Locked Out of the Dream: Regulation Making Homes Unaffordable Around the World
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Next to inflation, Americans ranked housing as their top financial worry in a Gallup survey last May. It's only gotten worse.
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USA Today
36 minutes ago
- USA Today
How will Trump's immigration crackdown in California impact the economy?
How will Trump's immigration crackdown in California impact the economy? Show Caption Hide Caption National Guard major general clarifies military's role in Los Angeles National Guard Major General Scott Sherman outlined the role of military personnel in Los Angeles and said troops will not conduct arrests. President Donald Trump's administration is stepping up deportation efforts in California with immigration raids at restaurants, traffic stops and routine legal check-ins. The immigration crackdown, while popular with voters in polls, has sparked protests in Los Angeles. Long term, economists warn that fewer immigrants could take a hit to the economy, prompting labor shortages and slowing economic growth. "Immigrants play a huge role in the California economy,' said Giovanni Peri, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. Without immigrants, 'there will be less economic growth. Less opportunity, also, for local companies and American workers.' 'Wave of panic': Businesses are in crosshairs of Trump immigration crackdown Why the U.S. is 'immigrant dependent' The country's economy has become 'very immigrant dependent,' according to Christopher Thornberg, founding partner at Beacon Economics, a Los Angeles research and consulting firm. About 479,000 U.S.-born workers were added to the labor force over the last five years compared with 3.6 million foreign-born workers, according to an October report from the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research organization. The report pointed to a spike in immigration and retirements, coupled with a slowdown in U.S.-born working-age population growth. In California, immigrants make up roughly one-third of workers and comprise an outsized share of the workforce in physically intensive sectors like construction and agriculture. Critics say these workers are lowering wages for American-born citizens or taking away jobs. But Peri said that doesn't pan out in the data. Immigrants may reduce wages for native-born Americans with competing skills, according to Harvard economics professor George Borjas, but it slightly increases the income of native-born citizens overall. A separate 2024 working paper co-authored by Peri found immigrants had no significant effect on wages for those born in the U.S. who are college educated and a positive effect on wages for their American-born peers who are less educated. Instead, Peri said immigrants are filling the holes in industries struggling to hire. Immigrants account for 28% of care workers in long-term care settings, according to the nonprofit health policy organization KFF. In California, immigrants make up 44% of manufacturing jobs and 40% of construction jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington D.C. Some of those jobs are held by undocumented workers. About 1.8 million people, or 17% of immigrants in California, were undocumented as of 2022, according to Pew. The vast majority – 1.4 million – had no legal protections through programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or active asylum claims. "It would be lovely to deal with this with an expansion of the legal immigration system,' Peri said. 'But lacking that, undocumented immigrants are doing a lot of these jobs. And losing some of them would make the situation worse.' Pushing away immigrants, Peri argues, prevents companies from growing and creating more jobs that would benefit U.S.-born workers. One 2024 analysis from Jamshid Damooei, executive director of the Center for Economics of Social Issues at California Lutheran University, found work from undocumented employees created an additional 1.25 million jobs in California. And because the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are not criminals, but people who have been part of their local communities for years if not decades, 'in the majority of cases, the effects of just indiscriminately deporting these people is going to have very little benefit for the American people,' Peri said. Revenue vs. cost It's true that immigrants add costs for the government; they benefit from public education, health services and other state-specific policies. But research generally finds immigration tends to raise the federal government's revenue more than its costs, with immigrants adding an estimated $1.2 trillion in federal revenues between 2024 and 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. State and local governments' costs tend to increase more than their revenues from a surge in immigration, but Peri said the rise in immigration is a net benefit overall. Even undocumented workers, Peri argued, boost the government's coffers because they pay a considerable amount of taxes. At the same time, they are ineligible for most federal benefits like Social Security and food stamps. Undocumented immigrants contributed $8.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, according to a 2024 study from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. Trump and Newsom: Trump's battle with Newsom, California expands beyond immigration What happens if the immigration crackdown continues? Thornberg doesn't expect Trump to deport every undocumented worker in the country, and views the crackdown in California as 'more of a blown-up spectacle' that 'may get tied up in the courts.' Already, Trump has said he would back off certain deportation efforts to avoid labor shortages in areas like agriculture and hospitality. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump said in a June 12 post on Truth Social. 'Changes are coming!' While an immediate labor shortage is unlikely, Thornberg believes we're more likely to see people discouraged from coming to the U.S. in the years to come, resulting in a tighter labor market. That could mean higher wages for workers as companies step up recruitment efforts, but it would slow economic growth overall. Trump's efforts to constrain immigration during his first term played out in a similar fashion; by 2019, the unemployment rate had dropped to 3.5%, its lowest level since 1969, with earnings up 3.5% from 2018. Meanwhile, economic growth slowed to 2.3%, down from 2.9% the year prior, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Peri said a tight labor market could have ripple effects across the economy, such as driving up the cost to produce certain items. Companies may be more inclined to import cheaper goods at a time when the Trump administration is pushing for more U.S. manufacturing through tariffs. 'This could have a cascade of effects,' he said. 'There is no doubt at all that immigration and immigrants who do those simple, manual jobs are very important at making the economy go.'
Miami Herald
37 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Miami airport is offering help for travelers with impaired vision. How it works
Miami International Airport is making it easier for vision-impaired travelers to navigate the terminals. The airport has added a free app to its accessibility lineup that works through a phone's camera. Travelers using the software, called ReBokeh, can change the color and then zoom in to what the camera is pointing to at the airport, enhance their vision. And an AI feature gives extra guidance through the airport. 'Miami is such an incredible gateway, not only into the U.S. but into the rest of the world,' said Rebecca Rosenberg, CEO of the software firm ReBokeh Vision Technologies, based in Baltimore. 'They see such an incredible mass of travelers, being one of the largest, busiest airports in the country,' she said. 'We just felt like it was an incredible opportunity to have a large amount of impact and connect with many low-vision travelers, not just those who are passing through Miami as Americans but individuals who are coming into the U.S.' What the app does and other help The ReBokeh app, now in use at MIA, is the second app for those with vision impairments at the airport, following Aria, which launched in 2019. Both apps provide a similar experience. ReBokeh lets travelers independently use the app to move around. The app can help read signs, focus in on arrival and departure monitors, find a restaurant for a shop, and translate into other languages, according to the airport. The Aria service uses a live agent to speak and help users with their vision. Both vision helpers are a part of the airport's MyMIAccess program, which helps travel with accessibility issues. The program also includes automated wheelchairs introduced last year. Cost benefit at the Miami airport Airport Director and CEO Ralph Cutié said the goal is to help everyone interact with MIA. 'We have a long and proud history of helping customers and being sensitive with disabilities,' he said, 'and this is just one more program that we're offering.' While the app is free for travelers and can be downloaded from the Apple store, it costs the airport $9,000 annually for the service subscription. 'The subscription is $9,000 but it allows us to provide the service for free for all of our passengers,' he said. 'Multiply that by how many people could come through here with that impairment, it's a bargain.'
Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Defence spending boost can only go so far to lessen U.S. reliance: experts
MONTREAL - In early 2002, Glenn Cowan touched down in Kandahar province as part of the first wave of regular Canadian Army troops deployed to Afghanistan, serving in a U.S.-led brigade combat team. After joining Canada's elite special operations unit Joint Task Force 2 in 2003, he spent the next 13 years collaborating with American soldiers on raids, rescues and reconnaissance missions. 'If you're going to get into a fight with someone, you want the Americans on your side,' said Cowan, founder of ONE9. His Ottawa-based venture capital firm focuses on national security investments. The same might be said of the gear Canadian troops use, and the industry behind it. An infusion of fresh defence funding is poised to flood parts of Canada's aerospace, manufacturing and information technology sectors in a bid to reduce reliance on the United States, but experts say this country will remain firmly fastened to its neighbour as a military-industrial partner by necessity. While not a military powerhouse, Canada has expertise in areas ranging from flight simulation and shipbuilding to armoured vehicles and artificial intelligence. The $9.3-billion in additional defence spending announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday is poised to boost those sectors, with the goal of greater procurement from domestic companies. 'We're too reliant on the United States,' Carney said. 'We will ensure that every dollar is invested wisely, including by prioritizing made-in-Canada manufacturing and supply chains. We should no longer send three-quarters of our defence capital spending to America.' But a massive cash injection means Canada will have to scale up fast, including via foreign suppliers, said Jim Kilpatrick, in charge of global supply chain and network operations at Deloitte. 'Defence supply chains can often go 10 or 11 tiers deep,' he said, stressing their complex international reach. 'Canada will not be self-sufficient in defence products required by our military.' The country's relatively small production capacity means it will continue to shell out money on American equipment, technology and aircraft, including 88 U.S.-built F-35 fighter jets at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, experts say. However, some of that spending will go to American military giants that have a big presence on Canadian soil, even if the profits end up in pockets south of the border. General Dynamics churns out light armoured vehicles bristelling with turreted mortars and assault guns in London, Ont., as well as tactical communications systems in Ottawa. Lockheed Martin works on 'advanced technology systems' such as naval command software in five provinces. Defence contractor Raytheon counts 8,500 employees and 2,500 suppliers in Canada. 'The wider Canadian economy features a lot of branch plants,' noted David Perry, CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. While high-tech weapons and machinery come to mind at the mention of defence procurement, much of the extra funding this year may well go to more mundane items. Housing and infrastructure upgrades for Canadian troops make up some of the biggest priorities for Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan, she told Quebec radio host Patrick Lagacé on Thursday. Perry also highlighted the ripple effects of that spending for myriad business types beyond the purely military realm. 'Some of it is done through the big stuff — we think about fighter jets. But a lot of it pays for office furniture, software licenses, electricity contracts, snow removal, grass cutting.' Taking a step back, Perry framed defence investment in terms the prime minister, formerly the head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, could appreciate. 'If you think of our defence relationships as an investment portfolio, the PM is saying we're way over-indexed in the Dow Jones and the S&P,' he said. 'Diversify.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2025.
