Just the Facts

The United States is in the midst of a profound demographic transformation that will long outlast the current economic downturn. In 2011, the first of the baby boomers—Americans born between 1946 and 1964—turned 65 years old. There are 77 million baby boomers, comprising nearly one quarter of the total population, and their eventual retirement will have an enormous impact on the U.S. economy. This daunting fact is central to the January 2012 employment and labor force projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). As the BLS projects, the retirement of the baby boomers will slow labor force growth significantly over the coming decade. Yet, at the same time, demand will grow for new workers to take the place of those who retire from the labor force, as well as for both highly skilled and less-skilled healthcare workers to look after the growing ranks of elderly Americans. In addition, the Social Security and Medicare programs will be called upon to serve a rapidly growing number of older Americans, which will leave American taxpayers hard pressed to fund those programs with their tax dollars.Read more...

Published On: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 | Download File

As states across the country continue to consider harmful immigration enforcement legislation, it’s critical that lawmakers consider the facts. The following resources provide key answers to basic questions about state immigration-related laws—from the substance of the legislation and myths surrounding the debate to the legal and fiscal implications.

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Published On: Thu, Feb 02, 2012 | Download File

(Updated January 2012) - Immigrants are not the cause of unemployment in the United States. Empirical research has demonstrated repeatedly that there is no correlation between immigration and unemployment. In fact, immigrants—including the unauthorized—create jobs through their purchasing power and their entrepreneurship, buying goods and services from U.S. businesses and creating their own businesses, both of which sustain U.S. jobs. The presence of new immigrant workers and consumers in an area also spurs the expansion of businesses, which creates new jobs. In addition, immigrants and native-born workers are usually not competing in the same job markets because they tend to have different levels of education, work in different occupations, specialize in different tasks, and live in different places. Because they complement each other in the labor market rather than compete, immigrants increase the productivity—and the wages—of native-born workers. In the words of economist Giovanni Peri, “immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s productive capacity, stimulate investment, and promote specialization that in the long run boosts productivity,” and “there is no evidence that these effects take place at the expense of jobs for workers born in the United States.” Read more...

Published On: Fri, Jan 13, 2012 | Download File

The Political and Economic Power of Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in the Lone Star State (Updated January 2012)

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Download the Fact Sheet (2010 Census Data)

Download the Previous Fact Sheet (2008 Census Data)

Immigrants and their children are growing shares of Texas’s population and electorate.
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Published On: Wed, Jan 11, 2012 | Download File