17
Jan

Population Growth, Immigration Increases Would Doom “Promise Zones”

Published on January 17th, 2014

By Joe Guzzardi
January 17, 2014

As the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. On the War on Poverty’s 50th Anniversary, President Obama identified five “promise zones” that include portions of San Antonio, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, southeastern Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Twenty more promise zones will be added during the next three years. At the outset, hopes are high that the targeted poverty-stricken neighborhoods will benefit from increased economic security, greater educational opportunities, affordable housing and more jobs.  

How the power zones, noble in concept, will get from where they are to where they want to go is vague. Promise zones will benefit from various tax credits and will be given priority consideration for some federal agency programs. But if history is our guide, good intentions won’t translate into successful results. 

Dating back to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority and progressing through President Kennedy’s Appalachian Regional Commission, President Johnson’s War on Poverty and President Clinton’s Empowerment Zones, none have made much of a dent in conditions on the ground. According to recent Census Bureau data, more than 46 million Americans live below the poverty line, defined as $23,492 for a family of four. Between  2009-2011, one in three Americans slipped below the poverty line for at least two months. More than 47 million Americans receive food stamps.

The administration’s challenge is, if not insurmountable, daunting. Back in 1965, US population was about 194 million. Today, population is 320 million and growing. The 125 million increase in nearly half a decade means more people competing for jobs, education, housing and life’s basic necessities. 

In recent years, job creation has barely matched population growth. For those lucky enough to have a job, they haven’t seen a wage increase in 40 years. African Americans have been disproportionately hurt. Last month, the labor participation rate for black males dropped to its lowest level in history, 65.6 percent. In his interview with PBS, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that, contrary to administration nay-sayers who promote the idea that the falling participation rate is the result of retiring Boomers, millions of discouraged young workers are dropping out. Overall, a record 91.8 million Americans are out of the work force.

Little wonder that many Americans have abandoned hope. After decades of outsourcing, high legal and illegal immigration, dozens of visa categories for overseas workers, and NAFTA, middle class jobs are at a premium. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, commenting on the horrendous Bureau of Labor Statistics December report that showed only 74,000 new jobs were created, said that during the same month, 347,000 million left the work force, a ratio of 5 lost jobs for every 1 job created. 

Despite the White House bravado, its actions belie its words. President Obama is pushing Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would grant legal work authorization to more than 11 million illegal immigrants and would also triple legal immigration within the first decade.

For those who live in promise zones, employment opportunities, already too few, would become scarcer. Adding more students to classrooms, more renters to apartment buildings and more people collecting social services contradict the administration’s admirable intentions.

America is in trouble. Adding more people isn’t the solution. Instead, the administration should be promoting family planning and sensible immigration, policies that would help struggling Americans more than creating politically motivated promise zones. 

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1987. Contact him at [email protected]

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