THE ECONOMY 9:00 A.M.
The U.S. Is Choosing Child Labor Over More Immigration
By Eric Levitz, features writer for Intelligencer who covers politics and economics
On storefronts throughout the U.S., “Help Wanted” signs have become about as ubiquitous as the stars and stripes. Today, there are roughly two job openings for every unemployed American.
This historic labor shortage is propping up inflation as desperate employers raise wages to attract scarce workers, then boost prices to compensate for higher costs. Or at least this is what the U.S.’s top economic policy-makers believe.
Meanwhile in Central America, gainful employment is hard to come by. Before the pandemic, 30 million people in the region were living in poverty, according to the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. In much of Central America, material deprivation is even more profound today — the area’s growth rate fell by 10.3 percent in 2020. Amid rising economic desperation, the number of Central Americans interested in migrating internationally skyrocketed from 8 percent in 2019 to 43 percent in 2021, according to a report from the World Food Programme, Migration Policy Institute, and Civic Data Design Lab.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/labor-shortages-child-labor-migrants.html
