Brookings: Topics - Demographics

Minority Turnout Determined the 2012 Election

William H. Frey — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:49:00 -0400

While it may seem like the 2012 presidential election has been analyzed to death, the recent release of the Census Bureau’s November election survey points out the key role that minority voter turnout, especially for blacks, played in determining the outcome.

Until now, most of what we knew came from the National Election Pool exit poll which elicited Election Day candidate preferences of voters. The new, larger survey from the Census Bureau permits an examination of the voting-eligible population and the extent to which they turned out to vote. These turnout rates tell us a lot more about the enthusiasm, or lack thereof, among different groups.

Already, the Census Bureau’s report trumpeted the historically noteworthy finding that black turnout rates in 2012 exceeded that of whites for the first time. This, in an election when white turnout declined significantly and Hispanic and Asian turnout inched down modestly from 2008.

The rising black turnout can be viewed, to some degree, as continued strong support for the first black president. The downturn of white turnout might be attributed, in part, to a lack of enthusiasm for either candidate or politics in general during a sluggish economy.

Before the election I made the case that a Democratic win would require a high minority turnout rate to counter what I then thought would be high turnout on the part of an energized Republican-voting white population. According to these new data, I was wrong about the rise in white turnout. But the question still remains: Was high minority turnout necessary for Obama to have won the national vote?

Changing Demographics, Turnout and Voting Margins

To answer this question now and in the future, an examination of the role of turnout in the context of the changing face of America’s electorate and the strong racial and ethnic preferences for Democratic and Republican candidates provides insight.

From purely an accounting perspective, shifts in election outcomes can be viewed as a product of (1) demographic changes in the eligible voter population; (2) changes in the turnout of different groups of eligible voters; and (3) the candidate preferences of those who vote. A look at the patterns for the three previous elections shows a striking move toward the Democrats on each of these dimensions.

With respect to eligible voters, the (typically Republican-leaning) white share of the electorate declined from 75.5 to 71.1 percent between 2004 and 2012 (Figure 1). During this period, the (typically Democratic leaning) combined black and Hispanic electorate rose to approach nearly quarter of eligible voters—a fraction that will rise in the future as more U.S.-born Hispanic children reach age 18.

In contrast to the constant shifts in eligible voter demographics, racial and ethnic trends in turnout and voter margins take a sharper turn after 2004.

White turnout continued to dive after the 2004 election when it was at a post 1992 high (Figure 2). In contrast, minority and especially black turnout moved in the opposite direction. The black turnout rates of 64.7 percent and 66.2 percent in the past two elections were the highest since 1968 when Census surveys began. Hispanic and Asian turnout improved markedly after 2004. For both groups, turnouts for the 2008 and 2012 elections were higher than any year since 1992.

With respect to voting margins, all three minority groups favored Democrats more strongly in the two post 2004 elections (Figure 3). The “tepid” 2004 black Democratic margin of 77 rose to 91 and 87 in the subsequent two elections, the highest margins in 40 years. Hispanic and Asian margins for Democrats also rose markedly for 2008 and 2012

For whites, the 2004 Republican margin was high by historical standards at 17. It declined in 2008 but then rose to an extremely high 20 in 2012—the largest white Republican margin since the 1984 Reagan-Mondale election.

So overall, compared with 2004, minorities showed: higher shares of eligible voters, higher turnout rates, and higher Democratic margins in the two most recent elections. For whites, on the other hand, post-2004 elections showed smaller shares of eligible voters and lower turnout. White voters did vote more strongly Republican in 2012, but this was offset by reduced turnout

The result, of course, was Obama wins in both 2008 and 2012. But how much of this is due to the rise in minority turnout and decline in turnout for whites?

With 2004 Turnout Levels: Republicans win in 2012 but not 2016

To assess the impact of turnout alone on the 2012 election I assumed that the national electorate had the size and racial and ethnic composition of the new Census survey and applied to it the more “Republican favorable” turnout rates of 2004 for each racial and ethnic group, as shown in Figure 2. This of course resulted in more white voters and fewer minority voters than actually occurred in 2012. To these voter populations, I applied the actual 2012 voting margins as shown in Figure 3. The result of this exercise was a small 2012 Romney win of 9,000 votes—a virtual tossup. Thus it might be said that the high minority and low white turnout rates of 2012 were responsible for Obama taking the national vote, irrespective of the changing demography of the electorate.

To see how much difference the higher 2012 turnout of minorities alone made in the final outcome, I conducted the same exercise assuming the “low” 2004 turnout rates for blacks, Hispanics and Asians, but with the actual 2012 white turnout rates. Under this scenario, the 2012 election is close with Obama ahead, but barely. So we might say that the high turnout of minorities, and blacks especially, did make a difference in the outcome of the 2012 election.

As a final exercise, I produced projections for the 2016 and 2020 elections which adjust Census Bureau population projections to estimate eligible voter populations by race and ethnicity in those years. Again, I contrast election outcomes, assuming 2004 “Republican favorable” versus 2012 “Democratic favorable” turnout rates, but in each case applying 2012 voter margins to each racial and ethnic group. This time, the Democratic candidates win under each scenario in each election, though with smaller margins when 2004 turnout rates are assumed.

What this tells me is that turnout will be less important for Democratic victory as demography changes in their favor, though they must maintain their strong voting margins among blacks, Hispanics and Asians. For Republicans, the latter projections show that they cannot count primarily on white support to take the White House. Even assuming high 2004 turnout rates and 2012 Republican voting margins for whites, they cannot win unless they also peel off more votes among minorities. In this regard, demography indeed becomes destiny.

Authors

William H. Frey

Image Source: © Darren Hauck / Reuters

Metropolitan Washington: A New Immigrant Gateway

Audrey Singer — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: In an introductory chapter to Hispanic Migration and Urban Development: Studies from Washington, DC (Emerald Group Publishing, 2012), Audrey Singer describes the ascent of metropolitan Washington from an area with low levels of immigration to a major U.S. destination.

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the ascent of Metropolitan Washington from an area with low levels of immigration area to a major U.S. destination.

Methodology/approach: Drawing on a growing body of research on immigration to Washington, D.C. and data from the American Community Survey (ACS), trends are examined in detail to illustrate how this immigrant gateway fits into the national historical picture.

Findings: The findings analyze the historical comparative settlement patterns of immigrants to the United States to demonstrate how Washington has emerged as the 7th largest immigrant gateway. It further analyzes metropolitan level data on country of origin and residence to show the diversity of the immigrant population and their disbursal to suburban areas from the central core over the past four decades.

Social implications: The paper also highlights some conflict in new suburban destinations within metropolitan Washington that experienced fast and recent growth. But immigrant incorporation has worked well in the past and Washington can continue to work to be a model of immigrant integration as local organizations, governments, and communities continue to confront the challenges of immigration in productive and sustainable ways.

Originality/value of paper: This paper combines the historical settlement of immigrants across America with and in depth examination of one of the newest and largest immigrant gateways, the U.S. capitol region, Washington, D.C.

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Authors

Audrey Singer

Publication: Emerald Group Publishing

Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China’s One-Child Policy?

Feng Wang, Yong Cai and Baochang Gu — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

One of the main puzzles of modern population and social history is why, among all countries confronting rapid population growth in the second half of the twentieth century, China chose to adopt an extreme measure of birth control known as the one-child policy. A related question is why such a policy, acknowledged to have many undesirable consequences, has been retained for so long, even beyond the period of time anticipated by its creators.

With the world’s population growth rate now at half its historical peak level and with nearly half of the world’s population living in countries with fertility below replacement level, we can look back at the role politics played in formulating, implementing, and reformulating policies aimed at slowing population growth (Demeny and McNicoll 2006; Robinson and Ross 2007; Demeny 2011). In this context, an examination of China’s unprecedented government intervention in reproduction offers valuable lessons in appreciating the role of politics in the global effort of birth control in the twentieth century.

Aside from the rise and fall of Communism, family planning programs along with the Green Revolution could be considered two of the most consequential social experiments of the twentieth century. These two experiments differ, however, in both content and approach. The Green Revolution was aimed at feeding the population, while family planning programs were designed to curtail its growth. The Green Revolution was technological, economic, and global, while family planning programs were social, political, and often country specific.

Nowhere in the world did politics and policies figure more prominently in the effort to control population growth than in China. The policy of allowing all couples to have only one child finds no equal in the world and it may be one of the most draconian examples of government social engineering ever seen. In this essay, we cast China’s one-child policy in the changing global context of population policymaking, we revisit the supposed necessity of such a policy by examining the claim that the policy was responsible for preventing 400 million births, and we discuss the reasons such a policy, with all its known negative consequences, has been allowed to stay in place for more than thirty years since its inception.

Editor's Note: this paper first appeared in Population and Development Review, published by the Population Council.

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Authors

Feng Wang
Yong Cai
Baochang Gu

Publication: Population and Development Review 38 (Supplement): 115–129 (2012)

How the Politics of Immigration Reform Have Changed

Darrell M. West — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Last Fall, it would have been hard to imagine Republicans and Democrats working together to fix our broken immigration system. The country was locked in highly polarized discussions about a number of major issues and political dysfunction in Washington created little hope of action on this contentious subject.

But now we have leading Democrats and Republicans who have announced their support of a bipartisan reform package. With the Senate moving towards action, House Republicans indicating we should be open to immigrants, and President Barack Obama making immigration reform a top priority, the country appears close to taking meaningful action on this important issue. While there are many hurdles yet to overcome, it is important to note the dramatic changes in the politics of immigration reform that have unfolded in the past few months.

Romney Got Only 27 Percent of Hispanic Vote, Down From Bush's 44 Percent in 2004

The poor performance of Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 election is the major driving force behind the changing dynamics of immigration reform. With Hispanics a growing percentage of the overall electorate (10 percent nationally) and its voters concentrated in key swing states, it is hard for the GOP to remain competitive in national races without a better showing among Latino voters. According to election exit polls, Latinos comprised 19 percent of the 2012 vote in Nevada, 17 percent in Florida, and 14 percent in Colorado.

Immigrants Have Moved into the Heartland and out to the Suburbs

The politics of immigration reform have been altered by where immigrants locate. As Brookings Institution demographer Audrey Singer has pointed out, new immigrants used to cluster more in coastal urban areas. However, in recent years, they have moved into the heartland of the United States and into suburban areas. This means that many Republicans and Democrats who previously had few immigrants in their districts and therefore faced no local pressure to address immigrant problems no longer are shielded from their districts. They are encountered the same complaints as elsewhere about a broken immigration system, difficulty navigating local services, and the need to help new arrivals get integrated into social and economic life.

White Percentage of the Vote Is Dropping

Republicans have done well nationally through an electoral coalition centering on white, male voters, but that is a shrinking part of the overall electorate. Whites comprise about 72 percent of GOP candidates are doing well with a declining part of the electorate and therefore need to think seriously about their long-term prospects. The Republican party clearly can continue to win Congressional races, but will have difficulty at the presidential level due to changing demographics. Latino voters care deeply about the importance of immigration reform, and must see changes not just in rhetoric but on policy from Republicans.

Progress on Border Security

After a decade of investments in border security, the U.S. Border Patrol reports sharp reductions in the number of people attempting illegally to cross the Southern border with Mexico. The agency has charted "intercept" data for several decades and the good news is that the number of illegal arrivals has dropped significantly over the past 30 years. Whereas the annual number of illegal immigrants arrested was 1.7 million in the mid-1980s, that figure dropped to 1 million in the late 1980s, 705,000 in 2008, 540,865 in 2009, 447,731 in 2010, and 327,577 in 2011. This shows how the country has made progress on securing its border with Mexico.

Businesses Are Stepping Up To Fight for Immigration Reform

We also are seeing renewed calls for action on immigration from leading companies being hurt by difficulty recruiting workers. This is true in the high-tech area where executives from Microsoft, Google, Alcoa, Intel, Facebook, Apple, eBay, and Amazon have complained about the need for more engineers and scientists and the challenges in growing their businesses under current immigration rules. But the problem is not unique to high-tech industries. Companies in agriculture, hotels, restaurants, and health care complain about the problem of finding workers and the problems it creates in their sectors. There are insufficient numbers of Americans willing to work in these areas and companies need people interested in doing those kinds of jobs. Meaningful immigration reform is vital to the long-term economy and national competitiveness.

Authors

Darrell M. West

Publication: The Huffington Post

Image Source: © Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

The 2012 Election: What Happened, What Changed, What it Means

William A. Galston — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

William Galston analyzes the political backdrop against which the 2012 general campaign was waged, offering fuller context into voter attitudes, the composition of the winning coalition, and the events, economic realities, policy and ideological issues that shaped the election and President Obama’s eventual victory.

On November 6, 2012, Barack Obama concluded his reelection campaign with a somewhat more comfortable margin than many had been predicting even a week earlier, Galston observes. So, what happened and what does the 2012 election mean in a broader political and historical context?

Galston asserts that what transpired between Labor Day of 2011 and Election Day in 2012 was one of the more noteworthy political comebacks in recent American history. In isolation, Galston argues, the modest improvement in unemployment might not have sufficed to ensure an Obama reelection. Instead, the president and his senior political advisors planned and executed one of the best-run reelection campaigns ever, writes Galston. They decided on a theme—fairness—and a strategy—using policies and events to mobilize key constituencies. And they waged a near-flawless tactical battle, including the decision to spend the summer—and much of their war-chest—characterizing Mitt Romney as a heartless plutocrat. Through the fall, economic optimism rose, as did the enthusiasm of the president’s core supporters.

The paper’s other highlights include:

Data analysis of the 2012 electorate, final vote tallies, vote share by candidate and trends in the 2012 swing states, including a section devoted to what transpired in Ohio.
Examination into demographic and attitudinal changes that paved the way for an Obama reelection, including the rise of voter engagement and mobilization of women, Latino, African American and millennial voters.
Discussion of how these structural changes in the American electorate, while important to the outcome, can be over-emphasized when interpreting the 2012 election.
Analysis into how this election did little, if anything, to decrease political dysfunction and polarization in Washington, an unfortunate trend that continues to threaten U.S. governance.

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Authors

William A. Galston

Image Source: © Reuters Staff / Reuters

Make Changes to Social Security Now to Prevent Future Debt

Alice M. Rivlin — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:33:00 -0500

We should act now to ensure that Social Security is solidly financed for future beneficiaries. The sooner we act, the smaller the changes in benefits and revenue need to be. Reducing future debt is just an extra benefit of preserving Social Security.

Social Security is a hugely successful program that has kept millions of older or disabled Americans from penury and dependency. But its solvency is threatened. As longevity increases and all those boomers retire, there won’t be enough workers paying into the system to support projected benefits.

We have to increase revenue and reduce scheduled benefit growth to keep the system solvent. If we act quickly, the changes can be phased in gradually and need not affect those already retired or close to retirement.

A balanced package should include increasing revenue by raising the maximum earnings subject to payroll tax, as well as progressive reductions in the growth of future benefits. High earners should get less and low earners a bit more.

Any increase in future retirement ages should account for the greater difficulty of continuing to work in physically demanding occupations. More accurate calculation of the cost of living (the chained C.P.I.) would slow the increase in benefits slightly. Adverse effects on low-income or very aged retirees could be offset by increasing the minimum benefit and adding an increase at, say, age 85. The improved index would make a more general contribution to debt if it applied to tax brackets and other spending programs.

Social Security currently adds to debt, because it pays out more benefits than it receives in taxes. While it accumulated credits when the higher ratio of workers to retirees was bringing in excess funds, Treasury has to borrow to redeem these credits.

As more boomers retire, Social Security will add increasingly to debt. By about 2033, the credits will be exhausted and benefits will have to be cut sharply. Because workers retiring in 2033 are already working and should plan for their retirement, we owe it to them to phase the necessary changes in gradually and avoid the sharp drop.

Preserving Social Security and restraining future debt are both important to American well-being and reinforce each other. There are powerful arguments for doing both — either separately or together.

Authors

Alice M. Rivlin

Publication: The New York Times

Image Source: © Fred Prouser / Reuters

A Modest Population Bounce Back for the Sun Belt and the Nation

William H. Frey — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The nation appears to be rising back from the demographic dead, albeit slowly, according to new Census Bureau estimates for the year ending in July 2012. The nadir was in 2010-2011 when the U.S. residential population grew by a mere 0.73 percent, the lowest rate other than in wartime, since 1937. It reflected a long stretch of national economic malaise and its demographic consequences, including reduced immigration, declines in the number of births, and the lowest domestic migration levels since the end of World War II.

The new numbers provide some sense of revival, however modest, with national growth rising to 0.75 percent. While low by historic standards, this uptick is accompanied by a rise in immigration and some thawing in the near frozen movement to previously hot destinations in the Sun Belt. This, when accompanied by a recently reported rise in interstate migration, suggests that 2012 could mark the beginning of a national demographic revival, though one which may never approach the rapid growth heydays of the baby boom dominated 1950s and 1960s.

The nation's recent uptick is nowhere near the more than 1 percent annual growth rates we achieved in the 1990s, but it stems five years of steady downturn. Rising international migration to levels not seen since the pre-recession year of 2005-2006 was the key ingredient. The 885,000 gain registered in 2011-2012 is over 100,000 greater than the previous year. While it’s still not close to the million a year gains we enjoyed earlier, the turnaround suggests renewed economic magnetism for immigrants, who contribute to both low and high skilled jobs.

The one demographic indicator which hasn’t revived with the new numbers is natural increase, the excess of births over deaths. This decline reflects even fewer births than in 2010-2011 and more deaths. The reduction in births may represent a continued reaction to the poor economy. However, the sustained aging of our population suggests that we cannot expect anything more than modest occasional gains in natural increase over time.

The other encouraging news from the new Census Bureau numbers is a long awaited uptick in migration-directed population growth in a number of Sun Belt states which bore the brunt of the recession and housing market downturns of the past five years. The poster children of this phenomenon are Nevada, Arizona and Florida, where growth levels plummeted in the 2006 to 2011 period. But Nevada and Florida experienced small growth upticks last year, coincident with the recently observed gains in interstate migration. Florida, on the cutting edge of this revival, already showed stronger gains last year. In fact 26 states experienced faster growth in 2011-2012 than in the previous year, of which 17 were in the Sun Belt including large parts of the Southeast and Mountain West. These included some of the fastest growing states: North Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona. North Dakota is riding a wave of an oil boom, but most of the other states are rebounding from sharp slowdowns in the recent past.

Much of this gain is related to renewed domestic migration. For the first time in four years, Nevada registered a net in migration from other states. Arizona showed substantial migration gains, and Florida showed strong net in migration for the second straight year. Their migration gains are nowhere near peak levels of the mid 2000s (Arizona gained 133,000 in 2005-2006, compared with 34,000 in 2011-2012) but there are new, higher migration levels in 14 Sun Belt states, compared with last year. One constant is Texas. While also below its mid-decade peak, it led all states in domestic migration for the past seven years.

The new 2012 numbers suggest the beginning of a demographic turnaround, inspiring hope that 2013 may lead us back to something more normal. This, of course, depends on continued improvements in both the job and housing markets, which would lead to even greater migration flows to places that have taken a beating for the past half decade and new places that will capitalize on the rebound. Yet even with revived immigration and some uptick in births, our national growth rate is not destined to rise above 0.8 percent a year and could eventually fall to 0.5 percent according to the Census Bureau’s recently released population projections.

As an aging society, we can expect lower levels of fertility, higher numbers of deaths, and generally slower growth. So while we are not likely to fall off the demographic cliff of population decline that appears imminent in Japan and several European countries, the recent slowdown signifies that we are approaching a future of far more modest population growth than we enjoyed in the past.

Authors

William H. Frey

Image Source: © Mike Blake / Reuters

America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

William H. Frey — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

America’s population is growing more racially diverse and, in 30 years, the nation will have a new majority—a majority composed of minorities. New projections from the Census Bureau suggest that the country’s white population is shrinking as the number of minorities rapidly grows. Senior Fellow William Frey says this change presents both challenges and opportunities to education policies, employment and politics. We should start preparing for the shift soon, he says.

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America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

Authors

William H. Frey

Census Projects New “Majority Minority” Tipping Points

William H. Frey — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: Based on new Census data, the U.S. Census Bureau recently released its first set of U.S. population projections for 2012-2060; the data reveals projections of the nation’s population by age, race and Hispanic origin for the next 50 years. William Frey further discusses these projections and how they will reverberate through U.S. politics, education system, and labor force. Also featured are William Frey ‘s related publications, which discuss and highlight key trends in the U.S. demographic shift.

In the wake of a presidential election that underscored the rising political clout of fast growing minority groups, the Census Bureau’s new population projections reiterate the trend. These projections, the first to take account of the 2010 Census results, paint a picture of a nation that will become increasingly diverse, beginning at the bottom of the age distribution.

Nationally, the new projection posits a “majority-minority” population by 2043, but for younger age groups, the tipping points will come much earlier: 2018 for children under age 18. This reflects the recent growth of younger new minority populations including Hispanics, Asians, and those identifying as “multiracial.” It also reflects a stagnant, aging white population expected to by decline by 10 percent from 2012 to 2060.

The new projections anticipate slower national growth than the earlier 2008-based projections, by building in lower immigration and fertility assumptions, in keeping with recently observed shifts. Thus, the national population benchmark of 400 million (up from 314 million today) is not expected to be reached until 2051, versus 2039 in the older projections. Still the nation’s combined minority population is expected grow from 116 million in 2012 to 241 million in 2060. This translates into growth rates of 142 percent, 116 percent and 256 percent for the Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial populations, respectively. Blacks are expected to grow by 50 percent.

The white population in contrast is expected to increase from 197 million in 2012 to a 199 million peak in 2024, and then decline to 179 million in 2060. This white peak population is smaller and occurs earlier than with the older projections, peaking at 207 million in 2031, reflecting an earlier onset of white natural decrease (deaths outnumbering births).

The increasingly shrinking white population is also a consequence of lower white fertility. This is partly responsible for the majority-minority tipping point for children moving up to the year 2018, compared with 2023 in the older projections. As young minorities age, the majority-minority tipping points get reached in later years for subsequently higher ages. The 45-64 age group doesn’t tip until 2051, and the over age 65 population is still majority white in 2060.

The older population stays whiter because the large and mostly white baby boom population just entering retirement beefs up those older ages. Thus the biggest diversity transformation will continue to take place in the younger ages as white populations decline and minority populations gain. Thus even in 2060 the white senior population is substantially less racially and ethnically diverse than younger age groups—especially children.

Of course, these shifts will reverberate through our politics, the education system, and our labor force.

Much heralded in the last election, the 18-to-29 age group, of which minorities made up a substantial component, will continue to be the most racially diverse. As soon as the 2020 presidential election, this age group will be comprised of 47 percent minorities, including 23 percent Hispanics, many more of whom will be eligible voters than in the past election. By 2028, minorities will be a majority of this population.

There will be a continual transformation the nation’s age 5-to-17 school aged population which will become majority-minority in 2020. At that time, Hispanics will comprise 26 percent, blacks 14 percent, and Asians 5 percent. While many school systems in more diverse parts of the country have begun to adapt to student populations of different cultural backgrounds and languages spoken at home, these numbers make plain that school systems across the nation will stand on the front lines of change.

Our labor force aged population will not turn majority minority until 2038. However, over the 18 year period, from 2012 to 2030, most of the largely white baby boom generation will be graduating out of those ages. The 18-to-64 population will show a decline of 14 million whites, but a gain of 23 million minorities, of which 15 million are Hispanics—rendering minorities and especially Hispanics as the backbone of future labor force growth.

These projections also indicate the population will be aging, which along with a growing number of children will increase the number of dependents per worker. Still the ages of these dependents will differ by racial and ethnic group. For whites, the ratio of children to seniors falls below 1.0 as the number of white seniors exceeds white children in 2016 and throughout the projection period. But for Hispanics the ratio ranges from 5.6 to 1.7 over the projection period. This reflects another way that the younger Hispanic population is faced with different kinds of concerns than the older white population, affecting their voting preferences and our national policies.

Overall, the new census projections place an exclamation point on the fact that we are becoming a more racially diverse society beginning with our youth. Just like the postwar baby boom generation, which by virtue of its size and independent character, influenced all aspects of our economy and social institutions as it aged up the life cycle, so too will today’s younger minority infused generation help to shape all aspects of our national life as they move into middle age. It’s crucial for politicians, community leaders, and policymakers to pay attention to these changes as their decisions about how to incorporate this generation into the new American mainstream hold important implications for our nation’s future prosperity.

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America’s Changing Demographic Landscape: New Projections from the Census Bureau

Authors

William H. Frey

Metropolitan Washington: A New Immigrant Gateway

Audrey Singer — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

On December 5, 2012, Audrey Singer presented at the Smithsonian Latino Center's event titled Immigration, Ethnic Economies, and Civic Engagement: Understanding the Latino Experience in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Region.

At the event, Singer placed in the national context recent research from her chapter in the book titled Hispanic Migration and Urban Development: Studies from Washington, DC (Emerald Group Publishing, 2012).

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Audrey Singer

America’s Young Adults: A Generation On the Move

William H. Frey — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

America’s young adults seem to be hitting the road; moving out of their parents homes, leaving marginal jobs and crossing state lines to new environs and better employment opportunities. The latest Census data reveal that that young people aged 25 to 29 are increasingly more mobile and willing to move to new cities, very often in new states, in search of jobs. This segment of the population isn’t weighed down by a mortgage and can move to cites like Denver, Austin, Seattle and DC, where jobs are more plentiful, states Senior Fellow and demographer William Frey.

Video

America’s Young Adults: A Generation On the Move

Authors

William H. Frey

The Door for Immigration Reform is Open. But How Wide?

Neil Ruiz — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:00:00 -0500

The 2012 elections illustrated how the emergence of a new American mainstream played an important role in re-electing President Obama, potentially opening the door for debate, compromise, and action on immigration reform. This past Wednesday, President Obama expressed confidence that immigration reform is possible early in the beginning of his second term. Despite a divided Congress, it is in the interest of both sides of the aisle to fix America’s immigration system.

Three main issues bear consideration:

Agreement found in high-skilled immigration. As I’ve said previously, there is concern that the United States has fallen behind in the skilled worker race and employers have unmet demand for high-skilled immigrant workers. In the last working days before the congressional recess for the elections, the majority of the Republican controlled House of Representatives voted for Lamar Smith’s STEM Jobs Act to provide 55,000 green cards to foreign-born graduates from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Although there was consensus on creating a STEM visa there was not enough time to negotiate the details of the bill between leaders. Another issue raised this year was to create visas for immigrant entrepreneurs. Vivek Wadhwa’s new research shows the visa challenges high-skilled immigrants face when starting up innovative new companies. The Startup Act 2.0 was designed to address those challenges and had bipartisan support for creating 50,000 STEM Green Cards and 75,000 visas for immigrant entrepreneurs.

Balancing immigration reform with the existing workforce. One major difficulty legislators will face with immigration reform is trying to find the balance between high unemployment and opening the doors for immigrants. In September, Microsoft proposed “A New National Talent Strategy” to allow an additional 20,000 H-1B visas and 20,000 Green Cards for foreign graduates who hold advanced degrees in the STEM fields from U.S. universities with a $10k and $15k price tag that would raise about $500 million dollars per year for STEM education for the American workforce. As the Brookings report “The Search for Skills” released last July showed, only $1 billion dollars raised from H-1B visa fees for workforce training and STEM education in the existing workforce over the past decade. Tying visa fees to workforce development and education funds is one way of finding this balance.

Debate over the undocumented and other issues. The most difficult and controversial aspect of immigration reform is how to integrate immigrants already living on American soil. The Latino vote opened the door for Congress to transform the deferred action of undocumented youth from deportation into an actual DREAM Act that would offer legal status and a path to citizenship. There also may be an opportunity for leaders to tackle the most controversial immigration issue: expanding legal status for undocumented immigrants. There are many other issues that Congress can tackle such as raising the cap on H-1B visas, family unification, integration programs, country-level caps, or developing a standing commission to use economic indicators for determining immigrant visa levels.

The doors are now open for immigration reform. The question is how wide will policymakers open the door for immigrants?

Authors

Neil Ruiz

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic

A New Starting Point for Immigration Reform

Audrey Singer — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:30:00 -0500

The surprising strength of the Latino vote in the 2012 presidential election has created an incentive for the Republican Party, poor performers with Latinos, to rethink their strategy for 2016. It’s also driving calls for change to the nation’s immigration laws. In the past week, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have spoken publicly about the need for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.

The focus remains on Latinos because they are expected to grow their number of voters by 40 percent, and the Pew Hispanic Center projects the Latino electorate will double in size by 2030.

President Obama plans to get to work on the issue after his inauguration in January. Senators Schumer and Graham are reinvigorating their vision of comprehensive reform, last seen in 2010, by starting up discussions with their congressional colleagues.

The post-election moment for immigration reform also includes Republican leaders such as John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Marco Rubio and conservative voices, such as Sean Hannity and Charles Krauthammer, who have stated clearly that comprehensive immigration reform is the only way to go.

But what does “comprehensive” reform look like? It depends on who you ask. A comprehensive approach typically includes border security, worksite enforcement, including a reliable verification system with a tamper-resistant ID card, and changes to the admissions system to admit more immigrants that are economically suited to the US market. But “comprehensive reform” most importantly means that there will be a policy that deals with the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without legal status.

This is a new starting point in the debate over reforming immigration policy.

What’s at stake is whether reform will include a pathway to legal status that includes citizenship or not. The “pathway to citizenship” ideal held by advocates, the public, and some partisan leaders, is a phased, earned process that ultimately ends in citizenship if the immigrant chooses to naturalize. The process takes years after immigrants undergo background checks, English language classes, demonstrate they have paid taxes, and pay a fine, among other measures. They must go to the “the back of the line” in fairness to others who have been waiting for green cards. Then they must meet the residency requirements to apply for naturalization. Under various legalization scenarios that have been proposed in the past, obtaining citizenship could take 10 years or more.

The benefits of legalization include boosting the GDP through more on-the-books labor, increased tax revenues, and making sure employers are following hiring and employment laws. Legalization also strengthens communities across the country. When immigrants have the right to live and work in the United States they are less fearful of being deported and are more active in civic life. U.S. citizenship enhances these benefits and provides an additional and meaningful bonus: As full members of the United States, naturalized immigrants have the right to vote.

A pathway to legal status that stops short of the final stage of access to naturalization would be misguided. It also is unnecessary under a comprehensive approach that would provide an integrated system of enforcement and access, reducing the number of unauthorized workers while reducing the number that are able to come surreptitiously.

Thus, while bipartisan agreement may be emerging, what comprehensive reform looks like to each party will no doubt require compromise. Let’s hope the forthcoming debates are open and constructive and that they move immigration policy reform in sensible, pragmatic, and beneficial ways to open up legal status and ultimately citizenship to immigrants.

Authors

Audrey Singer

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic