3.8- Challenges and Opportunities

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Immigration

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Immigration has played a central role in populating both the United States and Canada. Since the 1700's, a majority of people in North America have descended primarily from European immigrants, African slaves, and Native Americans. New immigration is coming from East and South Asia and Middle and South America. Migration from these regions will make North America a region where people of non-European or mixed descent will become the majority by 2050.

In the U.S., the spatial pattern of immigration is also changing. For decades, immigrants settled mainly in coastal or border states such as New York, Florida, Texas, or California. However, since 1990, more immigrants have been settling in interior states such as Illinois, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. 

There has been a long and illustrious history of discrimination and outright hostility towards immigrants in the United States - ironic for a country of immigrants. Today is no different.

Certain questions seem to come up repeatedly about the possible negative impacts  of immigration:

Do new immigrants cost taxpayers too much money?

Numerous studies show that immigrants contribute more to the US economy than they cost.

Do immigrants take jobs away from citizens?

The least educated, least skilled American workers are the most likely to compete with immigrants for jobs. It is possible that a large pool of immigrants could drive down wages in fields like roofing, landscaping and general construction. The research, however,  is inconclusive.

Are too many immigrants being admitted?

Immigrants have accounted for 78% of the US population growth in the 1990’s. It can be argued that the growth from immigrants may be the only thing standing between the US and the kinds of labor force problems other Western Nations are or will be facing.

Race and Ethnicity

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Numerous surveys show that a large majority of North Americans of all backgrounds favor equal opportunities for racial and ethnic minority groups. Nonetheless, in the United States, and to a lesser extent Canada, people of color regularly encounter discrimination, and statistics show that, with the exception of Asians, they have higher poverty rates, lower life expectancies, higher infant mortality rates, lower levels of academic achievement, and higher unemployment that whites. 

The US has a long history of racially polarizing politics, but there appears to be a backlash against the growing racial diversity in America. In some segments of the white population, fear of becoming a minority by 2050 is driving renewed racial tensions. While Asians are the fastest-growing ethnic group, Latinos are the largest minority group, having overtaken African Americans in 2001.

While whites will eventually be a minority in North America, they have dominated for so long that the economic and political systems they have created will continue to favor them long after they are a minority. Gerrymandering ( the practice of manipulating the boundaries of political districts to benefit of candidates of a particular group) is one example of institutions benefiting whites.  Through gerrymandering, Republicans won control of 55 percent of seats in the US House with only 49 percent of the vote. With the Republican Party over 80% white and the Democratic Party 40%  people of color, gerrymandering successfully allowed white political power to prevail.

An avalanche of news stories about police shooting unarmed people of color has occurred. While coverage in the news is new, unwarranted shootings by police disproportionately affecting people of color is in fact, an old story and a startlingly common one.  African Americans are roughly three times more likely to be shot by police as whites, and fewer than one-third  of African Americans shot be police are suspected or a crime and armed.  Perhaps the only good news in this, is that these stories are finally being told and white Americans are becoming more aware.

Wealth and Income Inequality

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Income is the flow of money that comes into a household from employers, owning a business, state benefits, rents on properties, and so on. Wealth essentially represents people’s savings and it’s typically higher and spread out more unevenly than income. 

Wealth is distributed in a highly unequal fashion, with the wealthiest 1 percent of families in the United States holding about 40 percent of all wealth and the bottom 90 percent of families holding less than one-quarter of all wealth. Wealth disparities have widened over time. In 1989, the bottom 90 percent of the U.S. population held 33 percent of all wealth. By 2016, the bottom 90 percent of the population held only 23 percent of wealth. The wealth share of the top 1 percent increased from about 30 percent to about 40 percent over the same period.

Income disparities are so pronounced that America’s top 10 percent now average more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent. Income inequality in the U.S. is the highest of all the G7 nations, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Canada, by contrast, has the second lowest income equality of the G7 members. Overall, 61% of Americans say there is too much economic inequality in the country today, but views differ by political party and household income level. Among Republicans and those who lean 

toward the GOP, 41% say there is too much inequality in the U.S., compared with 78% of Democrats and Democratic leaners, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in September 2019 found.

There is a persistent gap between black and white income. Median black household income was 61% of median white household income in 2018, up modestly from 56% in 1970 – but down slightly from 63% in 2007, before the Great Recession.

There is also persistent gender inequity. Men make up an overwhelming majority of top earners across the U.S. economy, even though women now represent almost half of the country’s workforce. According to analysis by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, women comprise just 27 percent of the top 10 percent, and their share of higher income groups runs even smaller. Among the top 1 percent, women make up slightly less than 17 percent, while at the top 0.1 percent level, they make up only 11 percent.

Middle-class incomes have grown at a slower rate than upper-tier incomes over the past five decades.  From 1970 to 2018, the median middle-class income increased 49%. By comparison, the median income for upper-tier households grew 64% over that time.

The share of American adults who live in middle-income households has decreased from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019. During this time, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 14% to 20%, and the share in the lower-income tier increased from 25% to 29%.

Income and wealth inequality only appear to be growing in the U.S.