican businesses in red states are doing it just as often as any Democrat in a blue state. They don't want to attack their voter base.

So Fox News run stories on immigrants that commit crimes or live on government cheese so they can rail against soft on crime Democrats and Democrats use of social welfare programs for illegal immigrants. That's like a two for one for Fox News story whereas outing businesses for using undocumented labor would be showing how often red state businesses use undocumented immigrants as well like all those meatpacking plants in Texas and Arizona and all the farm workers in nearly every state as well as construction companies.

Fox News and all those Republican politicians don't want that bad press for business in their states using undocumented workers in their labor force. Be for real, RD. There is a reason Fox News don't run those stories and it isn't because it isn't happening. It's because it would embarrass and piss off a huge number of their voting bloc and make Republicans look bad on immigration.

It's the plebes mad about immigration, not Republican business owners. The common folk with a vote Republicans can buy pretending they give a rip about immigration. I personally wouldn't be surprised if all the immigrants Abbott and Desantis sent to other states had jobs locally same day they arrived with politicians behind the scenes laughing about it saying, "Thanks for sending up those immigrants. My buddy running this construction job needed some more workers. Now we can spend the next week or so with Republicans claiming they did something about immigration and Democrats crying about how poorly treated the immigrants were." Win-win-win for both parties and local business people, plebes are made to feel happy as they argue with the friends and immigration is the issue that keeps on giving for both parties and business in America keeps on going.

Immigration is never going to be fixed for either side when it's just such an easy issue to get votes over and benefits American businesses so much.

[River_Dog]

It is my experience that what you say is partly true, but there is also just a straight up, "I don't want kids" mentality that grew from the increased prosperity which led to increased entertainment options and such. Contraceptives have had a net positive in my opinion as you don't want a bunch of people having kids that don't want them with no plan or resources to raise them.

Even someone like myself and quite a few friends and colleagues male and female find kids to be something we don't want. Some people love taking care of kids and all that comes with them, some folks find it tedious and unrewarding. We live a long time now. There is a lot to distract us from going to kid's ball games and such. Some of us, in fact quite a few, just don't want the cost and time sink of kids. Even many who do have kids don't want more than 1, maybe 2. The allure of children when you live a long time and have a lot of stuff you can do just isn't there even if you aren't using contraceptives. Survival pressures usually drive breeding rates and we don't have a lot of survival pressures now.

I'm not making a moral or ethical comment. All I was doing was stating a fact: The availability of contraceptives is a major reason for the decline in the birth rate.

The introduction of 'the pill' in the early 60's also had a profound social impact in the United States as it ushered in a period of free love, which lasted into the 70's when the AIDS scare began to discourage many from having unprotected and casual sex.

You would think increased prosperity and living a long time would lead to more children. I imagine when you consider it the longer lived you are and with less survival pressures less breeding is required to maintain your species dominance and survival, which would lead to a sort of malaise in breeding as you wouldn't feel a great deal of pressure to produce children to ensure species survival. It makes you wonder if this is occurring on an almost subconscious scale as some nations have instituted increased breeding directives in their economies like Germany and Japan and they don't appear to be working. Natives of those nations still have low interest in expanded breeding.

In the United States from 2010-19, unintended pregnancies have declined by 15%, slightly greater than the 12% decline in the overall rate. Much of that is represented in a steep decline in teenage pregnancies, which have declined by 52%.

The decline isn't from people not choosing to have children; It's in unintended pregnancies.

I

t will be interesting to watch as our lives are made even easier with even fewer survival pressures due to expanded use of robotics and AI. Economies will have to adjust to lower breeding rates and find ways to scale to take into account people who don't care about having kids. I imagine they could eventually create external wombs capable of breeding children at need outside the female, but not sure how far away that technology is or it will be obviated by AI and robotics.

You're dipping your toes into a whole new world and would re-ignite the debate about eugenics that was embraced by Hitler and Nazi Germany. Much of the religious community would consider what you're talking about as sacrilege.

[River_Dog]

I don't think many undocumented workers are getting paid under the table by businesses myself, but definitely lots of undocumented or expired visa workers remain in the United States working. They're still paying payroll taxes.

Yup. I can imagine a worker having to produce a green card on their employment application, but I doubt that they do a very good job of following it up once it has expired. But getting paid under the table, below minimum wage and ducking payroll taxes? I would seriously doubt that it happens on a large scale.

I would imagine the majority of under the table workers would be in day work, food trucks, or small businesses that do lawn work or something that gets paid cash immediately and can pay out a reasonably small amount and not have the IRS breathing down their necks. Big businesses though I doubt are doing this.

Fox News don't run stories about ICE raids and under the table workers and wouldn't because huge Republican businesses in red states are doing it just as often as any Democrat in a blue state. They don't want to attack their voter base.

So Fox News run stories on immigrants that commit crimes or live on government cheese so they can rail against soft on crime Democrats and Democrats use of social welfare programs for illegal immigrants. That's like a two for one for Fox News story whereas outing businesses for using undocumented labor would be showing how often red state businesses use undocumented immigrants as well like all those meatpacking plants in Texas and Arizona and all the farm workers in nearly every state as well as construction companies.

Fox News and all those Republican politicians don't want that bad press for business in their states using undocumented workers in their labor force. Be for real, RD. There is a reason Fox News don't run those stories and it isn't because it isn't happening. It's because it would embarrass and piss off a huge number of their voting bloc and make Republicans look bad on immigration.

It's the plebes mad about immigration, not Republican business owners. The common folk with a vote Republicans can buy pretending they give a rip about immigration. I personally wouldn't be surprised if all the immigrants Abbott and Desantis sent to other states had jobs locally same day they arrived with politicians behind the scenes laughing about it saying, "Thanks for sending up those immigrants. My buddy running this construction job needed some more workers. Now we can spend the next week or so with Republicans claiming they did something about immigration and Democrats crying about how poorly treated the immigrants were." Win-win-win for both parties and local business people, plebes are made to feel happy as they argue with the friends and immigration is the issue that keeps on giving for both parties and business in America keeps on going.

Immigration is never going to be fixed for either side when it's just such an easy issue to get votes over and benefits American businesses so much.

I don't doubt that a lot of businesses are unknowingly, or perhaps by willful ignorance, are employing illegal aliens. As I said above, I can imagine a scenario where a business will hire a person with a green card but not follow it up by making sure that they've either extended their temporary visa or gotten permanent residency or citizenship. But paying them under the table? I would be very surprised if a significant number of legitimate businesses of any size is paying their employees under the table and ducking payroll taxes.

In any event, these are not the types of people who represent a threat. The vast majority are doing an honest day's work and obeying the law. The drug runners, human traffickers, and other criminals are the ones we should be going after. Sending out the national guard to track down 20 million illegals like Trump wants to do, 2/3's of them who entered the country legally, is insane.

[Aseahawkfan]

In the United States from 2010-19, unintended pregnancies have declined by 15%, slightly greater than the 12% decline in the overall rate. Much of that is represented in a steep decline in teenage pregnancies, which have declined by 52%.

The decline isn't from people not choosing to have children; It's in unintended pregnancies.

The overall decline in birth rates is most certainly people choosing to have fewer children. Contraceptives are a choice, not a legal mandate save in places like China. So the use of contraceptives has given people more of a choice of when to have children and many folks are choosing a very low number or not at all.

If you look at your grandparents generation where having 3 or more children was fairly common with my grandparents having six does not account for contraception alone since the drop in birth rates is substantial. I'm sure many other people's grandparents had that many or more. My brother had two. I have none and not sure even at my old age if I even want any. I have a few friends with four. A few friends with none. A few friends with 1 or 2. The younger generation seems to want kids even less than my generation which would be 70s kids. The number of these mid 20s or early 30s people straight up saying, "I don't even want them" is surprising.

There is a documented trend amongst younger generations where they don't feel like having sex. Social media and the digital world has really altered human interactions in the dating market place.

This whole thing is a really deep and multilayered discussion across generations. Each generation seems to successively produce less people by choice as affluence has risen. Poor nations even with contraception don't tend to use it. It often seems tied to longer lifespans and increased prosperity. More wealth seems to allow people to spend less time at home making babies and more time traveling, going out, and engaged in hobbies and such there wasn't time for back in our grandparents day where work and home was kind of the way.

You're dipping your toes into a whole new world and would re-ignite the debate about eugenics that was embraced by Hitler and Nazi Germany. Much of the religious community would consider what you're talking about as sacrilege.

Voluntary eugenics is coming. It's not if, but when. Playing with genes is a work in progress and that train ain't stopping. All those scifi movies you watched on eugenics is in the pipeline and the folks making the tech aren't going to stop it. They're going to make it better and better. If you could magically come back in a few hundred years, you'll either find the world destroyed or be able to order a baby made the way you want it. That's the extreme path forward.

[Aseahawkfan]

I don't doubt that a lot of businesses are unknowingly, or perhaps by willful ignorance, are employing illegal aliens. As I said above, I can imagine a scenario where a business will hire a person with a green card but not follow it up by making sure that they've either extended their temporary visa or gotten permanent residency or citizenship. But paying them under the table? I would be very surprised if a significant number of legitimate businesses of any size is paying their employees under the table and ducking payroll taxes.

In any event, these are not the types of people who represent a threat. The vast majority are doing an honest day's work and obeying the law. The drug runners, human traffickers, and other criminals are the ones we should be going after. Sending out the national guard to track down 20 million illegals like Trump wants to do, 2/3's of them who entered the country legally, is insane.

Jeffrey Epstein trafficked in young women. You will notice that both Democrats and Republicans were caught hanging out with Epstein. I'm sorry. I just don't trust much of it anymore. These politicians are gaming us. They are the big money funding a lot of human trafficking and sex trafficking and prostitution and drugs and such. They and their rich supporters who like being able to pay for anything they want.

They only care about stuff to push lip service for votes. If they get caught, they cover it up and engage in damage control. I don't trust them and I don't expect any real change on any of those issues unless the wealthy are well shielded from any downside fallout besides maybe sacrificing a few of their own to the mob to calm them down.

Immigrants are just pawns in the political game. It's why there has been no meaningful change one way or the other in the immigration laws of America and no slow down in immigration. I don't expect any change any time soon. Just more empty rhetoric.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

I'm using "under the table" liberally. Yes, many are still hired with ITIN's and have payroll taxes deducted, but this wouldn't be happening on the scale it is if it wasn't profitable for the employer. My in-laws had to do this for their nursery when their competitors started hiring undocumented workers. They were willing to work for a lot less. I've no doubt the crew that came out to take down my 120' pine tree was staffed with undocumented workers given the price. I know the DIY seller I bought my house from used undocumented workers to replace the roof; he was construction worker who had an in on materials and access to these workers, so I'm sure he saved a lot.

All that said, my main aims were:

1. This type of work isn't going to stabilize funding for SS and Medicare since 2.9% and 12.4% is exactly a lot when it comes out of minimum wage.
2. Undocumented workers are a cheap labor force and that comes with a societal cost via government benefits.

I'm not vilifying undocumented workers. I know many work hard and do jobs most Americans don't want to do. I'm merely stating society has to accept the additional costs that come with having such a labor force. Unless wages increase and benefits are provided, people can't be upset that these workers grab whatever government benefits they can qualify for to survive.

[River_Dog]

I'm using "under the table" liberally. Yes, many are still hired with ITIN's and have payroll taxes deducted, but this wouldn't be happening on the scale it is if it wasn't profitable for the employer. My in-laws had to do this for their nursery when their competitors started hiring undocumented workers. They were willing to work for a lot less. I've no doubt the crew that came out to take down my 120' pine tree was staffed with undocumented workers given the price. I know the DIY seller I bought my house from used undocumented workers to replace the roof; he was construction worker who had an in on materials and access to these workers, so I'm sure he saved a lot.

I have no doubt that there are small businesses that are paying "under the table", for the lack of a better term. Nurseries like the ones your in-laws had to compete with, lawn care and landscaping businesses, home/office cleaning and other domestic services, small time agricultural operations like wineries and orchards, and so on.

But that's been going on with these types of mom-and-pop businesses for decades. What has changed is that large companies such as my former employer, a potato processor that employs several thousand workers and used to engage in that practice when I first entered the business back in 1978, no longer do so. They have a lot more to lose than the smaller companies.

All that said, my main aims were:

1. This type of work isn't going to stabilize funding for SS and Medicare since 2.9% and 12.4% is exactly a lot when it comes out of minimum wage.
2. Undocumented workers are a cheap labor force and that comes with a societal cost via government benefits.

I'm not vilifying undocumented workers. I know many work hard and do jobs most Americans don't want to do. I'm merely stating society has to accept the additional costs that come with having such a labor force. Unless wages increase and benefits are provided, people can't be upset that these workers grab whatever government benefits they can qualify for to survive.

I don't disagree with any of that. What I am questioning is the scale on which those practices happen. Based on what I experienced back in the late 70's/early 80's, my sense is that it doesn't represent a very large percentage of the total and is much lower than it was 40-50 years ago, and therefore, I don't see a huge need to spend our very limited resources in correcting it. If those people are obeying the law and are doing such work voluntarily, leave them alone. There are bigger fish to fry.

I'll give you an example of a bigger fish. It's a well-known fact that many of these massage parlors, mostly Asian, are nothing more than a front for prostitution. They recruit young women, 18-25 mostly from SE Asia, Korea, Philippines, China, etc, and bring them into this country on temporary visas and force them to engage in prostitution. They'll house them in the business, restrict their ability to leave the building. It's as close to slavery as you'll find in this country. They busted several here locally a few months ago.

Those are the types of businesses we should be going after, ie human trafficking, drugs, etc.