Can the Mexican Exodus Rejuvenate an Aging America?
Mexican migration, the report boasts, is a timely remedy for the aging of the U.S. labor force and the accompanying labor shortages. It cites such prestigious allies as Alan Greenspan and the AFL-CIO for its position. And it cites unspecified “available” studies showing that the migrants and their descendants will help pay the Social Security benefits of aging Americans and postpone the onset of insolvency in the Social Security system, now expected about 2036. Yet the report is blind to its own findings that bear on Mexican migrants’ potential to enrich the U.S. Social Security fund. Mexican workers in the United States now have high poverty rates, low earnings, and higher probability of employment in the (non-taxpaying) informal economy. Those conditions will only be worsened by the annual addition of 300,000 to 400, 000 low-skill Mexican workers during the next five decades. These cohorts are hardly a promising tax base for rescuing the Social Security fund. Because of a rapid fall-
