The Importance of Immigrants in America

There are more Irish in America by a huge factor than there are in Ireland right now. And conversely, American Italians are very different from Italians. It becomes a little unfathomable to imagine what America would be like without them. One of the things that you hear repeatedly is the concern that immigrants will tax our welfare system.

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Immigration is, as happens fairly routinely, an important topic in the national conversation these days. It's generally well-accepted that the United States is "a nation of immigrants," and yet there remains a stubborn skepticism about new immigrants. These concerns generally branch into two broad categories: economic concerns and social concerns. Economically, citizens seem to think that immigrants are "taking our jobs" or "a drain on the system." Socially, citizens are of the belief that immigrants are "undermining American culture." But are any of these concerns warranted? Join James Harrigan and Antony Davies as they discuss this and more on this week's episode of Words and Numbers.

Quick Hits:

Denver hires homeless people

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/denver-hired-homeless-people-perform-day-labor-city-100-landed-regular-jobs/

Koch donating $400 million to candidates

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/27/politics/koch-republican-election-candidates-donate/index.html

https://nrf.com/resources/consumer-research-and-data/holiday-spending/halloween-headquarters

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/04/fourth-of-july-spending-by-the-numbers.html

https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php

Foolishness of the week

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/24/580228837/a-dozen-camels-disqualified-from-saudi-beauty-pageant-over-botox-injections

Topic of the week

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/Annual-Number-of-US-Legal-Permanent-Residents