每天一篇经济学人 | Immigration and the econom...

Almost every day for four months buses carrying asylum-seeking migrants have disembarked near the heart of American power, just half a mile from Capitol Hill. So far more than 6,000 people have arrived on these buses, sent by the governors of Arizona and Texas in a none-too-subtle jab at what they see as President Joe Biden’s weakness on immigration. It is the latest chapter in a decades-long fight over how to control entries from Mexico.

【1】disembark 使..下来

四个月来，几乎每天都有载着寻求庇护的移民的大巴在美国权力中心附近下车，离国会山只有半英里。到目前为止，已经有超过6000人乘坐这些巴士来到这里，这些巴士是由亚利桑那州和德克萨斯州的州长派来的，毫不含糊地抨击了他们所认为的乔·拜登总统在移民问题上的软弱。这是关于如何控制来自墨西哥的入境的长达数十年的斗争的最新篇章。

This border crisishas come to dominate media coverage and political debate about immigration in America. All the while,another crisis of the opposite sort is brewing: a broader decline in immigration. The resulting shortfall in the population is already making it harder for companies to find workers and threatens to do more damage to the economy. But whereas unauthorised border crossings are a perennial controversy, the drop in overall immigration has barely registered in Congress.

这场边境危机已经成为美国媒体报道和有关移民的政治辩论的主要内容。与此同时，另一场相反类型的危机正在酝酿：移民人数的大幅度下降。由此导致的人口短缺已经使企业更难找到工人，并可能对经济造成更大的损害。然而，尽管非法越境是一个长期存在的争议，但美国国会几乎没有注意到移民总数的下降。

Net international migration—that is, accounting for both arrivals, whether authorised or not, and departures—added 247,000 to America’s population between July 2020 and July 2021. That was the smallest increase in the past three decades, and less than a third of the annual average during that time.The covid pandemic explained much of the drop, as America barred international visitors from dozens of countries, closed consulates around the world and froze many applications.

【1】consulate 领事馆

在2020年7月至2021年7月期间，净国际移民(包括入境和出境，无论是否合法)使美国增加了24.7万人口。这是过去30年来增幅最小的一次，不到同期年平均增幅的三分之一。新冠肺炎疫情是造成这一降幅的主要原因，因为美国禁止来自几十个国家的国际游客入境，关闭了世界各地的领事馆，并冻结了许多申请。

But the decline began before covid. Net immigration has trended down since 2017, Donald Trump’s first year in office.High-profile restrictions on travel from several predominately Muslim countriesset the tone for his administration. Most important, itput sand in the gears of the immigration processby, for instance, adding interviews and raising fees.Emigration has been another factor. The number of Mexicans living in America peaked 15 years ago. Many older migrants have returned home. Indeed, for all the furore about the southern border, the estimated population of unauthorised immigrants in the United States has declined during that same period, from 12.2m in 2007 to perhaps 10m in 2020.

但这种下降在新冠出现之前就开始了。自2017年唐纳德·特朗普上任的第一年以来，净移民人数呈下降趋势。对几个以穆斯林为主的国家的旅行的高调限制为他的政府定下了基调。最重要的是，它通过增加面试和提高费用等方式，阻碍了移民进程。移民是另一个因素。居住在美国的墨西哥人数量在15年前达到顶峰。许多年长的移民已经返回家乡。事实上，由于美国南部边境问题引起了轩然大波，同期美国非法移民的估计人数已从2007年的1220万下降到2020年的1000万左右。

The shortfall is visible in the labour market. Giovanni Peri and Reem Zaiour of the University of California, Davis, estimate that by February America was missing roughly 1.8m working-age foreign migrants relative to its post-2010 trend. Industries with higher shares of migrant workers tend to have higher vacancy rates now. Strikingly, that is true across the skills spectrum. 

这种下降在劳动力市场上显而易见。加州大学戴维斯分校的Giovanni Peri和Reem Zaiour估计，与2010年后的趋势相比，到2月份，美国大约失去了180万处于工作年龄的外国移民。目前，移民工人比例较高的行业空缺率较高。令人惊讶的是，移民工人比例在所有行业内都很高。

Employers in the restaurant and accommodation sector, which draws a quarter of its employees from the foreign-born population, could not fill about 15% of job openings last year. In professional and business services, where the foreign-born make up a fifth of workers, doing everything from architectural sketches to tax preparation, roughly 10% of jobs went unfilled last year. That, in turn, may be contributing to higher wages, with pay rising especially quickly for low-income earners.

去年，餐饮和住宿行业的雇主无法填补约15%的职位空缺。该行业四分之一的员工来自外国出生的人口。在专业和商业服务领域，外国出生的人占了员工总数的五分之一，他们从事从建筑草图到税务准备的各种工作，去年约有10%的职位空缺。这反过来可能会导致工资上涨，低收入者的工资上涨尤其快。

The fact that a decline in immigration could have such an impact is, on the one hand, unsurprising. New immigrants accounted for nearly 70% of the growth in the American labour force in the 2010s. Over the next two decades, immigrants are likely to be the only source of growth. The Pew Research Centre calculates that without new arrivals America’s labour force would decline to 163m in 2040 from 166m in 2020. If net immigration were to return to pre-pandemic levels, the labour force would instead grow to 178m by 2040. 

一方面，移民数量的下降会产生这样的影响，这并不令人意外。在2010年代，新移民占美国劳动力增长的近70%。在未来20年里，移民可能是经济增长的唯一来源。皮尤研究中心估计，如果没有新移民，美国的劳动力将从2020年的1.66亿下降到2040年的1.63亿。如果净移民恢复到大流行前的水平，到2040年，劳动力将增长到1.78亿。

On the other hand, the relentless focus on America’s southern border seems to have obscured the bigger picture. Even the Federal Reserve failed to note the remarkable drop in immigration as a cause of labour-market tightness in either of its monetary-policy reports to Congress last year. In February this year it acknowledged at last that reduced immigration had probably constrained the labour supply.

另一方面，对美国南部边境的无休止关注似乎掩盖了大部分情况。就连美联储在去年提交给国会的两份货币政策报告中也没有提到移民数量的显著下降是劳动力市场紧张的原因之一。今年2月，它终于承认移民减少可能限制了劳动力供应。

Businesses are noticing the gaps. In an analysis published on July 15th, the usChamber of Commerce outlined how widespread the problems are. Just one out of every three individuals seeking standard employment visas or seasonal work visas was successful last year, while one in four applicants for highly skilled work visas will make the cut this year. Each of these visa categories is subject to quotas created in 1990. They “have not been sufficiently updated to serve our national interest,” says Jon Baselice of the us Chamber.

企业正在注意到这些空缺。在7月15日发表的一份分析报告中，美国商会概述了这些问题的普遍性。去年，申请标准工作签证或季节性工作签证的人中，只有三分之一的人成功，而今年申请高技能工作签证的人中，将有四分之一的人成功。每一类签证都受1990年设定的配额限制。美国商会的Jon Baselice表示，它们“尚未得到充分更新，以服务于我们的国家利益”。

Some delays are absurd. David Bier of the Cato Institute, a think-tank, estimates that Indians with degrees face a notional 90-year wait for green cards. From farm groups to theme-park associations, lobbyists have been asking the government to make it easier for American firms to hire from abroad. Silicon Valley’s tech giants have long clamoured for the same, arguing that they need foreign tech talent to stay at the global leading edge.

有些延迟是荒谬的。智囊团卡托研究所的David Bier估计，拥有学位的印度人要想拿到绿卡，可能要等上90年。从农场组织到主题公园协会的游说者一直要求政府让美国公司更容易从国外招聘员工。长期以来，硅谷的科技巨头们一直呼吁采取同样的做法，认为他们需要外国科技人才来保持全球领先地位。

There is, however, little prospect of real change. The last concerted attempt at comprehensive immigration reform fizzled out in 2013, blocked by Republicans. The idea then, still seen by many advocates as the holy grail, was to combine greater openings for foreigners to work in America with some legalisation of unauthorised migrants plus tighter border security. As it turns out, the only real movement has been on bolstering border controls, symbolised by Mr Trump’s extension of the wall between America and Mexico. Lack of progress in expanding legal channels has pushed yet more migrants to view unchecked border crossings and asylum claims as their best route into America.

然而，真正的改变前景渺茫。2013年，在共和党的阻挠下，上一次全面移民改革的努力以失败告终。当时的想法(许多支持者仍在努力追求)是将扩大外国人在美国工作的机会与一些非法移民的合法化以及更严格的边境安全结合起来。事实证明，唯一真正的行动是加强边境控制，特朗普延长美墨边境隔离墙就是一个象征。在扩大合法渠道方面缺乏进展，这迫使更多移民将非法越境和庇护申请视为进入美国的最佳途径。

Some immigration experts, noting the failure of comprehensive reform, think piecemeal efforts may offer hope. But the legislative maths is daunting, requiring votes from ten Republican senators for anything to pass. Even within the Democratic Party, some officials are wary of looking soft on border security. “We are in a very defensive position,” says a congressional aide close to immigration discussions. “It’s important to continue to remind everybody about the extreme economic impact that inaction is having,” says Bob Menendez, a Democratic senator.

一些移民专家注意到全面改革的失败，他们认为零星的努力也可能会带来希望。但是立法方面的“数学问题”令人生畏的，任何法案的通过都需要10名共和党参议员的支持。即使在民主党内部，一些官员也担心在边境安全问题上显得软弱。一位接近移民讨论的国会助理表示:“我们处于非常保守的立场。” 民主党参议员鲍勃•梅南德斯表示:“重要的是要继续提醒每个人，不作为会对经济产生极端影响。”

There is no shortage of sensible ideas. Connecting migrants with employers before they reach America’s southern border would reduce pressure on crossings and help businesses. Marianne Wanamaker, who served as an economic adviser in Mr Trump’s White House, argues that getting rid of visa caps for specific occupations would also alleviate worker shortages. “We have tools available to us to resolve labour issues that we don’t appear willing to use,” she says. “That is the result of years and years of making immigration a third rail of American politics.” The conclusion is a dismal one: the headaches of the past year from worker shortages, far from being temporary, will be a recurrent problem in an ageing America that has forgotten how immigrants made the country what it is.

明智的想法从不会短缺。在移民到达美国南部边境之前，将他们与雇主联系起来，这将减少过境的压力，并有助于企业的发展。曾在特朗普的白宫担任经济顾问的玛丽安•沃纳梅克辩称，取消特定职业的签证上限也将缓解劳动力短缺。她表示:“我们拥有解决劳动力问题的工具，但我们似乎不愿意使用。这是多年来把移民问题变成美国政治议题的一个雷区的结果。” 结论令人沮丧：在过去一年里，劳动力短缺所带来的问题，令人头痛，且远非暂时性问题，这将成为已经忘记了移民是如何造就了这个国家的不断老龄化的美国的一个经常性问题。