Simple Immigration Economics: Bigger is Better.

Summary

Optimist Economy Podcast Episode Summary

Title: Simple Immigration Economics: Bigger is Better
Hosts: Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
Release Date: June 24, 2025

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Introduction and Announcements

The episode begins with a light-hearted exchange between hosts Kathryn and Robin as Kathryn adjusts to recording from Texas, humorously referencing the ubiquitous presence of Topo Chico water in Houston.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [00:22]: "Our podcast won't change a lick just cause I'm here in Texas. Want to make sure that was clear."

They proceed to share important announcements, including the podcast’s website, email address, and ways listeners can support the show through subscriptions, donations, and reviews. Robin humorously reads a listener review that highlights their candidness and production challenges, eliciting laughter and camaraderie between the hosts.

Discussion on Student Loan Retcon

Before diving into the main topic, Kathryn introduces a retcon (retroactive continuity) on their previous discussion about student loans. She elaborates on first-degree price discrimination in higher education, explaining how colleges charge varying tuition rates based on what they believe students can afford.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [06:04]: "This is something that people have studied the market effects of. It's true. I think, you know, a lot of people don't realize that... high achieving kids into, you know, high value private schools at lower cost."

Robin shares a personal anecdote about negotiating a scholarship at USC, underscoring how high-achieving students can benefit from price discrimination, though Kathryn emphasizes the broader implications and inequalities it introduces.

Notable Quote:
Robin [06:31]: "But I'm trying to, I've got to call my, my dad will be listening this and he'll tell me maybe he remembers."

Main Topic: Immigration Economics

Economic Fundamentals of Immigration

Kathryn asserts the fundamental economic principle that the size of the U.S. economy is directly tied to the number of workers and their productivity. She argues that immigration inherently boosts the economy by increasing both the labor force and consumer base.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [12:54]: "Number of workers times their average productivity equals size of the economy."

She refutes the common misconception that immigrants take American jobs, explaining that while an increase in labor supply should theoretically lower wages, empirical studies show mixed results, often finding negligible effects on native wages.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [14:56]: "They pay for your Social Security... it's a pure fall guy."

Population Growth and Workforce Stability

Robin contributes by highlighting the essential role of immigration in stabilizing the U.S. population, especially in the context of declining fertility rates. Kathryn emphasizes that without immigration, the U.S. population and economy would begin to decline immediately.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [16:17]: "If immigration were to go to zero tomorrow, the U.S. population would immediately start declining."

She provides compelling statistics, noting that approximately 20% of the U.S. workforce comprises immigrants, underscoring their integral role in economic growth and workforce sustainability.

Critique of Immigration Enforcement Spending

A significant portion of the discussion critiques the allocation of $185 billion towards immigration enforcement. Kathryn compares this staggering figure to other budgetary needs, such as the labor law enforcement budget, highlighting the disproportionate spending.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [20:33]: "$185 billion going to keep 11 million people out of the country who don't have legal authority to be here anymore, versus $2 billion to keep 170 million working Americans protected by the labor laws..."

She argues that this massive expenditure not only lacks economic justification but also diverts funds from more critical areas that would have a tangible positive impact on American workers.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [22:26]: "It cannot have the justification to merit this much money being spent in this way when we do not enforce labor law."

Immigrants as Economic Contributors

Kathryn dismantles the myth that immigrants are a financial drain on the U.S. economy by presenting evidence that they are net tax contributors. She references a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), emphasizing that immigrants pay substantial taxes, including property taxes, and contribute positively to Social Security.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [26:52]: "Immigrants are net contributors tax-wise. They pay a ton in taxes... They pay for your Social Security, in your Medicare."

Policy and Public Perception

The hosts explore the disconnect between public perception and economic reality regarding immigration. Kathryn points out the politically manufactured flashpoints that misrepresent the true economic impact of immigrants, fostering unnecessary hostility and calumny.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [33:32]: "They deny a path to citizenship for people who are here, who are upstanding, good citizens in all but name."

Robin adds optimism by noting that a significant portion of Americans support paths to legal status for immigrants who contribute positively to society, suggesting that meaningful reform is possible.

Notable Quote:
Robin [35:00]: "The real problem with immigration in the US is that we haven't had reform since I was 0 years old and I turned 40 next week."

Optimism for Reform and Conclusion

Despite the challenges, Kathryn and Robin express hope for future immigration reform. They believe that public opinion is malleable and that with clear economic arguments and policy clarity, the U.S. can develop a more effective and humane immigration system.

Notable Quote:
Kathryn [35:30]: "The optimism is nothing that's happening now will change where we need to go... giving a path to legal status for people who are here."

Light-Hearted Banter and Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with the hosts engaging in playful banter about executive orders and personal anecdotes, maintaining the podcast's engaging and personable tone.

Notable Quote:
Robin [43:05]: "Very real possibility... I can't stand it, because if it was not a real possibility, it would actually just be a fantasy."

Kathryn [50:36]: "And so thank you, Johnny, for giving us a boost to them and the incredible work that they do."

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Key Takeaways

1. Economic Growth Through Immigration: Immigrants are essential to the U.S. economy, contributing to workforce growth and overall economic expansion.
2. Myth-Busting: Common misconceptions about immigrants taking jobs or draining resources are largely unfounded, with evidence showing net positive contributions.
3. Policy Critique: The disproportionate spending on immigration enforcement lacks economic justification and diverts funds from critical areas like labor law enforcement.
4. Path to Legal Status: There is significant public support for providing legal status to immigrants who contribute positively, offering a pathway for meaningful reform.
5. Optimism for Change: Despite current challenges and political hurdles, there is hope for developing a more equitable and economically sound immigration policy.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Optimist Economy Website
• Subscribe to Optimist Economy
• Support on Buy Me a Coffee
• Email: [e-mail]

Contact and Engagement:
Listeners are encouraged to engage with the hosts through the podcast's website, email, and by leaving reviews on platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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This episode of Optimist Economy offers a comprehensive and economically grounded perspective on immigration, challenging prevalent myths and advocating for policies that recognize the vital role immigrants play in sustaining and growing the U.S. economy. Through insightful discussion and a blend of humor, Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi provide an enriching listen for those seeking to understand the intricacies of immigration economics.

Transcript

[Katherine]

Me moving was much tougher than I thought it would be. But we're here. We ready?

[Robin]

Sure.

[Katherine]

I just want to make sure that we get recorded of that. Sure. Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Katherine.

[Robin]

And I'm Robin.

[Katherine]

And on this show, we believe the US Economy can be better when we talk about how to get there one problem and solution at a time. Also, this is the first recording from Texas, and so I had to make sure I had my hat and my Topo Chico, which is like more the most common form of water here. Do you sell bottled water? Just Topo Chico. I think it's. I think it's like there's a collab with the city of Houston of how much Topo Chico there is in this place. Every cafe, every bar has got a Topo Chico umbrella.

[Robin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Katherine]

We would take their money if they wanted to sponsor us.

[Robin]

Would they like to sponsor us? Really? Turn that thing around. Blur that out until we get some money from Topo Chico.

[Katherine]

That's a great point. That's a great point. Anyway, y' all, the podcast won't change a lick just cause I'm here in Texas. Want to make sure that was clear.

[Robin]

All right, well, couple announcements at the top.

[Katherine]

Couple of announcements at the top of the hour. Thank you for prompting me, Robin. I remember how to do a show. We have a website, optimisteconomy. Com. We have an email address, Optimist. Economymail. Com. We love to hear from you. We love to post your letters. You can subscribe to the show, subscribe to the newsletter, of course. Give us your donations and sponsorships. You listening and you paying is what makes the show possible. And we are eternally grateful for your time and your money and of course, any correspondence you send us.

[Robin]

Also for your reviews on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, I did want to share this great review we got that says it's a five star review. I just want to point that out. It's a five star review, but says inspired podcast is also a war with the medium. And after saying some nice things, it says, but also come for the tire fire that is these two brilliant ladies backstopped by a producer we can infer is both talented and sleepless doing every single thing wrong as they launch their first wonderful podcast. Love the honesty, sir. I am all for that kind of candor. And it's not inaccurate.

[Katherine]

Oh, my gosh. Wow. Okay, so if you would like to.

[Robin]

Continue to support our tireless producer in making us audible, you can do that at any of the places that Katherine mentioned.

[Katherine]

I love our listeners, you optimists out there, you really keep me going. And it's definitely letters like that that reminds me. They give nuance and texture.

[Robin]

It is true. We are building this plane as we fly it. But, you know, if that leads you to the expectation that I'm going to get any better at this, I just want to disabuse you of that right now. This is probably as good as it gets.

[Katherine]

I'm peeking right here, guy. Your point is well taken. We appreciate the five stars that came with that. If that had come with three stars, I would have felt really differently at this moment. But since it came with five, you're clearly rooting for us. We're rooting for us, too. And I'm sure our producers are knowing just how heavily we have to lean on them.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

Can you print this review on the website as like a letter to the editor? Because he published it.

[Robin]

I don't have his name. I have his. He's Johnny 51511.

[Katherine]

Sorry, his name is Johnny 5.

[Robin]

No, Johnny 5151 1. It's a family name.

[Katherine]

Family name. All right. So this guy's gonna haunt every production for like the next six months is gonna be Johnny.

[Robin]

He doesn't understand that in this. That I'm consuming leisure right now. This is.

[Katherine]

This is. This is consuming leisurely. Not. Certainly not income. After that part where we awkwardly ask for your money and then even more awkwardly read out your fairly blunt reviews of the program, we then like to move into terms and conditions, things that we looked up this week. Wait, or does retcon come first? Jesus Christ. Happen.

[Robin]

Well, first up, Retcon.

[Katherine]

I have a student loan retcon, courtesy of Ph.D. friends who like to tell you after you've recorded and broadcast your opinion on a subject, the economics research that you didn't include.

[Robin]

I love those people.

[Katherine]

I love those people. I love this person in particular so much. And what they brought up when we talked about student loans, we talked about something called first degree price discrimination, which is where colleges basically charge you whatever they think they can get away with or whatever they want to. And what she pointed out was that there is evidence to show that this price discrimination can really benefit people. And in particular, there is a competition between schools for recruiting to students. If you are a student who is like a high achieving student from a state with a good and cheap public school, you are one of the types that benefits most from price discrimination because private schools have to lower their price a Ton to get you to come there. So that type of bargaining does end up working in students favor and can get a lot of high achieving kids into, you know, high value private schools. High value in quotations at lower cost.

[Robin]

High tuition private schools.

[Katherine]

High tuition private schools. Yeah, there we go. And that this is something that people have studied the market effects of.

[Robin]

It's true. I think, you know, a lot of people don't realize that and don't think that they can afford private schools where like you say, if they're pretty high academic achievers, they actually have more, more market power in that negotiation than they realize. I negotiated a scholarship at USC actually when I was 18, which is kind of, which is totally wild to me.

[Katherine]

But it's a lot to put on a 718 year old to like. Well now you, this whole, this is all premised on the idea that you can. The whole benefit of price discrimination for college tuition being beneficial to you, the student is that it gives you room to bargain. The schools that you want to go to, that's so much put on a kid if they're, I mean granted it's not that much to put on like a kid's dad who's really good at that. Sure.

[Robin]

But I'm trying to, I've got to call my, my dad will be listening this and he'll tell me maybe he remembers. But yeah, I had, was offered a scholarship from one school and then I called the school I really wanted to go to and said look, I got offered this scholarship. They were like, oh no, we can do that. I mean it was crazy. And I just thought would they not have done that if I hadn't called?

[Katherine]

No, they wouldn't have. So the question then becomes more detailed and nuanced than we had in our original conversation. You know, the cost of having this type of discrimination and market power is that it comes down to just how savvy the student and their family is in negotiating and bargaining to really benefit. The benefit of being able to bargain versus the cost of who benefits from. You know, the power and knowledge of bargaining is really the trade off of whether or not to continue discriminatory prices in higher ed.

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

I think there could be a lot of benefits to being able to bargain and people will be able to get a ton of value, maybe more than they would have otherwise. But making that a part of the education process will have deep cost on who benefits from it. And I don't think that who benefits is necessarily a function of who is most capable for college. Who is most in need of college. Who has the most ambition to go. It is taking all of these capability, ability and ambition and morphing it by bargaining skills at 17. So that's why I think. That's why I don't like it. I would admit that there are going to be costs.

[Robin]

This is why I don't like sports.

[Katherine]

This is why you don't like sports at colleges.

[Robin]

So I don't like sports scholarships for college.

[Katherine]

Well, they should be paid employees. So you know what? This is a great retcon episode. Just keep diving in.

[Robin]

By the way, I forgot to read the important part of that review. It said, doing every single thing wrong as they launched their first podcast is truly charming. To hear them giggling over each other as they remind themselves that they have to ask for money to keep the lights on. All true kids. You guys use an outline, right? You seem to keep surprising Robin with the topic of the day. Now, I'm not sure if that means that I just seem dumb. It could, but I was looking at our outline and I noticed my side of the outline is all filled out. Your side of the outline is completely blank.

[Katherine]

Optimist. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. No one has ever experienced this in the history of humanity, but turns out, moving is tough. I'm the first person to go through it. I can talk to you about it now. All right, so we're not going to sound surprised as we make this perfectly natural transition. Robin, did you look anything up for terms and conditions?

[Robin]

I did. I did. I looked up this word. You know, every once in a while you see a word and you don't know what it means, so you just let it slide. But then you see it again and you're like, damn it, I have to look this word up. And it was calumny. It's sort of an umbrella term that means slander or character assassination or libel. You know, basically a hatchet job on somebody's reputation.

[Katherine]

For those of you listening from the southeastern portion of the United States, you might have read this word and pronounced it calumny, which is what I did. And now hearing you say the definition, I'm sure that this is the word that I meant.

[Robin]

Calumny.

[Katherine]

Yeah, calumny. Not columny column.

[Robin]

Anyway, this came up, actually, in one of Heather Cox Richardson's letters to America, where she was quoting Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, talking during the Red Scare and saying, I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny. Fear, ignorance, Bigotry and smear, which I thought was. You go Margaret Chase Smith.

[Katherine]

Yeah. When did she say that?

[Robin]

1950, that is. And apparently McCarthy was sitting two rows behind her as she said it.

[Katherine]

Yes. All right. Well, she wouldn't understand this compliment, but that is all flame emoji. Well, I mean, it's very relevant for our centerpiece discussion today, which is Immigrants and immigration. Yeah, Immigrants and Immigration.

[Robin]

It's, you know, God knows what will happen between when we record this and when it gets released into the wild. But it's been a rough week here in Los Angeles where there's been a lot of raids by ICE on people's workplaces and at their homes and in their church parking lots. There's been some protest and a big march here coming up too. And it does seem like immigrants have been subject to some calumny.

[Katherine]

You know, we've wanted to talk about immigration for a while and go through these big centerpiece issues. And we see all these conversations as kind of like chapter one, you know, to be continued. We want to talk more about this, about specific details, but have kind of an introduction to immigration from the point of view of the economy. This is going to sound real bad, as it often does when I try to bring up the economic perspective, which is not about them as humans. It's not about how you feel about the person or the phenomenon in our country or the role of immigration in US History. This is just what can an economist tell you about immigration and immigrants? And I think one of the reasons to talk about it in this light is how often the calumny that immigrants are subject to is often economic in nature.

[Robin]

Yeah, that they're going to take. In fact, I think somebody who occupies a high office in this country said that they, you know, have stolen American jobs.

[Katherine]

Yeah, that's absolutely. There's like there is zero factual basis, zero theoretical basis for the idea that immigrants take jobs.

[Robin]

Jobs don't have a check mark whether American or not or non American jobs, I suppose. But, but tell me why that in theory this would not be the case.

[Katherine]

So I have said many times on this show that the size of the US economy is a direct function of the number of people working in it. Number of workers times their average productivity equals size of the economy. So even in the most basic two dimensional model of an economy in which there is immigration, it is always the case that immigrants increase the economy, if for no other reason than more people.

[Robin]

And more bodies and more consumers.

[Katherine]

More consumers and more workers. And that that is always the case. Immigrants always make the economy bigger the way that children do when they age into the workforce, the way that women did when they started participating in the workforce in mass in the latter half of the 20th century. You put more people into the economy, more people into the workforce, your economy gets larger. Keep in mind, this is true whether the immigrant has legal permission to be here or not. This is true whether we're talking about immigrants increasing the number of workers in the economy or women increasing the number of workers in the economy. Adding workers increases the size of the economy. Of course, in economics everything has trade offs and any good effect comes with a bad one. While immigrants are, you know, demonized for quote, unquote taking our jobs. In fact, the deleterious consequences of immigration and new women workers for that matter, is that the expansion of the supply of workers should pull down wages. So it's a rule immigrant workers increase the size of the economy, but it's a prediction that those workers should lower wages and it's, you know, actively preventing flourishing area of economic research to determine the extent to which immigrants have actually pulled down the wages of native workers. So we've done economic case studies of these kind of big migration effects and then we've looked at labor markets that are exposed to a lot of immigration to try to find out if immigrants do have a negative effect on wages. And honestly, it's mixed enough to be zero. They should have a downward effect. Yeah, I mean, we don't really see it.

[Robin]

People would just. Yeah, their gut instinct is the supply of labor goes up, therefore demand goes down. And you don't have to pay as high wages to get workers. Right?

[Katherine]

Yes. You don't have to pay as high wages to get workers. And a lot of people have looked at this and I would say it's like a cousin of the minimum wage where. Yeah, if you were to put the minimum wage on a chart of supply and demand, you raise the wage, you're going to lose jobs. But actually looking at minimum wage increases and looking for evidence of job loss, it's not there. Yeah, that's not to say the minimum wage doesn't have negative effects. It's just not the big visible negative effect predicted by a two dimensional graph which is immediate job loss. Same with immigrants. The, the big visible negative effect predicted by a two dimensional graph is lower wages for native workers. But in reality it's hard to see. Probably because their boost to the economy is enough to bring up wages via growth or because immigrant workers are highly mobile and they're drawn to hot markets where wages and wage growth is. And so they're more easily absorbed into the labor market.

[Robin]

This also came up, I think, in some questions that we heard from listeners about. You know, we did a whole episode about fertility rates and the plateauing of the American population. And wouldn't immigration not only be beneficial, but almost essential to stabilize the population?

[Katherine]

It's 100% essential in the U.S. so let's do some context.

[Robin]

Sure.

[Katherine]

Right now.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

It's 2025. Roughly 14% of the US population is non native, meaning they were not born here. However, if you were to look at workers, it is closer to 1 in 5. It's around 19.5% of all workers in the U.S. if you were to look at population growth in the U.S. if immigration were to go to zero tomorrow, the U.S. population would immediately start declining. Immigrants have propped us up, and they are a key source of our workforce growth, a key source of our economic growth, and an absolutely vital source of population growth. And were we to just decide to turn this off and not take immigrants anymore and completely wall off the US Our population and economy would start declining immediately. It's about a one for one. If they account for around 20% of the workforce, that's about how much of the economy someone will accredit to immigrants in the U.S. wow. You know, of the more than 47 million immigrants in the U.S. and 11 million are undocumented. But of those 47 million, just over half are naturalized citizens. Thinking of what this conversation means to the future, a quarter of all children live in a household with at least one non native parent.

[Robin]

Wow. Well, and also, you know, there are people who are immigrants and they're also married to Americans. Right. And this is gonna be a little bit of an aside, but deporting the father of four children whose wife is American and whose children are American, like, what purpose is that possibly serving to just take that income out of that household?

[Katherine]

Crickets from me.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

Because, I mean, it's not crazy that we would have a quarter of kids coming from immigrant households, because we've definitely been there in the past. And, you know, Italians aren't minorities anymore, but they certainly used to be.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

What I would like to spend this presenter piece talking about is probably two things that will hopefully change your perspective on immigrants in the US in how we treat them. This is my problem with immigration enforcement is we do, like, if it's just about the rules, hey, you have to have permission. You need to have permission to be here. Right. It's just about following the rules. We do not Treat enforcement of all laws the way that we treat immigration law. So in the budget reconciliation, one big, beautiful bill that was passed by the House brings the total for immigration enforcement to $185 billion. This is money that would be spent on ICE agents in operation, on immigrant detention, on border enforcement. It's an increase from the current levels. And it makes. Makes absolutely no sense. And the idea that we are just making sure people follow the rules and that's why we're so harsh on immigration is laughable. To give you a comparison, how much do we spend of that 100? Well, I mean, I can give you two comparisons that will make you, like, would make me set my hair on fire. So $185 billion for immigration enforcement dwarfs the just over $2 billion that we spend on labor law enforcement. So $185 billion going to keep 11 million people out of the country who don't have legal authority to be here anymore, versus $2 billion to keep 170 million working Americans protected by the labor laws that Congress has enacted. It doesn't even come close. Take every stolen car, take every house that's been broken into, take every petty theft, everybody who knocks over an ATM or robs a jewelry store, and put all that money into one big pile and add it up, and it would never come close to touching how much wages are not paid to workers that they are legally entitled to. So the proportion here of what we mean by it's just about following the rules is clearly not just about following the rules.

[Robin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Katherine]

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that $185 billion a year, should this number actually become lost, should they actually spend this much money? $185 billion a year is about twice the entire food stamp program. It's just under food stamp runs about 100 billion a year. So this is food stamps plus 85% more food stamps. It's enough to have a universal child care system. Probably one and a half times the amount of money that the government would like to spend on Immigration detention is 50% more than what they are currently spending on the entire Bureau of Prisons.

[Robin]

So it doesn't look like we have a small prison system either.

[Katherine]

Well, it's a federal prison system, so it's not the state and local prison system. It's the federal prison system, which is smaller. But I mean, it's just this is. This is so much money. Although, quick aside, just so I don't go to, like, budget math, jail, 185 billion is annual. It doesn't last forever. These components, they have varying lifespans. I'm, I'm just trying to give you a sense of what annual spending would be, the annual cost. And the biggest year that they propose is 185 billion. But I don't want you to think that like, but for immigration enforcement we would have twice as much food stamps in universal childcare. It's just to give you a sense of how much this cost in a year. There's this basic fact immigrants add to the economy. They're here, they're a very large part of our workforce. They absolutely give us a tailwind by being here and by working here and propping up our population and filling jobs and the amount of our economy that we are then going to use to try and enforce part of the law as it relates to the labor market. It cannot have the justification to merit this much money being spent in this way when we do not enforce labor law.

[Robin]

Well, and you're spending all that money, as you say, to potentially shrink the economy.

[Katherine]

Yeah, calumny is a good word here because most people, I think, have a complete misunderstanding of what immigrants look like in the US and what immigrant workers look like in the US So they run the gamut of educational attainment. They also run the gamut of ethnic and racial background and how much they earn here in the US Generally. Always true is that foreign born workers will have much higher work rates than native born workers, mainly as a function of being younger people who are 70. They don't come here. You would come when you're 20 or 30 and you don't have a lot of immigrants that come as they're older. And so because they're younger and the part that gets replenished from new immigration are also younger, we tend to have much higher work rates. And in terms of the professions they hold, there are the kind of like when I think about immigration, I think people who work on farms, sure, that's definitely true. Hospitality, farming, building and cleaning and maintenance and construction and extraction. Immigrants are at least a third of that workforce. So for Farming it's like 40%. Building, cleaning and maintenance, around 40. Construction 35 to 36. But then the next biggest occupation is computer and mathematical science. There are one in four computer and math workers in the US Are immigrants. And you're also going to have about one in four in healthcare, support and nursing care and then personal care and service, and then also the life, physical and social sciences. So they. There's a real tendency to equate immigrant with undocumented immigrant or immigrant with the lowest paid workers in a handful of jobs. But neither are true. They run the gamut of education, occupation in industry in our country.

[Robin]

One of the things I think that people get upset about is this idea that immigrants cost us money. Like outside the growth of the economy. We have to educate their kids, they have to go to schools. But from what I have read is that even if there is some sort of like initial cost that their kids make it up in in spades, that immigrants kids are amazing earners and amazing contributors to the economy, this one to.

[Katherine]

Me is pure fall guy. If you look at trends in immigration and you were just looking at undocumented immigrants and okay, obviously point of fact, I actually hate the phrase undocumented immigrants. It's so inaccurate. So looking at the trends in immigrants who do not have permission, which just rolls right off the tongue, the massive run up in people who are in the United States without permission, undocumented immigrants, as it were, it goes from roughly 3 million to roughly 12 million between 1990 and around 2007. When the economy collapses, when it hits the construction industry particularly hard, the number of undocumented immigrants falls. It goes down to as low as 10 million. And in the, you know, about 15 years since then, it's hung out at around 11 million. It's been a incredibly stable population in terms of size for almost 15, 20 years. So we've had this group of people in the US at the numbers, we've had them for so long. I mean, we talk about it as if there's some kind of precipitating crisis, but in fact, all of the action occurred almost 20 years ago. I mean, 2007 was the year I graduated college and we have not had more undocumented immigrants since then. And you know, in that time where we went from 3 million to 12 million and 12 million down to 10 and 10 up to 11 million, we' learned so much about undocumented immigrants and their contribution to the economy. So first thing to know, immigrants are net contributors tax wise. They pay a ton in taxes. We can link to a great report from ITEP who talks that talks about all the taxes they pay, including property taxes, because they are homeowners, but they, they are net payers of taxes, especially on the federal level. They also give a little bit of a boost to Social Security because they pay into Social Security. Even if they've paid into Social Security on a ITin an individual tax Identification Number, they do not earn any credit for it. And Social Security does not Send that money back.

[Robin]

Really?

[Katherine]

They give a little bit of a tailwind to Social Security. Yeah, it's a. It's not small. I mean, it's not huge, but it's not small.

[Robin]

They.

[Katherine]

They pay for your Social Security, in your Medicare. I think, to me, this is a pure fall guy because most of the problems that you have related to things like housing scarcity or health insurance come from market failure and policy failure that you are then blaming immigrants for. And there are lots of localities that have a ton of immigrants that have not seen a spike in prices in their housing supply. I am sitting here in the great city of Houston, h town which has one of the both most rapidly expanding populations, you know, incredibly high immigrant population and rapidly expanding housing supply. So while Houston is getting more expensive, you know, the idea that it's purely because of immigrants, you know, housing is expensive when demand outstrips supply. Now we have high levels of immigrants that we are starting to blame for problems related to service provision that come down to the government under investing, under regulating and housing supply. A massive housing supply crisis that, you know, brought down supply for 15 years. You know, in general, a failure to address things like health care. But now we can blame immigrants who have been here in relatively stable numbers for the past 15 years. It is now all of their fault. No, Congress has not fixed health care. Congress has not fixed housing. You can blame an immigrant for that, but you will not find a solution that will change housing or healthcare. The education of immigrant children. Undocumented children have the right to a public education. The Supreme Court has decided that it was back in the 80s, I think it was 85 or 86.

[Robin]

California has tried to throw immigrant kids out of schools at least once in the 80s and was found to be not okay.

[Katherine]

Texas used to be a leader on this. I mean, the Dreamers, which were the DREAM act, which was then the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals daca, when they originally called the Dreamers, before they were called daca, Texas had in state ut Austin had in state tuition for undocumented immigrants while I was there. And they were one of the first states to pass that.

[Robin]

This was one of the reasons that we had the amnesty we had in 1986. I know you were not very old then, but when Ronald Reagan 0 I was 0 in 1984. He said, I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lives here, even though sometime in the past they may have entered illegally. Reagan, of course, Californian, but you'd be hard pressed to find somebody in the party of Reagan to say that today.

[Katherine]

Which is sad because I think it always comes down to are you making policy for the economy you have or the economy you want? The crisis that this policy is being manufactured around for immigration enforcement to reach nearly $200 billion is so at odds with the rates that we're seeing. We basically saw the jump up 20 years ago and then 20 you've had people who have been here for decades, you know, waiting for, waiting for immigration reform and now we're getting this just vicious crackdown.

[Robin]

Yeah, well, in fairness, there was a huge rise in the number of people who showed, you know, who were crossing the southern border in particular. Those numbers did shoot up both before the pandemic and then after the pandemic. And we're seeing a lot of reaction to that. Again, our current occupant of the White House ran anti immigrant before any of that happened too. But the notion that we are also punishing people currently who aren't following the rules and who aren't following the laws is contradicted by the fact that people are being arrested in courthouses when they're going to their mandatory meetings with immigration officials and in courtrooms. And yeah, you know, so it's like if you show up and do the thing that you've been told to do, we're going to arrest you there and if you don't, then you're out of compliance and we're going to arrest you. Like.

[Katherine]

Yeah, in the, in the, in the spike in crossings during Biden, I mean, those were asylum seekers. They were not undocumented. Right. They, they, they were seeking asylum at the border and they were granted, they're trying to revoke those asylum status and.

[Robin]

The temporary people who are temporary protective.

[Katherine]

Status from Venezuela and Haiti, which they're actively revoking. So I think it helps to kind of, for me, this is a very raw conversation and it's very hard to stay kind of as even handed and level headed as I'd like. So it would help to say that you have spheres of policy and economics that we're talking about. The first is immigrants are in the United States. They always have been, they always will be. It's a part of our country, a part of our economy. And if you were to describe immigrants in the US over the last quarter century, you would say they have been absolutely vital to propping up our population growth, the growth in the labor force and the stable growth in our economy to now be one in five workers, that is immigration and the economics of that Are, I think, very simple. On the second kind of sphere, you have these 11 million people who are here without permission. Now, they didn't necessarily all come here without permission, but they currently don't have permission. And they, they are not representative of immigrants overall. They're more likely to be from Mexico, they're more likely to have less education and work in very specific occupations. The kind of like, third part of this is the crackdown that is terrifying that has been coming out of the last four months, in particular the last few weeks, in a really acute way that I think is so hateful it's probably not worth spending our time on because it has no economic justification. The real question is what about these 11 million people and what does economic policy guide us towards? And what is the optimism of all of that? Of what is the actual reality instead of the one constructed to appease hardline voters on tv?

[Robin]

I mean, I don't understand why we don't want to want more Americans. Like, I want more Americans.

[Katherine]

I should say that this is another area in which the u. S. Polling data is so incredibly contradictory.

[Robin]

Yeah, it's wild.

[Katherine]

This is the problem with polling, is that it. I think maybe it's. This is the strength of polling, is it lets you. It lets people pull out of like. Do you know that you have an incredibly contradictory opinion on this?

[Robin]

Your cognitive dissonance feeling today and immigration.

[Katherine]

Is one where Americans have incredibly internally inconsistent. And it's not. When I say Americans are divided literally.

[Robin]

Day to day right now.

[Katherine]

Oh yeah, I wrote about this earlier this year that I think that this is an area in which a crackdown could really overplay one's hand. Because yes, you'll have 2/3 of Americans say, you know, we don't want a path to citizenship for people who are criminal. But then if you say, do you think people who pay taxes should be able to be put into a path to having a legal status? They're like, oh, yeah, totally. Two thirds say yes. So, like, at no point does America have a view that makes any type of internal consistent sense. But I think that to me, is where I see the most optimism because it is not a hardened view. It has become a vitriolic issue and discussion full of calumny at a set of people who are economies in some ways indebted to. I know, I'm trying to use it as much as possible. I mean, this is a practice, man, if there were a straw man here, I'd find it. But I think that there's this like that to me shows Just how much potential meaningful reform has. It's both a reflection of the fact that we have not done anything significant on immigration since 1986, and also that people want to have clarity here and that their views are much more malleable than some. If you could say in a single poll, 2/3 of Americans want more deportation, and 2/3 of Americans want illegal status for people who are here undocumented. But working. That does not point to pick people up off the streets who look Mexican, which is what they're being told to do. Right. Like, that is not the conclusion of that polling. The conclusion of that polling is, fix this broken system. Fix this broken system. And I take a ton of optimism and hope from that, because this is going to get so ugly. But we know where we need to go. It's like every economic problem we've talked about, but in some ways, I think a lot harder because it's people's lives. Yeah. It's people's lives and the treatment of humans and racial profiling and children being separated from their families. But at the end of the day, it is the same thing we end up talking about week after week, which is there is a solution, and there are a lot of people who are too cowardly to tell you it's where we have to go. Yeah. But it is where we have to go. It is where our economy needs us to go. It is where policy needs us to go. It is where humanity needs us to go and where our democracy has always gone. We have passed horrible immigration laws in this country, but we end up reversing them and accepting immigrants because it's a part of our country and are part of our economy. So the optimism is nothing that's happening now will change where we need to go, which is giving a path to legal status for people who are here, who are upstanding, good citizens in all but name.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

Remember that this flashpoint is invented.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

Deliberately. Deliberately. This is a deliberately invented flashpoint that is at odds with the reality of the economic or legal situation. This is a politically manufactured flashpoint that incites a ton of feelings about what it means to follow the rules and who follows the rules and what our priorities are. And this is another instance to just keep your eyes on the ball.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

The effect of immigrants on the US Economy is enormously beneficial and always has been because of the really complicated economic theory that bigger is better, they make us bigger, and so that's better. Done.

[Robin]

Done.

[Katherine]

And to the extent that these people are demonized, to the extent that these people are Used to blame for parts of our economy that are weak. You know, you just, it's hard to see it, but the more they blame the wrong cause, the less they'll be able to solve the problem. The real problem with immigration in the US is that we haven't had reform since I was 0 years old and I turned 40 next week.

[Robin]

Yep. So it's been a minute.

[Katherine]

It's been a minute. So let's say you hate immigrants and the fact that they can have a good effect on the economy does not matter to you at the slightest. Like we don't need them. We can have a smaller economy with just people who look like me and we would be better off. Fine. They're not going anywhere. Especially the, you know, 20 some odd million who are here in our naturalized citizens. But to have tens of millions of people in our labor market who have incredible vulnerability and no power to negotiate over their employer, it hurts you. It hurts you as a worker that you would have a permanent part of your labor force that is so vulnerable to employer power, that won't report people who violate the law, who steal wages, who violate the minimum wage safety standards, who will hire children and abuse, who will pay under the table, who won't pay the taxes that you have to pay because they're gonna withhold them like the. There are bad employers out there and you are essentially letting them flourish because you're giving them a set of workers who have very little power to check them. And the end result is something that Americans know that they don't like, even if they can't positively say. The problem with low paid immigrant workers who I think are taking American jobs is that American policymakers, American labor law enforcers and American employers have created a situation that I will blame on the immigrant themselves or herself or himself. But that's all fixable, right?

[Robin]

Right.

[Katherine]

That's not.

[Robin]

Especially if you've got $185 billion that you're willing to throw around.

[Katherine]

If the Department of Labor wage and hour and division had $185 billion to throw around on labor law enforcement, we would live in a very different country. But I mean, and it still doesn't take away from how much immigrants add to the U.S. i mean, the fact alone that they have accounted for, you know, in every year of the past 20, all or most of our prime age labor force increase should tell you just how undervalued they are in this political conversation and just how much we're risking. But I think it also just, it locks us into a solution. In that they're just fighting it.

[Robin]

Yeah.

[Katherine]

Robyn, do you feel better about, like, have I given you optimism?

[Robin]

I feel like we're gonna have to go through some stuff.

[Katherine]

Yeah, but that's been. I think that's been the tone of a lot of that we've talked about. Like, we have to go through some stuff because we are completely committed to not seeing the solution in front of us or going towards it.

[Robin]

I think the thing about California is, I mean, California has, even in my time here, you know, done some terrible things to all sorts of people. Pass laws passed by. Passed constitutional amendments on ballot measures that this is not. Legislators that citizens voted on that were overly racist and anti immigrant and anti gay and anti. You know, and yet eventually we get over it, I think, and we get past it. And I think a lot of what you're seeing now in California is a recognition of all those things that you're talking about. And when I feel optimistic about California in general, it's that California and Texas, I think, alternate in leading the way. I'm hoping that California's acceptance of having the size of immigrant population. We do. And also just understanding that within a generation, everybody is an American and that they're our neighbors and our fellow church congregants and our classmates. It happens pretty quick.

[Katherine]

And most importantly, worker bots. And most importantly, these are worker bots, people. And that's what we need. We need worker bots and little worker bots of the future. So this ends up being another pro worker bot.

[Robin]

Yes.

[Katherine]

All right, let's. Let's do some executive orders.

[Robin]

Yeah. Do you have an executive order?

[Katherine]

I'm going to make you go first again.

[Robin]

Damn it. Okay. I have. I'm going to build on one that was sent to me, which is kind of, again, a style guide executive order from Terence P. Terrence wants us, the world, to abolish the phrase in real time. He says philosophically, whether time is real or not is a real construct is debatable. But we should not be reopening that debate in. In regular conversation, we shall assume one of these is true and only mention it on philosophy podcasts. Now, now I have a new appreciation for speaking about things in real time, because when we listen to the podcast, we have to do it in real time. But I do. I totally understand what he's saying, because I hate the phrase very real possibilities which people use in writing all the time. I can't stand it, because if it was not a real possibility, it would actually just be a fantasy. And very real is no More real than regular real.

[Katherine]

So I'm just, I'm like, I'm like sitting here, like smiling, but I'm like combing through every column I ever sent you of, like, did I ever. Did I ever see very real possibilities? It's not something it doesn't. It's not a phrase.

[Robin]

I think it is something that academics use all the time when they're like trying to sound conversational. That is a very real possibility. Anyway, I'm with you, Terrence. Let's strike those phrases in real time and.

[Katherine]

Very real possibility.

[Robin]

Yeah. All right.

[Katherine]

I was kicking around a couple executive orders related to having recently driven from our nation's capital to Houston. That was a nice, fun long drive. It is. It is kind of funny that like he's closer to 15 and yeah, we were just like the two lowest paid, longest trip Uber drivers for our dog. You can put children on a plane with their grandparents, but you can't put dogs on a plane. So we were like hired taxi for my little puppy, who I hope you're hearing snoring on the B roll. So I had some like road trip executive orders and then I had some customer service executive orders of like trying to set up Internet, but I feel like I've burned through the executive orders on customer service. So what I decided on, as we were driving through South Carolina, we drove through a town called Cow Pens.

[Robin]

Did you say cow Pens?

[Katherine]

Yes, it's exactly how it sounds. Cow Pens. Cow Pens, South Carolina. And I noticed on the. The water tower there was a revolutionary soldier. And I was like, oh, did some of the. Was this one of the Carolina towns that saw a fight? It was. We go through like the Wikipedia article on like the Revolutionary War battle of cowpens, S.C. and I mean like my. I'm like, I'm just hitting the steering wheel and I'm like, where, where is the movie? How has it's not been put on film? It's so good. It's. I would say the short version is that a seasoned American who has at one point quit the revolutionary side, but then comes back to the Continentals, hands a whooping like he wouldn't believe to a 25 year old British wunderkind and basically lays a trap for him that the kid falls straight into and through, and it's a massive victory. It's one of the biggest morale victories for the revolutionary side. And so I think my executive order, I am a history buff and I've read two histories of the American Revolution behind.

[Robin]

Right there. There they are.

[Katherine]

Yeah, yeah. And this battle was not in my mind at all. It felt so cinematic when I was reading it and the personalities alone. So I think there ought to be some kind of mechanism for people to vote on historical film adaptations and that all the production companies every year have to take turn making what America votes on. And so like, yeah, maybe, maybe until the boomers die, it's just World War II movies from now until infinity. But once they're gone and we can move past World War II, I think we should have users submitted, like citizens submitted. I would like to see someone put this in film and give it the budget it deserves. I'm not talking about like 10 part.

[Robin]

This has got to be series kind of. Yeah.

[Katherine]

Yes. The Band of Brothers treatment for different parts of American history. We vote on it, we decide it. The studios have to take turn financing it. They get enough tax credits. I know they're struggling, but they just have to put their back into some really high class historical stuff. I want the BBC DC to be embarrassed when they see how good this is. I want them to feel like, God, why can't we have Hollywood in London? And I want it to be like, glowed up, but still accurate. And we all. And we get to do this and this becomes a participatory history lesson for Americans. And I would love it if like this created some kind of rivalry between the studios of who did the best job with their homework assignments and like, which actors. I mean, I want this to be like a part of our culture.

[Robin]

Really.

[Katherine]

It's really involved. Almost like I had 27 hours to.

[Robin]

Think about in the car all the way from Cow Pens to Houston.

[Katherine]

Almost like I was in a car for three days thinking really, really depth about what it would take for me to see a good representation of Cowpens to the production quality I've become accustomed to. Yeah, this is where I landed sometime in Louisiana. If you guys want to hear the middle five hour deliberation of some of that, I'm happy to create a bonus episode of like, which, I mean, I think I would have a list of like, here are the top 10 movies that I need to see made immediately. So maybe my executive order is, y' all don't get to vote. This is a dictatorship. It's just the ones I want. But I think I'm trying to be a woman of the people. I've cast half of them. I think I should stop talking. Robin, can you just start talking? So I'll stop because, like, if I would.

[Robin]

If I could get a word in. Okay.

[Katherine]

Spiritual sponsors So my spiritual sponsor.

[Robin]

If you live in a city that's overcrowded with cars like I do, my spiritual sponsor in the last week has been what I we call Rockstar parking. When you just drive up and there is a parking spot right out front, it's like it was just held for you. You know, it's amazing how much karma you feel like you've earned when that happens to you. It's really pretty great. My friend Amy, different from my wife Amy, her family calls this Doris Day parking because if you ever watch old movies, you know, Doris Day is driving through Manhattan and then just somehow pulls up right in front of the awning at the business that she's about to go into, you know, it's a little boost and it gets me through.

[Katherine]

Especially here in la when something like that would happen to my dad, he'd be like, there's going to be a bill waiting for me when I get home.

[Robin]

Really? I'm like, I've been living right, I've been totally the opposite.

[Katherine]

My spiritual sponsor is going to have to be summer storms. We've been in Houston for a week and wouldn't wanna miss hurricane season.

[Robin]

Good. Got there just in time.

[Katherine]

Yeah. Bringing my northern born husband down to Houston. We've gotta make sure we get here in time for hurricane season. Wouldn't want him to miss anything. But it has just been so long since I've woken up at 6:30 in the morning to thunder and lightning and I just, it like hit in a childhood place of like just the alarm, you know, the. I can hear the kids like running around like quote unquote, being quiet. And I, it was, it's been five days in a row of thunderstorms and lightning in the morning. And then of course by like three you'd never know it had rained because it gotten so hot. And I felt like I had come home in a really weird way. So my spiritual sponsor this week is Summer Storms.

[Robin]

Nice. Nice.

[Katherine]

Which I realized is a horribly insensitive spiritual sponsor if like a summer storms includes a catastrophic hurricane. And so I kept on being torn about whether or not I wanted to say it because I like, you know, she loves storms and they hurt people. Clearly that's not what I meant. I just meant that feeling of coming home. Maybe, maybe my spiritual sponsor is climates that feel like home. That's our show. There's our spiritual sponsors and we need to snap out the two people who props to Johnny for calling it like he sees it and calling the spade a spade. The two people that absolutely absolutely make this show possible. And, I mean, if they didn't show up, we wouldn't be able to record, we wouldn't be able to. To release an episode. We would not be where we are. You would not be listening to us if we did not have these two people. And so thank you, Johnny, for giving us a boost to them and the incredible work that they do. Andy and Sophie.

[Robin]

You bet.