Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Rochester: gay, millionaire, Polish)

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by msRB311

what jobs do we not have enough people for? The crappy ones that no one wants because everyone, even the immigrants think they're too good for.

You try to find a contractor lately?

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by massnative71

You try to find a contractor lately?

^^^That problem does not stem from a declining population as much as it is from decades of pushing all young people to the college track regardless of aptitude.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by AtkinsonDan

^^^That problem does not stem from a declining population as much as it is from decades of pushing all young people to the college track regardless of aptitude.

I was just giving an example of the many (non "crappy") jobs that can't seem to get filled, that immigrants (due to not having the same stigma among) are often more willing to do than Americans.

[AtkinsonDan]

Originally Posted by massnative71

What specifically has changed so much in our immigration policy? Humor me please.

Nothing has changed about our immigration policy, other than Trump reduced it temporarily while he was in office. The real driver of change is going to come from outside the United States as several other first world nations have lower birth rates than us. I predict that competition for immigrants will heat up dramatically after 2030 and Boston will be screwed then as I don't see Massachusetts being ready or able to compete for people globally.

[msRB311]

Trump was only in office for 4 years... we had PLENTY of immigrants coming in before that.

[id77]

Originally Posted by msRB311

what jobs do we not have enough people for? The crappy ones that no one wants because everyone, even the immigrants think they're too good for.

We already have plenty of people in the unskilled/semi-skilled labor force. As you put, they're vacant because nobody wants those jobs, not because nobody's left to fill them. Soon as an employer in those fields offers a little more pay, they have no problem with filling them.

The labor pool shortages I see are in the STEM and services sectors, where many jobs sit vacant for months and occasionally years and headhunters are paid to poach from other companies and/or find the talent overseas and bring them in.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by id77

What domestic policy could possibly be enacted to address this? Immigration was the solution, but that doesn't seem to be too popular with half the nation.

Hmm, how about better maternity and paternity leave policies, tax incentives, better and more easily available childcare, better/safer schools and educational opportunities, cheaper university education (and I don't mean just community colleges). Raising a child (well) is tremendously expensive in this country - but the policies I mention above would also be very expensive in the short-run - with the payoff decades down the line.
Encourage skilled immigration. Attracting foreigners to US universities and letting them work afterwards without jumping through tons of hoops...The best STEM students in the US are often not American. The last 4 years will likely have done medium to long-term damage in that regard.

[msRB311]

Don't most employers give 3-4 months of maternity leave these days? 4 months seems to be the norm. Taking paternity leave seems to be getting more common. However, I often see people who return before they need to. I've seen men answering emails bragging that their wife is in the delivery room then joking that it's their second. This is the work culture we live in. Why would companies shell out more for leave when people seem happy to not take it? At my last job i went on leave the same time as another girl. She was answering emails after 6 weeks when she should have been out for 12 weeks. Her boss apparently didn't mind. Maybe people should actually take what they are given and then the ones who complain about wanting more time will get it. Hard to want to give people more time off when they aren't even taking what they're given.

I agree that leaving a 12 week old baby to return to work isn't ideal. However people from all socioeconomic backgrounds do it all the time.

[id77]

Originally Posted by rach5

Hmm, how about better maternity and paternity leave policies, tax incentives, better and more easily available childcare, better/safer schools and educational opportunities, cheaper university education (and I don't mean just community colleges). Raising a child (well) is tremendously expensive in this country - but the policies I mention above would also be very expensive in the short-run - with the payoff decades down the line.
Encourage skilled immigration. Attracting foreigners to US universities and letting them work afterwards without jumping through tons of hoops...The best STEM students in the US are often not American. The last 4 years will likely have done medium to long-term damage in that regard.

Many of the white collar jobs (where birth rates are particularly low) already offer all of this in spades, plus some, and that's part of where I see concern with trying to entice this demographic into reproducing more. They already have all of the best options and still don't exercise them. I didn't even come close to using half of my available paternity leave, have tax credits for my kid and means to put my kid in a good school should I choose, and I'm still not going to meet the rate of replacement.

Why? While I can't speak for all of my colleagues, I can say the reason I (and several others I know) waited until my mid-40s for my first (and possibly only) child is because I didn't want to bring a child into the world unless I had tons of cash in the bank, a solid career, a long-term relationship, and basically every other stressor to having a child mitigated and removed from my path. That is, I see it as the demographic producing the least in our nation is ironically also the one best positioned to raise children in a stable environment but put their careers first. We're choosing career over family.

How can government policy change this?

[wolfgang239]

Originally Posted by id77

How can government policy change this?

Government policy will likely not be addressing the statistically irrelevant group of people you described who are extreme outliers in most aspects of reality. Increasing child tax credits or adding additional incentives for millionaires to have kids would be politically DOA across pretty much the entire political spectrum. Which was probably your point in addition to giving us more of your insight into the lives of the rich and famous.