The federal government and state officials ought to rebuild America’s heartland by driving waves of mass immigration to the region, the editors of the Washington Post suggest.
Rather than putting incentives in place to increase birth rates or entice residents to stay, the Washington Post editorial board writes that the government should use mass immigration to spike population in middle America.
The Post editors write:
Depopulation is bad for economies. Housing prices tank, local tax revenue collapses, the labor force shrinks, businesses go bust or leave, schools close. “All problems get harder because of population loss,” notes John Lettieri of the Economic Innovation Group. “To a first approximation problems would ease with more people of working age.” [Emphasis added]
There would be upfront costs. Shuttered schools would need to be refurbished. Local services might be strained, at first. But migrants would provide not only labor — potentially useful for elderly residents, who need help with tasks such as cooking or shopping, left behind in these places. [Emphasis added]
Migrants would also add to local demand, lifting tax revenue. Many would open small businesses. Given an initial boost — perhaps with state funds, as well as migrants’ savings — they could help build a future for places that, today, don’t seem to have one. As Enrico Moretti of the University of California noted, “For a locality it might not be a bad bet.” And from migrants’ perspectives, legacy cities offer one critical advantage: cheap, available housing. [Emphasis added]
Despite the Post editors’ suggestion, President Joe Biden has already increased the foreign-born population to a whopping 51.4 million — the largest ever recorded in American history. In Biden’s first three years as president, he grew the foreign-born population by 6.4 million.
For comparison, in 1990, fewer than 20 million foreign-born residents lived in the United States.
By 2060, without a reduction in immigration levels, the U.S. population is set to hit nearly 400 million. As of 2022, the population was already at its highest in American history at 333 million residents.
