Those Stubborn Facts: Race, Class, and Crime in NYC

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"Defund the Police", African Americans, Bronx, class, crime, Democrats, Eric Adams, Latinos, law enforcement, Manhattan, New York City, police, police brutality, policing, progressives, race, subways, Those Stubborn Facts, whites

Share of college-graduate New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 62%

Share of non-college-grad New Yorkers wanting more policy on the subway: 80%

Share of New Yorkers earning $50K-plus per year wanting more police on the subway: 66%

Share of New Yorkers earning less than $50K per year wanting more police on the subway: 75%

Share of white New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 62%

Share of Latino New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 69%

Share of African American New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 77%

Share of Manhattan-ites saying they feel safe from crime riding the subway: 65%

Share of Bronx residents saying they feel safe from crime riding the subway: 43%

(Sources: “Progressives in Denial About Crime Are Catering to Elites and Losing Elections,” by Zaid Jilani, Newsweek, July 14, 2021, Progressives in Denial About Crime Are Catering to Elites and Losing Elections | Opinion (newsweek.com) )

Im-Politic: New York City Shows How Not to Fight Crime

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African Americans, cities, crime, Im-Politic, inner cities, New York City, progressives, The New York Times, urban poverty

I gotta tell ya – nearly a week days later, I’m completely gobsmacked by the following paragraph in a June 30 New York Times article on New York City’s newly approved budget:

“To address a rise in shootings and homicides that have plagued the city since the pandemic, the city will spend $24 million to provide job training and support services to 1,000 people who are most at risk of participating in or being a victim of violence in neighborhoods including Brownsville, Brooklyn; South Jamaica, Queens; and Mott Haven in the Bronx.”

Granted, the spending barely moves the needle in the $98.7 billion plan for municipal outlays. But assuming the description is accurate, it’s difficult to imagine a program so deeply, and indeed tragicomically, weird in so many ways – not to mention one that so strongly reenforces doubt that the kinds of liberals and progressives who run cities like New York have a clue how to deal with crime. If your imagination is failing you on this score, ask yourself:

>The city is going to identify residents “who are most at risk of participating in…violence” in these crime-ridden precincts? Based on what? If the main or a major criterion concerns prior criminal records, including the commission of violent acts, what’s the rationale for putting any of these individuals ahead of anyone who’s “at risk of…being a victim of violence”? Like it’ll be tough to find 1,000 of these?

>If prior records aren’t being used, or prioritized, what other considerations will help decide who’s “most at risk of participating in…violence”? Are city officials going to seek out youngish African American and Hispanic men? That sounds like endorsing harmful racial stereotypes to me. Will they poll these or other residents and ask which ones are considering “participating in…violence”? And if they do, what happens to those respondents who raise their hands but aren’t selected? Do they get profiled by the police? Moreover, doesn’t that clear risk mean that few if any criminals-to-be are likely to come forward to begin with?

>As suggested above, the city is spotlighting these neighborhoods because crime is so widespread. So in principle, all adult residents are seriously at risk of “being a victim of violence.” But common sense indicates that the elderly and/or are likeliest to be targeted by thugs. Make that a double, lots of evidence indicates, for elderly Asian-Americans. Are many of them going to be channeled into job training programs?

>More fundamentally, helping the genuinely disadvantaged deserves applause. But when it comes to reducing violent crime, what’s the point of providing job training to its likely victims? They’re – obviously – not the ones prone to pulling triggers.

Unless maybe the assumption is that the populations of violent criminals and likely victims of violent crime overlap a lot (say, because gang members could easily fall into both categories)? But if so, to a great extent we’re back to the formidable-at-best challenge of reliably identifying likely violent criminals.

The city could have avoided all these questions – and the potentially fatal problems they spotlight – by simply announcing that the $24 million would be spent on creating more jobs and economic opportunity overall, and/or on improving education and other social services in crime-ridden neighborhoods. It could have even added that teenagers and young adults will be the focus – to increase the odds they’ll become success stories – and maybe that they’d be chosen by lottery or some other objective system.

Not that success would be guaranteed. But the outcome would doubtless be better than what New Yorkers evidently can expect (at least according to The Times description): token expenditures guided by nothing more than the most fatuous sort of good intentions.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Green Shoots of Recovery in New York City?

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(What's Left of) Our Economy, CCP Virus, consumer spending, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2020, healthcare, Jobs, New York City, restaurants, stimulus package, subsidized private sector, The Partnership for New York City, Wuhan virus

Since I’m a New York City native, I’m a New York City fan. (At least I think that logically follows!) Therefore, one of the most disturbing trends I’ve followed in the CCP Virus era concerns the especially serious troubles the City has suffered this year, economically as well as medically.

I still haven’t made up my mind about whether New York has been pushed by the virus into a period of long-term decline, or whether we’ll see a return to normal once the pandemic has been brought under control (insert your own definition of this goal).

Yet for the last two months, whenever the case for pessimism seems to become conclusive (see, e.g., so much of the evidence in this recent New York Times piece), an email appears in my inbox from a friend who sends me the regular updates on the City’s economy from the Partnership for New York City.

The organization, comprised of hundreds of New York’s most prominent business leaders, says it seeks to “build bridges between the leaders of global industries and government, drawing on the resources and expertise of business to help solve public challenges, create jobs and strengthen neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs.”

Whatever you think of its sincerity or effectiveness or overall objectivity, the data it regularly releases tracks with statistics I monitor from other sources, so it seems reliable to me. And some of the figures it’s presented lately have been major stunners.

For example, as early as late July, the Partnership reported, consumer spending in the City had nearly returned to 2019 levels. In late March, it had plunged to 53 percent below them. Just as unexpected – the big laggards were New York’s wealthiest boroughs, Manhattan and Brooklyn (although maybe the Manhattan results weren’t so surprising, given its dependence on business from office workers, so many of whom weren’t commuting to their offices).

According to a late-September bulletin from the Partnership, not only had New York’s private sector employment increased on month, but “the city has outpaced U.S. private sector job growth for three consecutive months.” The leader here was the healthcare sector – which RealityChek regulars know are only partly private sector jobs, given the industry’s massive dependence on government subsidies. (See, e.g., here.) But the same problem distorts the national figures, so this finding still legitimately counts as a pleasant surprise.

Even more surprising: “209 business licenses were issued in September, up 11% from 189 licenses issued in August. The number of new business licenses has increased for four consecutive months and is up 260% since May.”

Of course, this number of businesses is less-than-tiny for such a gargantuan metropolis. But any signs of entrepreneurship these days are encouraging, and support the even more encouraging possibility that the City remains a powerful magnet for individuals with talent and drive.

No one can doubt that New York still faces massive challenges going forward, especially since the onset of winter, and the growth of lockdown fatigue, means that a second virus wave may hit. Moreover, the colder the weather gets, the greater the struggles of a hugely important restaurant sector that’s been able collectively to hang on with its fingernails thanks to regulatory reforms that helped eateries expand outdoor dining since late spring.

The fiscal situation seems dire as well – unless Democrats sweep to power in next week’s national elections and approve the kind of big aid package for cities and states that Republicans have generally resisted. (The continuing deadlock over a broader relief bill, which could drag on if Republicans retain the White House and/or Senate, obviously could remain a big problem, too.)

Even then, the City will be hard-pressed going forward to fund needed services adequately without the kinds of tax increases that tend to drive taxpayers away, cuts in more controversial outlays that tend to antagonize powerful constituencies like public employee unions, or some combination of both.

For now, however, these Partnership reports have been revealing impressive resilience in the New York City economy. And it bears remembering that, over any significant period of time, so far no one has ever made any serious money betting against it.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Restaurant Nation and its Consequences

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(What's Left of) Our Economy, CCP Virus, coronavirus, drinking places, food services, Jobs, Manhattan Institute, New York City, private sector, private sector jobs, recession, restaurants, The New York Daily News, wages, Wuhan virus

If you’re interested in New York City and its economy, and how it’s been affected by the CCP Virus, and major changes in the nation’s economy and family life, Howard Husock’s op-ed piece in The New York Daily News last month dealing with all these subjects is a must-read. In fact, it’s so interesting and important that it led me to investigate how the rise of the restaurant sector in the City – his prime focus – has played out nationally.

As shown by the author, a researcher at the Manhattan Institute, the restaurant industry has become nothing less than vital to the city’s economy. The wallop it’s taken from the virus and resulting shutdowns has thrown its full recovery – at least for the foreseeable future – into serious doubt. And therefore its sagging fortunes and seemingly gloomy prospects are strongly influencing the debate over how fast the City should return to business-as-usual.

At least as consequential, Husock argues convincingly that the burgeoning importance of the broad food service industry in recent decades reflects a major New York economic and social trend: Restaurants “can no longer be understood as the luxury it once was but, rather, as both a prerequisite for a successful economic recovery and an indicator that one is underway.”

When I looked into the national data (some of which Husock presents), I found that something like this conclusion is warranted for the country as a whole as well – and that it’s worrisome news at best economically.

Husock’s national data goes way back to the early 20^th century, and it looks at the U.S. labor market measured in terms of the types of occupations Americans hold. I’ve looked at the data measuring employment by sector of the economy, and although the restaurant figures only begin with 1990, they picture they draw looks comparable. (RealityChek regulars will note that I’m not using my usual method of comparing economic expansions to economic expansions, or recessions to recessions. My reason: the trends described here seem to hold during all kinds of economies – as I’ll indicate below.)

Chiefly, the numbers make clear that from 1990 to the end of 2019 (just before the virus struck), on a December-to-December basis, total U.S. employment in the private sector grew by 42.58 percent. But in the food services and drinking places category, the increase was 86.48 percent – more than twice as great. In food service businesses alone (excluding bars), the growth was 89.52 percent. That is, the workforces in these sectors, white- and blue-collar employees combined, nearly doubled during this period.

Particularly noteworthy – during the 2000s (which include the 2007-09 Great Recession), total private sector jobs fell by 2.99 percent. For the food service and drinking places, they increased by 14.44 percent, and for eating places alone, by 16.24 percent. So as I just stated, these trends seem to have unfolded during booms and bust alike.

Viewed through another statistical lens, in 1990, food services and drinking places employees represented 7.22 percent of all private sector workers. In December, 2019, this share was 9.44 percent. For eating places alone, the 1990-2019 rise was from 6.44 percent to 8.56 percent.

Also crucial to note: However, increasingly convenient dining or taking out has become for Americans, the rapid relative growth of restaurant-type jobs doesn’t look like a plus for their economy. The main reason? Restaurant industry jobs really do pay poorly.

In December, 2019, the average hourly wage in the private sector was $28.37 before adjusting for inflation. For food services and drinking places in toto, it was $15.34 (not much more than half the private sector average) and for eating places alone, only $15.09.

The only real bright spot in this picture: wages in restaurant-type jobs have been rising faster lately than those for the private sector overall. The data here only date from 2006, but during the 2010-2019 period examined above, on a December-to-December basis, pre-inflation-dollar hourly wages in the private sector advanced by 24.65 percent. For all food service and drinking places, the improvement was 32.12 percent, and for eating places, 31.68 percent.

So the wages gap is closing, but not dramatically.

Precisely because the U.S. workforce was steadily turning into Restaurant Nation until the CCP Virus arrived, as with the New York City economy (though not quite so heavily), the entire economy’s return to a pre-virus normal will depend on financing that will enable a critical mass of this sector to survive. But someone needs to ask whether whether Restaurant Nation is a healthy and sustainable structure for the national economy over the longer haul

Im-Politic: The Surprisingly Muddled Politics of School Reopening

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Bill De Blasio, CCP Virus, Chicago, coronavirus, COVID 19, education, Im-Politic, Jim Kenney, Larry Hogan, Lori Lightfoot, Maryland, Montgomery County, New York City, Philadelphia, reopening, schools, teachers, teachers unions, Wuhan virus

Mid-summer sure is shaping up as a bad period for The Narrative being pushed by many politicians in this pandemic and election year, and that seems predominant in those Mainstream Media news organizations still retaining enormous influence over how Americans perceive, think, and even act.

Just a few days ago, as reported on RealityChek, a Gallup poll cast doubt on whether even African Americans regard America’s police forces are systemically racist. More recently, considerable evidence has appeared – and in real life, not polls – challenging the belief that the nation’s school reopening debate pits the Trump administration and other Republicans and conservatives and their insistence that in-classroom instruction resume this fall with no regard whatever for the health of students, administrators, versus Democrats, liberals, and teachers themselves who refuse to expose anyone involved in education to a deadly disease.

Think what you will of the substance of this reopening debate and what types of school year starts strike the best balance between providing students with urgently needed education and other benefits of physical schooling on the one hand, and safeguarding their health on the other. It’s still pretty stunning to learn that in numerous American cities and other jurisdictions, the teachers and their unions – long a key Democratic Party constituency and funder – have been up in arms against the reopening plans of Never Trumper leaders that feature various mixes of virtual and in-school instruction.

Let’s start with my beloved native New York City, whose mayor, Bill de Blasio, is one of America’s most far-Left politicians (albeit one with a unique ability to antagonize folks on the Left). At the end of last month, de Blasio unveiled a reopening plan incorporating a weekly “blended approach” of in-class and virtual learning for “a vast majority of kids.” De Blasio also said that implementing the plan required that the city’s daily positive CCP Virus test rate stayed below three percent – and justified his approach by noting that it had lately been steady at one percent

The reaction of the city’s educators? Protests that included teachers (and some parents) carrying coffins and a guillotine.

Chicago is another big city with a high-profile progressive Democratic mayor – Lori Lightfoot. Unlike de Blasio, she hasn’t alienated many of her fellow progressives. But in the view of her city’s teachers, she has also committed the sin of proposing a school reopening plan entailing “a hybrid schedule combining two days of in-person instruction and three days or remote learning for kindergarten through sophomore year students….” Moreover, Chicago parents with kids in the public schools can opt for full virtual learning under the plan, which isn’t yet official policy. The school system says that it’s prepared for the return of physical classes with “large PPE investments, [a] pod system that should help with contact tracing and that it will have temperature checks at school.” Yet Chicago teachers are marching in protest, too, with the union pushing for an all virtual reopening.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has a lower national profile than de Blasio or Lightfoot, and lately a more mixed claim as a progressive champion, including among progressives. (See here and here for evidence.) But he’s clearly a liberal Democrat.

His city’s school Superintendent also proposed a blended-type plan that “would have sent most children back to school in person two days a week and contained a 100% virtual option for families who wanted it.” The response of Philadelphia teachers (and also some parents)? “Don’t force one teacher or student into classrooms until you can guarantee our safety.” And the backlash was strong enough to force the school system into revision mode.

You say you aren’t confused enough? Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan has recently muddied the narrative still further.  I know – he’s a Republican. But he’s worked hard to position himself as an anti-Trump Republican and possibility for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024. So it would be logical to expect Hogan to fall in with the hard core opponents of in-class reopenings. Yet yesterday, Hogan slapped down as “overly broad” a (liberal Democratic) Maryland county’s order to bar, at least through October 1, not only public schools from offering any in-person education, but private schools as well.

It’s entirely possible that the confused politics of school reopenings may complicate efforts to arrive at a reasonable working consensus on this vital issue.  But in these hyperpartisan times, a better outcome might be in store.  The willingness of various politicians to depart from the battle lines widely supposed to exist might become a badly needed force for pragmatism – and especially for the flexible, case-by-case solutions that will undoubtedly often be needed.      

Im-Politic: Even Globally, Much of the CCP Virus Story is a New York Story

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Im-Politic, London, New York City, New York State, San Marino, The New York Times, United Kingdom, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

On Saturday, I posted about the astonishing (at least to me) extent that the CCP Virus crisis in the United States is a nursing home story. Today I’m presenting an even more jaw-dropping finding (at least to me): To an at least equally astonishing extent, the U.S. coronvirus crisis is a New York State and New York City crisis. In fact, the world totals are profoundly affected by the New York State and City numbers as well.

It’s not that the New York-centric nature of the outbreak in America has been ignored. But it’s still shocking to find out, for example, that according to the reliable Worldometers.info website, total State virus cases (293,991 as of early this morning – the same as for all the Worldometers data immediately following) account for not only nearly 30 percent of the 988,928 U.S. cases. They represent nearly one in ten reported cases worldwide.

When it comes to deaths, New York State’s 22,275 represents a much higher 40.70 percent of all American fatalities, and more than a tenth of the global total of 207,970.

Put differently, if New York State was a country, its 293,991 total cases would rank second in the world – behind only the 988,928 total U.S. cases. For mortality, if the State was a country, its 22,275 fatalities total would rank fourth behind the United States, Italy, Spain, and France.

Adjusted for total population, though, the State’s role is even more prominent. With 14,985 cases per one million residents, its infection rate would be second, globally – behind the 15,856 figure for the tiny European republic of San Marino (which is completely surrounded by northern Italy, itself a virus hot spot). New York State’s death rate per million (1,135) also trails only San Marino’s (1,208).

New York City’s place in the U.S. and global pictures is more prominent, still. These numbers for the five boroughs come from The New York Times, and they seem to cover a slightly different time-frame than the Worldometers numbers (which don’t provide statistics for major cities). But these differences are marginal at best, and leave the over situation virtually unchanged.

With 158,268 recorded cases, New York City alone contains 16.00 percent of the U.S. total, and its 11,648 deaths come to 21.00 percent of all U.S. deaths.

As for the global comparison, New York City’s cases equal just under 5.25 percent of worldwide infections, and its fatalities are 5.60 percent of the global total.

If New York City alone was a country, however, its case totals would rank fifth worldwide, and its fatalities sixth. When the population adjustments are made, both New York City’s 1,874 cases per million and it 1,380 deaths per million are the world’s worst if the city was a country.

For a final set of statistics showing how outsized New York City’s CCP Virus has become, let’s compare it with London – another huge metropolis that boasts vast, normally jammed subway and bus systems. In fact, their populations are pretty similar – with New York’s at just under 8.4 million and London’s at just under 9 million. (Both totals are the first that came up on Google searches.)  Moreover, like the United States, the United Kingdom has been criticized for its response to the disease.

But New York City’s 158,268 CCP Virus cases are 6.7 times London’s 23,608. And its 11,648 fatalities are 2.53 times London’s 4,606. (See here for the London virus data.) 

One reason for part of the disparity – London (with 18,679 people per square kilometer according to this source) is less than half as densely populated as New York City (38,242 residents per square kilometer). But although London’s lesser degree of crowding seems nicely to explain the fatality gap, it appears to have much less to do with the infection gap – which would seem to be more closely related to density.

Any way you slice it, however, both the U.S. and even global CCP Virus stories are New York stories. That may mean that the recovery story will depend largely on New York as well.   

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Amazon’s Fishy HQ Decision

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Alexandria, Amazon, D.C., education, Long Island City, New York City, STEM workers, tech, The Partnership for New York City, Washington, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Everyone who’s followed Amazon’s highly publicized search for a second headquarters site (which wound up choosing second and third headquarters sites) knows that New York City and the Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington, Virginia were selected because of their abundant supply of world-class tech workers. Or at least that’s what the on-line retail behemoth said.

Except a leading business group from New York – which has applauded the city’s win – has just come out with some projections completely belying this claim.

According to The Partnership for New York City, “Amazon is the first tech mega-company headquarters to locate in New York City, a breakthrough that will solidify the city’s future as a leader in the world’s fastest-growing industry.”

But in its latest quarterly Dashboard NYC, which tracks leading indicators of the city’s economic performance, The Partnership also forecast that, of the 25,000 net new jobs likely to be created directly by the new Amazon facilities in Long Island City, Queens, and the nearly 90,000 increase in the region’s payrolls that will be generated indirectly, 68 percent won’t require a high school education. In fact, 18 percent won’t even require any formal schooling. And another ten percent will be fill-able by folks with only some post-high school education.

As a result, fewer than one-third of these jobs (some 32,000) will require a bachelor’s degree of some kind. It’s true that a relevant college or graduate degree isn’t needed for success in technology (as most dramatically demonstrated by the founding of Microsoft by Harvard dropout Bill Gates, and the creation of Apple by Reed College dropout Steve Jobs). Indeed, a recent analysis of Census Bureau data reports that fully 35 percent of the country’s science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce lacks a bachelor’s degree, and that 80 percent of this subgroup have had only some college courses.

But it’s also true that far from all of the 32,000 total Amazon-created jobs that will require completing an undergraduate college education will be science and tech positions. For instance, many will certainly come in managerial or administrative positions at Amazon itself, and in all non-Amazon companies that add new hires because of Amazon, or that are created because of Amazon, that won’t require a special tech background.

I’m certainly not qualified to second-guess Amazon’s decisions. And maybe the situation in the Washington, D.C. area is significantly different (though this article indicates that it’s not – albeit not in the way you may think). What does seem clear, though, is that the company hasn’t been leveling with the rest of the country (or the world) about its new headquarters decision. And when the dissembler is the world’s second largest U.S.-based publicly traded non-government employer (behind WalMart), that should raise a question or two.

Im-Politic: Immigration’s Essential – but Elusive – Assimilation Dimension

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assimilation, bilingualism, burkini, France, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, multiculturalism, Muslims, New York City, Princeton University, reconquista, secularism, terrorism

Donald Trump’s trip to Mexico today is once again focusing national attention on immigration issues. But since I wrote Monday about the Republican presidential candidate’s self-inflicted wounds on this front, and how he can fix them, there’s not much point to returning to the subject as such until Trump has finished his talks with Mexico’s, President Enrique Pena Nieto, and then delivered an eagerly awaited speech on his overall strategy and key details.

Instead, let’s deal today with what might be called the other side of the immigration coin – assimilation. I’ve long suspected that its recent U.S. policy failures on this front that account for much of the restrictionist camp’s fervor. (It’s certainly loomed large in my own thinking.) That is, I believe there would be much more support from current immigration policy critics for greater inflows and even for some form of legalization of current illegals if they had any reason to believe that government at any level would take seriously the challenge of ensuring that newcomers and the existing illegal population learn about and adopt the core values and shared identity so largely responsible for America’s unprecedented success.

At the same time, some news over the last month should remind all Americans that, however necessary, effective assimilation policies are easier supported than formulated. And I’m now convinced that the challenges will continue growing ever greater even if political will was not lacking. For that conclusion, thank the “burkini.”

Immigration waves of course have always triggered opposition for a variety of reasons – and have included subversion of “Americanism.” But it’s easy to dismiss most of this particular objection as thinly disguised prejudice because civic education was such a priority national mission. I’m not a fan of anecdotes, but here’s a relevant family story.

My father’s parents came to this country from Lithuania in the early twentieth century, along with millions of other Eastern and Southern Europeans. As with so many from the former region, they quickly settled in an overwhelmingly Eastern European New York City Jewish neighborhood where English was rarely used. Similar quasi-voluntary ghetto-ization was the experience of numerous other immigrant groups in their new Northeastern and Midwestern urban homes.

Fast forward to 1929. My five-year old father has just entered kindergarten, and like many classmates barely speaks any English because it was largely absent not only in the playground or the synagogue or the delicatessen or butcher shop. It wasn’t spoken at home, either, because his parents’ knowledge was still pretty elementary. Fortunately, he had a more practical aunt who admonished them to get with the English program in order to improve his chances of academic success.

But even more important, my father told me many times that, despite his early linguistic limitations, in retrospect nothing was (subconsciously) clearer to his little-kid mind than that a major purpose of his schooling was to turn him into what he called “a little American.”

In recent decades, how many parents and students out there can honestly say that that’s been their own experience or their children’s experience? If anything, schools today at all levels often seem to be sending the opposite message. In my step-son’s prep school, which was actually on balance very responsible in educating rather than propagandizing students, he was nonetheless urged to think like a global citizen. My own alma mater recently changed its informal motto from former President Woodrow Wilson’s “Princeton in the Nation’s Service” to (the much stylistically clumsier) “Princeton in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity.”

Not that there aren’t often broad overlaps between national interests and worldwide interests. But this overlap isn’t always present. So when they conflict, what does Princeton want its students to do? And for my son’s less ambiguous school, who defines those global interests and their supposed citizenship responsibilities? What political community other than one that is national in scope enjoys the necessary legitimacy (provided of course that the government is reasonably accountable to its population)?

And lest you believe that schools are the only possible channels of civic education – or the main obstacles – think of the rampant bi- and multi-lingualism that’s overcome broad swathes of the country. Its most recent – and one of its most absurd – extensions has been New York City’s decision to relieve cab drivers of the requirement of speaking English proficiently.

So I hope I’ve established my pro-assimilation street cred – and the case that this ideal has greatly weakened in recent decades. And yet a huge fly has just been stuck in this ointment, in the form of the burkini controversy in France. It seems pretty clear to all thinking people that the ban by certain French beach towns of the full-body swimwear worn by many devout Muslim women has taken the push-back against multi-culturalism way too far – and in an ironically misogynistic way. But what’s most important about this episode is its reflection of France’s longstanding national approach to assimilation – which is often described as “aggressive secularism.”

In other words, you can make a strong argument that France has followed the assimilation-ist route that I’ve just endorsed. And it’s even easier to argue that, as numerous riots and bloody terrorist attacks over the last decade make tragically clear, this approach has failed miserably.

Not surprisingly, any number of explanations have been offered, ranging from widespread economic and social discrimination faced by French Muslims; to the transformation of France’s secularism into an intolerant faith itself; to Islam’s inherent nature as a religion with a prominent public and political dimension that is fundamentally incompatible with even genuinely tolerant secularism.

It’s tempting to point out that France’s history with immigration and assimilation simply isn’t relevant to the U.S. immigration debate nowadays, in part because America’s national identity has never been based on “blood and soil,” but on an ideology that is largely pluralistic itself; and in part because the Hispanic-origin population at the latter’s center doesn’t hold such separatist views. In other words, it’s often argued, the host country here has always faced fewer obstacles towards integrating newcomers, and today’s immigrants are anxious to be integrated.

Nonetheless, reasons for doubting these integrationist claims have resulted from many Hispanics’ distinctive insistence on bilingualism, as well as from periodic calls from the Mexican-American community in particular for a “reconquista” (“reconquering”) of American territory annexed by the United States after the Mexican war of 1848. And don’t forget the bi-national lifestyles (called “circular migration” by specialists) of so many Mexican-Americans, which tend to undermine the closely related ideas of borders and distinct political communities.

I’m still confident that a truly successful U.S. immigration policy absolutely requires a more successful approach to assimilation, for political reasons but also for the health of our society.  But France’s experience has made me a lot less confident that the goal will be achieved any time soon even if enough of the nation was on board. 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: How Not to Rate the States’ Economies – & Their Prospects

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California, demographics, domestic migrants, entitlement programs, Florida, Forbes, government workers, immigrants, inflation-adjusted growth, innovation, Medicare, Missouri, New York, New York City, Pennsylvania, population, private sector, productivity, retirees, seniors, Social Security, taxes, William Baldwin, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Thanks to Forbes magazine, it’s possible today to teach a useful lesson about the limits of statistics and the studies they’re based on – especially if those studies seem to be intended to prove a point rather than seek the truth.

The post in question, by former Forbes editor William Baldwin, looks like it makes a claim that’s not only important but irrefutable: U.S. states whose numbers of “takers” (government workers plus recipients of government transfer – welfare – and entitlements payments) greatly exceed the “makers” (private sector workers) are in “death spirals.” But states in the opposite situation have promising economic futures. In particular, employers are much likelier to create the private sector jobs crucial to continued healthy growth in the “maker” states.

It’s easy to understand Baldwin’s reasoning. The private sector undeniably is more innovative and productive than the public sector – two of the main ingredients of that healthy growth. And states with big populations of entitlements recipients (e.g., Medicare and Social Security) are almost by definition states with older populations – raising the question of who’s going to pay for all those benefits for non-working or even only semi-retired seniors. Case closed? Not exactly.

Interestingly, doubts start arising as soon as you eyeball the author’s chart. For example, he places California in the “death spiral” category. Since the Golden State represented 13.40 percent of the entire national economy as of 2014, it’s clearly a crucial example. But U.S. government figures also make clear that California enjoyed inflation-adjusted growth last year (2.80 percent) that was considerably faster than the national average (2.20 percent). That doesn’t sound like much of a death spiral to me. And in case you’re wondering whether 2014 was an outlier, California also out-grew the nation as a whole from 2011 to 2014 – by 7.81 percent to 6.26 percent.

Demographics don’t support Baldwin’s portrait of California, either. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (click here for the various relevant spreadsheets), between mid-2010 and mid-2015, the United States population as a whole as a whole grew by 12.661 million. Nearly 58 percent of the increase came from more babies being born than legal residents passing away, and the rest came from net migration from abroad.

California was responsible for nearly 15 percent of this increase – which means that the state punched above its weight demographically. In 2010, its share of the national population was only 12.07 percent. So it looks like there will be plenty of new Californians to pay for public services and retirement costs. And although many of the nearly 835,000 immigrants to come to the state during this period were illegals, many obviously were not.

The situation in another one of Baldwin’s death spiral states – New York – doesn’t look nearly so dire, either, on closer inspection. New York’s after-inflation economic growth between 2011 and 2014 wasn’t as fast as California’s. But at 6.79 percent, it still beat the national average.

New York also lost a little population from 2010 to 2015 (22,308 residents moved away). But births outnumbered deaths by 1.59 to 1, which is a bit better than the national average. And although just over 653,000 New Yorkers moved out of the state during that period, nearly 631,000 immigrants arrived. Of course, many have been illegal and low-wage. But many others have been foreign oligarchs who have rocketed the New York City real estate market into the stratosphere. In fact, the city’s property and income tax receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30 are so immense that its budget surplus is likely to approach $1 billion. So there’s no revenue shortage there.

Now let’s move to one of Baldwin’s more promising states: Florida. The Sunshine State has handily beaten the national average on 2011-2014 growth (7.07 percent) – although its performance has been affected by the depth of its housing-bust-fueled recession. On the surface, its population trends look good, too – as has historically been the case. In 2010, Floridians represented 6.09 percent of all Americans, but over the next give years, the state’s increase came to 11.58 percent of the national total.

Less good, however, were the internals – especially for Baldwin’s “death spiral” thesis. Florida’s population growth has been powered by immigrants and Americans from other states to a roughly equal extent. Surely wealthy foreigners have been well represented in immigrant ranks along with poorly paid illegals. But anyone who knows Florida knows that many of the domestic migrants have been retirees. That can’t bode well for the tax base.

Florida’s neighbor, Georgia, is another odd Baldwin success story. Its 2011-2014 growth trailed the U.S. average (at 5.32 percent). Yet its population growth (4.16 percent of the nation’s total) was greater than its 2010 share of the overall population (3.14 percent). It’s true that Georgia’s subpar population increase may eventually translate into stronger-than-average growth. But should that be considered a solid bet? Stranger still is the author’s positive assessments of Missouri and Pennsylvania, which have been under-performing both in terms of economic and population growth.

Of course, Baldwin has pegged many states right. But misses that are this big, especially for places like New York and California, make clear that the sources of healthy growth and bright economic futures are much more varied than entitlement spending, government workforce sizes, and even generational demographics. Lifestyle clearly plays a major role – what else explains California consistently defying predictions of economic doom triggered by alarm over high taxes, burdensome regulations, and the like? Along with New York and Washington state (another one of Baldwin’s losers, despite the attractions of Seattle), it’s long likely to remain a magnet for talent, as well as wealth (whether ill-gotten or not).

Although I’ve never met Baldwin, I do know that Forbes has long been one of the media world’s strongest champions of Darwinian free market thinking – and of course an equally ardent opponent to Big Government. So it looks reasonable to me that this ideology overwhelmed a more holistic view of economics and business – which his successors at Forbes might have realized just by looking out the windows of their Manhattan offices.