| > Why indeed, in a very rich country, do any poor people at all exist? There's an inherent tension between low-wage immigration levels and building a strong social state. The stronger your social welfare protections, the stronger incentive there is for economic migrants to come (as Europe is also finding out), and the more voters perceive income and wealth transfers as mostly benefiting outsiders versus members of their own society. This is part of what is creating the reaction from the right in the US and elsewhere. All the 'solutions' for this have their own issues: 1. Don't allow recent immigrants the benefit of social welfare payments: this literally gives migrants second-class status and directly causes inequality. Some countries do this though under temporary worker programs. The Gulf states come to mind -- generous benefits for citizens, almost nothing for cheap migrant labor. 2. Only allow well-off or well-educated immigrants: This only works if your country can attract educated labor. Properly executed, you get an immigrant class that is skilled and productive. Poorly done, and your system resembles a 'buy a citizenship' program. Also, your own educated elite may not welcome the new competition. Canada looks a bit like this -- relatively high levels of immigration, but much of it is skilled. Some of it is just rich people HK buying houses in B.C. though. This directly hurts wage earners who live there by making housing unaffordable for them. 3. Get rid of your welfare state entirely (or don't build it). The US is sort of vacillating between this and option 1, unfortunately. Also the left has vehemently complained about option 2, which is Trump's points reform proposal. Not sure what the best solution is, but I wish people would admit that there is a tradeoff involved and talk through them rationally. |
We do some of that but then we also depose governments, start wars under the banner of drugs and terrorism. Those latter effects are huge and often not considered in concert with immigration policy. I'm stealing this analogy, but keeping these people out is like setting fire to someone's home and then locking the door.