On Wednesday, Robert J. Samuelson wrote an article about poverty in which he blamed stagnant and rising poverty rates on immigration. Since then, I have noticed many blog posts and letters to the editor about Samuelson’s article.
Samuelson’s observation notes a common overlooked factor in poverty. Simply put, statistics show that the United States poverty rate has declined slightly overall in the last two decades, if we do not count the poor immigrants who moved to the United States. These poor immigrants add to the poverty rate.
Of course, Samuelson honestly notes that poverty for natives has risen since 2000, meaning that both the poverty rate for whites and the poverty rate for blacks has risen since 2000. I assume this happened as a result of Bush taking office, as it similarly happened during the Reagan and Bush Sr. eras.
Regardless, as Samuelson’s points show, we have to remember that stagnant poverty rates in the United States do not necessary indicate a complete lack of progress, and rising poverty rates do not necessarily mean regress. For example, quite plausibly, many poor immigrants would live in even poorer conditions if they had not come to the United States, which they presumably did to get better opportunities and employment.
In ideal circumstances, all people in the United States including immigrants would receive high-quality educations, and every working person in the United States including immigrants would get paid enough to not live in poverty. Regardless of immigration, the United States (and the whole world) has two huge problems that allow poverty: Firstly, not everyone can afford education, and many people only get a poor-quality education. Secondly, many working people still live in poverty due to low pay, which many people refer to as the lack of a living wage. Those two problems contribute to each other, in that low-paying jobs mean people do not have enough money to afford quality education, and lack of quality education means people cannot get high-paying jobs.
As a result of those problems, even native poor people often cannot escape poverty. Thus, poor immigrants add to the number of poor people.
To fight poverty, we need to solve those two general domestic problems, so that all people in the United States have a viable route out of poverty. Additionally, we need to work towards global solutions for poverty so that poor people do not continue to flow into the United States. Opening up trade and economic investments into countries like Mexico will help create local opportunities for poor people from those countries.