An increase of 67 million welfare recipients and an increase of 82 million emigrants

In a book review column from Why ‘white trash’ Americans are flocking to Donald Trump by Kyle Smith. The fellow grew-up in the culture of the Appalachian Scots-Irish redneck and reflects on the dysfunction of that culture now and how it feeds in to the growing popularity of Trump. We still have 100 days of this ceaseless overindulgence of focusing on elections. Its hard not to feel affinity with Juvenal and his panem et circenses (bread and circuses). In Byzantium we had the division of the empire into competing teams of the Blues, Reds, Whites, and Greens. Today we have competing victimhood groups.

100 more days of the panem et circenses.

The book being reivewed is quite possibly an interesting book but I was more struck by the juxtaposition of data.

Manufacturing shed 5 million jobs after 2000, giving way to welfare, drugs and despondency. The number of Americans receiving welfare of one kind or another exploded from 42 million (or 18.8 percent of Americans) in 1983 to 109 million (or 35 percent) in 2012. As America added 83 million citizens, then, it added 67 million welfare recipients — during a period of massive wealth creation. (Per-capita income rose from about $30,000 in 1983 to over $52,000 in 2012.)

As I have noted elsewhere, the US is still the second largest manufacturing country in the world and we have not suffered a decline in manufacturing at all. What we have suffered is a decline in employment in manufacturing. We have automated the heck out of industrial processes in order to remain globally competitive. That has shored up sales and profitability but at the expense of well-paying manufacturing jobs.

The burden of those lost jobs have not fallen equally, either by class or geography. The social disruption and dislocation has been concentrated in the northeast and midwest while class disruption has been concentrated among the middle and blue collar classes.

What Smith's data illustrates, it seems to me, is lost perspective and false equivalences. In an economy of 115 or so million jobs, the disruption of 5 million jobs should not be a big signifier even if they are geographically and socially concentrated.

I think it is really the all-to-easy false equivalence that is interesting. 67 million more welfare recipients and 83 million more emigrants. If you are an elite in a comfy white-collar high income policy related job, you obviously know that there is no direct equivalence between an increase of 67 million welfare recipients and 83 million emigrants.

But does that distinction remain clear from all perspectives? I suspect not.

Let's add a complication. Of the 83 million emigrants, not all are equal. I don't have the numbers at hand or the time to investigate but I think general numbers illustrate the point.

Let's hypothesize that 20 million of those emigrants are white collar, highly educated. White collar knowledge economy jobs are the part of the economy which is growing. If you are a college educated professional, competition for particular positions with foreign born emigrants might be a nuisance, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all. If you lose out on that desired position, you wait a year or two till the next round of promotions or you switch to another firm. The socioeconomic elite don't in general suffer all that much from increased professional competition.

Let's say that another 20 million of those emigrants are solid middle class people and entrepreneurs. They are running restaurants, gas stations, motels. They are radiology technicians, nurses and dental hygienists. Often they are doing work that others, particularly the elite, are mush less interested in doing. The elite love the increased diversity of and exoticism of varietal restaurant cuisine choices. They appreciate cheaper and more reliable gardening services.

None of the above 40 million are likely to receive welfare benefits on anything other than a very temporary basis.

Then there are the final 23 million. Refugee groups who have a hard time adjusting, illegal economic migrants with minimum skills, extended family migrations with low skilled or welfare dependent family members. There's a whole range of circumstances among this group. I suspect that this is a group that is not actually 23 million but perhaps a bit or a good deal smaller. But they stand out.

If you are among the bottom 20% of native Americans, these are the people competing with you for unskilled and opportunistic jobs. These are the people you see being protected by the system, apparently at your expense. These are the people that turn against America (for example self-radicalized terrorists) or who simply become dependent on welfare programs and NGO generosity. The top 20% do not see this segment of the emigrant group. For all intents and purposes, for the top 20% of native borns, the 23 million do not exist.

But if you are among the bottom 20% (or 30% or 40%), you see all the downsides of emigration and virtually no benefits. If you are in the top 20%, you see no downsides to emigration and all the benefits. Hence the anger against the elites and the excitement over the prospect of a Trump or a Sanders.

Or, at least, it seems to me.