The United States needs more immigration to compensate for declining fertility, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference Wednesday.
But Schumer said nothing about the alternative policy of helping American families have the number of children they prefer.
“Now, more than ever, we’re short of workers,” Schumer said on the Hill at a press conference, which was intended to tout several draft amnesties for illegal migrants. He continued:
We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the dreamers and all of them — because our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers [illegals who were brought in by their parents] get a path to citizenship for all 11 million — or however many undocumented there are here [emphasis added].
Schumer’s more-migration policy echoed the economic strategy adopted by New York’s elite, which uses low-wage migration to subsidize an elite-run economy of investors and landlords. The huge inflow of cheap and compliant foreign workers has forced down New Yorkers’ wages, boosted their rents and housing prices, and reduced native-born Americans’ clout in local elections.
His comments also echoed many Democrats’ support for changing the demographics of the United States. “Twenty-six percent of every child who’s in school today speaks Spanish — 26 percent,” President Joe Biden said in September. “We’ve had large waves of immigration before but the thing is, we just have so much opportunity to make this country so much better … so as my father would say, ‘Let’s go get ’em.’”
Schumer’s willingness to replace Americans’ absent children with foreign migrants also dismisses the widespread preference by American women for more children.
“We can see that every single estimate of ideal or desired fertility, including our hardcore minimum estimate from adjusted GSS data, is way above actual fertility,” a 2018 report by the Institute for Family Studies said. The report added:
What this comparison makes clear is that no matter whether you use intended or ideal fertility, women report greater childbearing ambitions than they have achieved or are likely to achieve, and this has been the case for a long time. Cut the data however you like, use whatever indicator floats your boat, and you’ll find the ship of American fertility sinking, steadily underperforming what women have been saying they want or intend.
…
Longer hours, lower wages, less consistent employment, high childcare costs, poor access to credit, burdensome loans, all-too-few good husband candidates—take your pick of the problem—a growing number of women are simply lowering their expectations for their own family lives, even as they continue to believe that something like 2.3 kids would be ideal for them [emphasis added].
But the Census Bureau reports that married couples have an average of only 2 children per family, up from 1.9 in 2010.
Stastista.com reports that the “average number of own children under 18 in families with children in the United States from 1960 to 2021” is only 1.9
“In 2018, U.S. woman [sic] had 1.7 children on average,” according to PopulationEducation.org.
In addition, a growing number of women do not have any children. “In 2006, 26.2 percent of women ages 30 to 34 were childless, meaning they had never given birth to a child.,” according to a 2017 report by the Census Bureau. “By 2016, that number had risen about 4 percentage points to 30.8 percent.”
Schumer’s migrants-before-families policy prompted a pro-family response from Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis:
Griffin followed up with a description of Florida’s workforce training programs. which could help Americans gain the skills and wealth needed to have their own families — complete with the number of children they prefer:
Meanwhile, in Schumer’s New York, poverty is growing as Democrats continue to extract more migrants from poor countries. NY1.com reported in May:
A total of 1.4 million New Yorkers, including one in five city children, are currently living in poverty, according to an annual report by the non-profit Robin Hood, which shows that the city’s poverty rate is nearly twice the national average and disproportionally impacts Black, Latino and Asian New Yorkers.