Article: "Aging Americans Face Bleak Futures Unless We Let New Immigrants Help"

Robb.hisself said:
The assumption here is that hiring immigrants to do care giving is affordable to all. Actually, it is not. I cared for my elderly mom for 14 years and we could never afford to hire anyone. The best caregiver are family members. Family members give the best care. The best care is not provided by someone who is exploited for their cheap cost. No, I don't think cheap care givers are the best solution to fulfilling the need for care givers. It is better for the elderly to be cared for by someone who cares.
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I did same for 10 years.
I expect that for us, with 1 child, we will hire some help prior to losing any 2 ADLs, during our deductible period before the LTCi kicks in, and the time when the LTCi aides are off.
 

Pepper said:
The overwhelming majority of new immigrants are seeking asylum. Like it or not, those who are are here legally. If they lose their asylum case it is then that they become illegal.
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Approximately 80% plus do not even qualify for asylum but have been coached to say that if caught or if they turn themselves in at border. claiming that only slows down the process and bogs down the system.... actually for many seeking asylum it has long been accepted to apply for asylum in the first country you come into not march across many to enter the US......
How about those with $ enough to fly into Mexico ..........to walk across the border to apply for asylum they should be doing this in Mexico not applying in US.

The backlog of cases means years to hear case ... and when you do not qualify and will be deported. but without making them leave they are still here. How are they surviving then? Criminal activity....
how do they WORK when employing undocumented is illegal ? ....... false documents / stolen Identity / of under the table ( tax evasion) all felonies..
 
Paco Dennis said:
Be it family members or not. Misa cared for a woman who was 86 for 3 years. Misa cared and developed a strong loving relationship with her. Professional care would of cost $500 a day. Misa made $150 for 24 hours. ( stayed all night ). We have enough people in our country to fill these positions but our cost of living is so high, who can afford to take this kind of work, unless they live like peasants?
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that's just it...those of us who do these types of jobs do hafta live like peasants. the pay is utter peanuts when it comes to cost of living. idk about them but our pay raises here are a whole 30 cents a yr.

with that i might be able to afford a car when i'm dead.
 

There are scientists who specialize in the study of popn, growth ; maintenance and decline - there is a worldwide scientific base of knowledge that states:

for any given popn to maintain itself over given periods of time it needs a fertility rate of 2.1 - in simple terms every fertile family needs to produce at the minimum 2 children to maintain the growth of the popn from young to adult to old age. If those two kids don't emigrate frequently then it is sufficient for future needs. At present the fertility figure in USA is 1.64 ??? - do the maths mateys. Perhaps immigrants can fix the problem?? wanna study it in much more detail around the world??

world fertility rates
 
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We can look at Japan as an example. Their population is seriously aging and they have actually created robots to take care of more infirm individuals because there aren't enough young people to fill that role. The population of foreign residents in Japan is approximately 2.3% vs. the US at almost 14%.

"In addition to funding the research for Paro, the Japanese government has funded the development of other, different kinds of robots in eldercare facilities, such as robots that can lead patients in tai chi and can support physical therapy and rehabilitation."

Be glad we have immigrants.
 
Is it because of Capitalism that America essentially discard the elderly and celebrate the youth and their new fangled ways?
 
DaveA said:
100,000,000 ?? Sounds like it would be easier to just make Texas a northern state of Mexico. That alone should improve our border situation.
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Planning our move north. As far north as possible. N. Minnesota most likely. The colder and more extreme the better.

Not sure who or what will take care of us when the time comes. But at 80y.o., I'm still up to relocate out of what we're in now. -Arnold
 
In the news today as a result of post election chaos, obviously from the perspective of real estate and construction corporations and their financial corporations.

The U.S. is short millions of housing units. Mass deportations would make it worse.

Immigrants make up a significant portion of the construction labor force, and removing them en masse would cripple the industry – not to mention having devastating social and emotional consequences as well, experts and advocates say...

"Mass deportations would cripple the construction and housing market," Lukens said. "It would cripple the agricultural market. It would be incredibly expensive and it would destroy the economy. And it's not acceptable on any level, both the human level and the economic level."
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When I grew up, illegal immigrants were not performing construction but rather until 1964, the Bracero Guest Worker Program brought seasonal Mexican agricultural workers into the US. After that program ended given a vacuum, the same migrants continued to be used illegally as the government looked the other way while corps took advantage of them.

In 1983 the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act began but illegal migrants were still used that continues to this day. The reason is agricultural corporations have been intent on selling US grown food to foreign nations and to compete with other nations requires keeping field worker costs low. So all a big LIE. They could of course legislate another temporary seasonal worker guest program but both agri corps and politicians expected that might cost more in profits by forcing them to treat workers more humanly like with US citizens.

During R years, after construction crew businesses began to also hire illegals under the table to undercut bidding on work, it quickly became a race to the bottom that destroyed livelihoods of many skilled Americans, often receiving relatively high wages, especially those in construction trade unions. That first began in California but quickly spread elsewhere with Wall Street corporations the real bad guys allowing that to happen through their political puppets on both sides.

At the same time, another big LIE, was that those illegals were doing work Americans would not. They were talking about agri workers of course that was true, while ignoring the fact illegals were increasingly in California being hired into the wide range of other occupations that displaced citizens and exists today and gradually spread nationwide.

Wall Street banks and other building industry corps were also intent on selling large expensive homes at high prices while claiming that is the only way they could make a profit. However, there have never been enough upper class to buy and afford such expensive homes. Wall Street corporations for a range of products (ie chain retail, fast food etc) also wanted lower labor costs so besides middle class destroying Outsourcing and Offshoring made excuses to bring in even more illegals. Eventually after the public began ignoring such, they began pushing open borders that brought in even more unskilled.

By continually bringing in low skill low pay workers, our low cost homes, trailer parks, and apartments working class poor lived in became full. So those folks began filling residences with higher numbers of people than they were meant for. It also increasingly caused poorer working class folks to move into middle class residences they could barely afford. In turn working middle class homes became more scarce that pushed them into upper class housing they could barely afford. Just what the corps wanted to sell their expensive McMansions. So another big LIE making fools of the public while they are playing golf in Palm Springs and Palm Beach.

Worse after the rise of the Internet, Wall Street Corporations have been advertising to the rest of the world's wealthy to invest in buying up real estate that is the primary cause of our current ridiculous inflation and homelessness. So open borders is also partially responsible for the wealth gap and homelessness as our poor have been squeezed out and have also skewered our working classes through residence costs.

At the same time politicians are now trying to sell allowing even more open borders because with lower birth rates, there won't be enough young workers paying into Social Security to support current benefit levels for Baby Boomers and Generation X. What they don't want to tell the public is Social Security support will otherwise have to come from our wealthy and corporations through taxes. So again another big LIE.
 
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Robb.hisself said:
The assumption here is that hiring immigrants to do care giving is affordable to all. Actually, it is not. I cared for my elderly mom for 14 years and we could never afford to hire anyone. The best caregiver are family members. Family members give the best care. The best care is not provided by someone who is exploited for their cheap cost. No, I don't think cheap care givers are the best solution to fulfilling the need for care givers. It is better for the elderly to be cared for by someone who cares.
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Totally disagree. Family members don't always have the free time or the temperament to care for their elderly relatives. That includes mothers and fathers. So they bring them to nursing homes, like the one where I work. There they have people trained to take care of the elderly and/or handicapped. The article is partially right. If they are legal immigrants with the experience to take care of people, or are willing to be trained.
In the nursing home where I work, there are several women from Philippines who are nurses and CNAs (certified nursing assistants). They do give excellent care to our residents. So whoever wrote the article, is of course correct. Then again, they can always try to get American born citizens to be more interested in getting a career in healthcare.

So many people who I have talked to over the years, who were related to residents where I worked, would tell me that they tried to take care of their moms or dads, or whoever, but didn't always have the time, because of their jobs or careers, so they had to bring them to a nursing home. Once again, the article is correct. But it doesn't really matter if they are immigrants or American born citizens, as long as they have had the correct training.
 
Paladin1950 said:
Totally disagree. Family members don't always have the free time or the temperament to care for their elderly relatives. That includes mothers and fathers. So they bring them to nursing homes, like the one where I work. There they have people trained to take care of the elderly and/or handicapped. The article is partially right. If they are legal immigrants with the experience to take care of people, or are willing to be trained.
In the nursing home where I work, there are several women from Philippines who are nurses and CNAs (certified nursing assistants). They do give excellent care to our residents. So whoever wrote the article, is of course correct. Then again, they can always try to get American born citizens to be more interested in getting a career in healthcare.

So many people who I have talked to over the years, who were related to residents where I worked, would tell me that they tried to take care of their moms or dads, or whoever, but didn't always have the time, because of their jobs or careers, so they had to bring them to a nursing home. Once again, the article is correct. But it doesn't really matter if they are immigrants or American born citizens, as long as they have had the correct training.
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Just pointing out that Robb is saying family members usually give the best care; better care than a stranger. That's not always true, but I agree...it's usually true.

I'll also point out that nursing homes are incentivized to hire new immigrants. So are dental and medical clinics. They are eligible for a federal subsidy when they hiring them.

I took care of my parents for 14 years (Dad passed away in the 7th year) in Calif, a state that compensates family care-givers according to the level of care. That way, carers have an income if they have to miss work or leave their job to care for an elderly family member. (or even if they were unemployed)
 
@David777

Re: "In 1983 the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act began but illegal migrants were still used that continues to this day. The reason is agricultural corporations have been intent on selling US grown food to foreign nations and to compete with other nations requires keeping field worker costs low. So all a big LIE. They could of course legislate another temporary seasonal worker guest program but both agri corps and politicians expected that might cost more in profits by forcing them to treat workers more humanly like with US citizens."

After the Dept of Ag does (cursory) vetting, the INS gives non-resident farm workers a work card. (There are also work cards for non-resident migrant workers in other industries, i.e. domestic, food, construction, through other agencies or the INS itself). Over the past 20 years or so, there's been a crackdown on farmers who have non-card-holding immigrant/migrant workers, and the fine is pretty steep, and the feds can seize certain types of the farmer's property if they are repeat offenders, so these have been effective deterrents. Plus, the work cards are really easy to obtain, so farmers can't use that excuse anymore.

Also, last time I looked into it, farmers were incentivized to hire only card-holding workers with subsidies and/or tax breaks to basically offset the cost of their increased wages, but I don't know if that program is still active. I believe their wages are still low compared to other industries (or the nat'l average) anyway, but I could be wrong about that.
 
There's no way aging Americans are looking at a better future because of new immigrants.

The feds use social security and HR funds to assist new immigrants. Officials and politicians who deny that are lying. And immigrant families tend to be large families...I think the average is 5 members...and they are all eligible to receive benefits through SS and HR, including their grammas and grampas, aunts and uncles, and anyone they call a cousin.

Immigrants can get federal and/or state assistance to open small businesses. Not only are small businesses not a major source of revenue for a city or state, I believe immigrant-owned small businesses are still given a 10 year tax break...no business-related taxes for 10 years. In any case, no matter how long that business stays open and in the family, it will never pay back the benefits it qualifies for.

College-age immigrants can get free tuition to career colleges and some state colleges. They can also get student loans to universities that they don't have to repay.

Who do you think pays for all that?
 


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