The Wall Street Journal’s Lev Borodovsky wrote, “The ratio of jobs openings to unemployment reached 1.0 for the first time since the government started tracking the data.”7 In sum, the feds had no record of any time when jobs were so plentiful relative to job-seekers.
That same month, the Department of Agriculture reported that fewer people were using food stamps: “Spending for USDA’s 15 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs totaled $98.6 billion in FY 2017, 4 percent less than in the previous fiscal year and almost 10 percent less than the historical high of $109.2 billion set in FY 2013.
“The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) accounted for 69 percent of all Federal food and nutrition assistance spending in FY 2017. On average, 42.2 million persons per month participated in the program, almost 5 percent fewer than in the previous fiscal year. Reflecting the decrease in participation, Federal spending for SNAP totaled $68.0 billion, or 4 percent less than in the previous fiscal year. This was also 15 percent less than the historical high of $79.9 billion set in FY 2013.”8
We mentioned in chapter four the stir Trump caused when he arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just after the passage of his tax cut and amid the resulting U.S. boom in business investment. “I’m here to deliver a simple message: There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest, and to grow in the United States. America is open for business, and we are competitive once again,” Trump said in a speech to the global gathering.9
Thanks to the Trump tax and regulatory reforms, U.S. businesses continued their hiring binge. And the record breaking continued. In February 2019 the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that on the last day of December 2018 the number of job openings in the United States hit another record high—surging all the way up to 7.3 million.10
The Associated Press added that the total of 7.3 million open positions were “far greater than the number of unemployed, which stood at 6.3 million.” According to AP: “Businesses have shrugged off a variety of potential troubles for the economy in the past two months and kept on hiring.”11
During his 2019 State of the Union address, Trump strayed from his prepared text to call for legal immigration in “the largest numbers ever.”12 At a subsequent cabinet meeting, he once again called for allowing more workers into a U.S. economy that sorely needed them.
“Speaking of jobs, we have to have more people coming into our country,” said Trump. He added that “we want to have people come into our country, but we want to have them come in through a merit system, and we want to have them come in legally. And that’s going to be happening.”13
Later in his remarks he returned to the topic of the U.S. worker shortage and one of the obvious solutions: “More people [are] working today in the United States than at any time in the history of our country. We’re getting very close to 160 million people. And we’ve never had anything like that, which tells you that we have to have people come into our country—great people.… But we want them to be productive, and they—we want people that are going to love our country and help our country.”14
Trump may never agree with congressional Democrats on how to address illegal immigration. But as for the legal variety, the possibilities are intriguing—and one of the keys to achieving Reagan-style economic growth above 3 percent per year. The key is welcoming legally more people who are eager to love this country and chase the American dream.
In April an inspiring story appeared in the New York Times, believe it or not. Amazingly, it managed to show the tough, striving American can-do spirit while exposing the costs of shutdowns and rebutting the claims of immigration opponents all in one fell swoop. The story even managed to highlight the opportunities available in lightly governed South Dakota compared to blue-state alternatives.
Caitlin Dickerson and Miriam Jordan reported on employees at South Dakota’s Smithfield pork-processing facility, which the Times called, in April 2020, “the nation’s largest single-source coronavirus hot spot. Its employees now make up about 44 percent of the diagnoses in South Dakota.…”
Given the recent infection at the plant one might have expected the workers to be the most supportive of stay-at-home orders. But according to the Times account:
“I can’t wait to go back to work for the simple reason that this is the only thing that supports my family,” said Achut Deng, a Sudanese refugee who in six years worked her way up from a “wizard knife” operator paid $12.75 an hour to a shift lead making $18.70. “I do feel sorry for everyone who is going through this, I feel sorry for myself, but it’s like, I feel better now so I’d rather go back to work.”
… [M]any workers said that the grueling work at the plant, before the virus hit, had offered them a life that otherwise would never have been possible as immigrants and refugees. “Honestly, I was able to improve myself,” said Yoli Hernandez, a single mother of four from El Salvador, who started at the plant in 1999 and earns $17.30 an hour. “This is the only place where I was able to make a living and raise my kids.”
Sara Birhe, whose family arrived in Sioux Falls from Ethiopia in 2001, said her mother bought a four-bedroom house and sent her children to college on a single income from the plant. “Working at Smithfield, you can provide for your family and not struggle as much as if you were working in California, Chicago, or D.C.,” she said.15
Once we break out of the Covid-related recession imposed by state and local government lockdown orders, there’s every reason
