If these trends continue for the balance of the decade, California would lose 4 of its 52 congressional districts in reapportionment — only the second time the Golden State has ever lost representation. New York, meanwhile, would lose three seats, Illinois two, and Pennsylvania one, leaving all three states with congressional delegations half the size they were in 1940…
Based on the most recent trends, Texas would gain four seats and Florida three seats in the next reapportionment, placing Texas within striking distance of becoming the largest state, perhaps as early as 2040. Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee also would each gain a new congressional seat, as would three mountain states: Arizona, Idaho, and Utah.
In the long term I think this is good news for the country. The new congressional districts gained and lost will likely include a lot of dense urban areas (where the population is concentrated), which tend to be far more politically moderate than the rural countryside. The upshot will be more liberal congressional delegations from the sunbelt and more conservative ones from CA and New York.
Anything that moves the Right and the Left to the middle is a good thing.
SoCal has been crowded for a long time. I remember watching a Bob Hope special, over 50 years ago, when he was talking about how many more people were projected to move to California. He said “I don’t know where they will put them. It’s so crowded now, dogs are walking on their hind legs”.
Maybe, maybe not. For example, Florida has over 40% more people now than in 2000. Back then it was a swing state (remember hanging chads?). Now it is solid red.
And what will be the impact of rising insurance costs in Florida. How many will leave the state if they cannot afford insurance? And where will they go? Texas? Arizona? Arkansas?
Good question. My guess would be other warm states – The Carolinas down through Georgia, Texas, maybe Tennessee (Nashville is growing like a weed). Not many back to New York, New Jersey, Illinois. Maybe Arizona. Few came from California in the first place and few would move there.
Pendulums swing. Conservatives are currently riding the fear of immigrants wave. They were very clever in making the current immigration system a product of liberals. Well, the Right is in power now and the spotlight is solidly on them to solve the immigration problem. If they solve it, then this very potent political issue ceases to be one. If they don’t, it is a failure the Democrats can exploit.
We shall see if the actions match the rhetoric. I could be wrong, but I think there will be a very significant economic impact on farmers, builders, and small businesses if there really are mass deportations and the southern border is walled. That will be on the republicans. As long as climate change destabilizes economies and America’s addiction to drugs continues to support the cartels, the northward migration from Central America will keep on happening. That will also be on the republicans.
It is often argued that presidents and the political party in power impact southern border immigration. I think that is nonsense. The American economy dictates the numbers attempting to get into the US from the south. Here is the data:
Border crossings were high during the dot.com boom, plummeted in 2001-2 due to the economic impact of the 9/11 attack, and further declined with the 2008 Great Recession. Border crossings during the Trump administration from 2016-2020 were no different than during the previous Obama-Biden years. Border crossing then sharply increased with the post-pandemic recovery in 2022-3. If the American economy is strong and Central America unstable, folks will keep trying to come to America.
IMO, this will only stop if the US aggressively prosecutes Americans who hire the undocumented. That would have interesting political ramifications.
Interesting, but I don’t see how that impacts the relative population decline this decade of New York, Illinois, California (“leaving all three states with congressional delegations half the size they were in 1940…”)
Partly. Remember that population moves to the south and west have been going on since the end of WW2, so the relative decline of states such as New York and Illinois is nothing new.
What has changed is California. It still has a good climate, but perhaps it has become “saturated”. It certainly has become more expensive.
Deliberately hiring an undocumented should be a felony. But forged or borrowed documents make it difficult for employers to be sure. Those who get fooled should be less punished.
It doesn’t. My answer is to why many states have voted republican. I think the reason for shifting populations is primarily economic. California is losing population because the cost of living is rising faster than the economy is growing, with the cost of living primarily due to property values.
I’m not surprised that the states with (currently) rapidly increasing populations tend to be those with lots of land available for cheap housing development. The explanation for big changes in population is almost always economics rather than politics. Watch what happens to population growth in Arizona if/when the cost of water becomes very expensive.
Simply enforcing existing laws and raising the penalties against those doing the hiring. It won’t happen though because of the political and economic consequences. In some industries the undocumented probably make up 20% of the work force.
There are other ways to curtail southern border crossings in the long term. We could for example get serious about illegal drug use by increasing mandatory drug testing and drug treatment programs. Reducing American drug demand would reduce the income of drug cartels and give legitimate governments in Central America a chance.
Instead of or in addition to requiring the poor to work to get government support we should require all those receiving government money, including the management and ownership of corporations getting government contracts, to periodic drug testing and mandatory drug treatment upon failure.
But that is if one is really serious about controlling the southern border.
This seems like it should be an easy problem if they wanted to fix it. Everyone hired needs to supply their SSN. Yes, some can be faked. But the SSN is used during payroll to submit taxes. Some simple AI running against the new taxes being submitted will show all new SSN’s in use and their history or conflicts with matching previous SSNs, dead people, people living in two states, people just born and not of legal age yet, people retired years ago, etc.
Some flagged SSNs will be legitimate for sure, so some follow up is needed with the employers (automated emails), then maybe some more pattern detection at some employers (someone just hired 50 flagged SSNs).
And finally, actual people doing some investigations.
A lot of effort only needs to be done for a few years to weed out the bad companies.
You also have to deal with those hiring without any documentation…they are knowingly doing illegal hiring. There are probably ways to find these that we just don’t pursue aggressively because neither party wants to. Big whistleblower rewards comes to mind.
Below is what an I-9 requires. When I hired someone, I always made copies of the documents that were presented. I don’t believe any were ever faked, but I could have been fooled.
That already happens. What you do not know is how Social Security handles the issues that arise. In general, most of the things done by Social Security do NOT fall under criminal law.
