Illinois Community College Enrollment is Increasing

Illinois community colleges this year have seen the largest increase in enrollment since 2009, with 37 of 45 community colleges reporting an increase in headcount. There was a 7.4 percent increase in enrollment statewide from Fall 2023 to Fall 2024, the highest increase in 15 years. Fall 2022 to Fall 2023 only saw a 5.7 percent increase in enrollment. Community colleges in Illinois have been enjoying this enrollment growth for three years in a row. The nation as a whole has only had a 4.7 percent increase in students attending community college yearly, so Illinois has a bigger increase. Some of this growth can be attributed to the Dual Credit Program, which allows high school students to take college classes through their local community college to earn college and high school credit at the same time. This program saw an increase of 20 percent in enrollment this year. Along with increased enrollment, the number of students taking online classes has decreased. This was also the third year in a row that this number went down. In Fall 2024, only 35.6 percent of students were taking at least one online class. The previous year, in 2023, 42.3 percent of students were online. The previous years were even higher. In 2022, the percentage of online students was 47.3 percent and 56.8 percent in 2021. This means that more people are enrolling in community college and attending classes in-person. There are more students in the state’s community colleges (265,227 students) than in the 12 public universities (185, 590 students).  

I think this is wonderful news. Community college is a great way for people to further their education. It is much more cost-effective than a four-year university, making it more financially feasible for those that may have lower incomes. Low-income students have a chance to obtain college-level learning and a degree. While community colleges in Illinois do not offer bachelor’s level degrees, they still allow those who attend and graduate the opportunity to expand their knowledge and get a degree that may help them in the search for work and higher pay. This makes college more accessible for people who may not otherwise be able to get higher education. 

Community college is also a great resource for those who do not feel ready to attend a four-year university. A university can feel daunting and scary for those that did not excel in high school, find school to be difficult, or have not been in school recently. These people should still be included in higher education. Community college offers a transition from high school or working to a university. Students can learn skills that are important in higher education in community college, such as studying techniques or how to properly write papers. Community college is a good environment to learn these skills because it feels less intimidating. Some community colleges provide skilled career training, such as welding or commercial driver’s license classes. All around, community college gives students a chance to learn at any level, and the increase in enrollment shows that the citizens of Illinois are working to create better lives for themselves.

I attended a community college. I obtained my associate degree in human services from Lincoln Land Community College. I absolutely loved it there. For me, community college was the perfect transition from high school to a university. I am a rather anxious person and tend to get very overwhelmed with new experiences. Community college acted as a steppingstone from my basic education in high school to my advanced education at a university. I also really liked that I have never had to live in a dorm, which is my worst nightmare. Community college also provided me with a lower-cost education. I am paying for college by myself, so the cheaper classes at Lincoln Land really helped me out. Overall, my experience at Lincoln Land was amazing and was everything I needed it to be.

Reference

https://www.wcia.com/news/illinois-news/illinois-community-college-enrollment-sees-largest-increase-in-15-years/

We often have students who had great experiences at Lincoln Land Community College, and I can’t remember ever having a student who complained about Lincoln Land being unsatisfactory. 

My son attended UIS, and graduated in December of 2016. One advantage was that he would get half-off on tuition. That is one of the benefits for employees at state universities is that the tuition—but not fees or expenses of living on campus—are reduced by 50% for children who take classes at public universities—children, but not spouses.  Even so, I encouraged him to take some of his general education courses at Lincoln Land Community College during his freshman year.  That worked out well for him.  My younger son attended the University of Oregon, but even there, he took one or two courses at Lane County Community College during his freshman year.  These were general education courses that were unavailable to him at the University of Oregon because of a schedule conflict or some other barrier.

The graduation rates (across all the community college in Illinois) is about 34%, meaning that about a third of students who started classes in 2019 had earned an associate degree by summer of 2022.  According to the Census Bureau, the median income for person with an associate degree as their highest degree attained was $49,500 in 2022 when the national average for all workers was $54,200.  The  nearly $50,000 compared favorably with those with merely some college and no degree ($45,200) and those with only a high school degree (or equivalent, and no college experience), which was $35,500.  Going on to a four-year school and earning a bachelor’s degree put people in a category where median incomes were $66,600, and going on from there to earn additional degrees at the graduate level (master’s degrees or higher) put people in a category where median income was $80,200.  

There are always a couple cautions I want to add when comparing median or average incomes of people by income level.  First, these are measures of central tendency, and tell us about the experience of most people with those sorts of educational attainments.  However, if we look at the bottom 20% of the income distribution within the group of persons who have a bachelor’s degree and compare it to the top 20% of the persons with an associate degree, I’m pretty sure the most financially successful persons with associate degrees are doing better, in terms of income. A four-year degree is a good financial investment for most people who get a college degree, but lots of people who start a four-year degree end up with “some college, no degree” or end up on the bottom quarter or fifth of the income spread of those with college degrees, and for these people, college may not have been the best financial investment.

That said, there are several other benefits from attending and graduating colleges that stand independent of the financial advantages. Persons with college degrees tend to be better citizens by most measures of good citizenship (less likely to be incarcerated, more likely to volunteer, more generous in giving to charities, more likely to vote), and they are likely to have better marriages (more contentment in their marriages and lower rates of divorce).  College graduates tend to be a bit healthier.  These are advantages that persist even in multivariate regressions where we control for income and intelligence, so something about the college experience seems to be improving lives in ways that are independent of the financial opportunities. I don’t remember whether these advantages correlate to associate degrees as well as bachelor’s degrees, but my guess is that they probably do.  

The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) tells us that about 35% of students in the Illinois community colleges transfer out to a 4-year university (that can include those who graduate with an associate degree and transfer to a 4-year university). That’s a bit higher than national averages.  Also, in Illinois 53.8% of students who transfer out to a 4-year-university have earned a bachelor’s degree, which is much higher than the national average of 42.2%  (and that study excluded the students who were in community college with some dual credit earned because they were good students in high school and had earned community college credit while in high school, so that probably the graduation rates are even higher). 

Only three states (Minnesota, and the two Dakotas) outranked Illinois in overall degree completion among community college students.  Illinois ranked first in the nation in the percentage of full-time community college students who earn degrees at both their community college and a four-year institution (27.8%). 

I’ve heard one argument about community colleges not being such a good option.  This argument usually looks at the four-year completion rate of students who start in a four-year institution and compares that rate to the graduation rate at four-year institutions among those who transfer in after studying in a community college.  In Illinois, the graduation rate at the public universities is about 70% (percentage of students starting as freshmen who have earned a bachelor’s degree by six years after matriculating). Compare that to the 54% of transfers from community colleges who have earned a bachelor’s degree (which is a great rate in national comparisons), and people see that gap of 16%-points and suggest that if more of those types of students who start at community colleges started at 4-year public universities instead, wouldn’t that improve their odds of graduating?  The argument usually suggests that community colleges set up people to have low expectations of themselves, and forms in students an identity as being not as capable as those who start as freshmen at four-year institutions, and this may make those who have completed an associate degree more willing to drop out of their four-year university programs. I don’t know if this is an accurate argument. Possibly there are variables in the backgrounds of those who go to community colleges (coming from households with lower incomes or less parental support for higher education; having less of an idea of the course of study they want to pursue; having fewer family members who have bachelor’s degrees) that explain the 16-percentage-point difference in graduation rates between those who transfer in from community colleges and those who start out at 4-year colleges.  Also, it may be the case that in may places around the country the community colleges are of poor quality.  I know that Lincoln Land does a good job of educating its students, and based on the reports from the IBHE, I believe that community colleges in Illinois generally do a fine job educating the state’s students, but there are probably some schools that aren’t so great, even in Illinois, and probably in other states there are some bad community colleges.  

Housing Crisis in America

When writing my second policy paper I was at a loss as to how the housing crisis has not been resolved or looked at in ten plus years. Not only do these people continue to live without a home, but the percentage of people without increases every year while it is not dealt with. It is a cycle of a continuing piling problem. One that was once met with much enthusiasm and attention from the government.

Public housing hasn’t been expanded in fifty plus years. That is when an act was put in place to suspend all activity regarding expansion of public housing. The previous years 1937 and 1949 were the establishment of the Housing Act, constructing public housing, and further expanding this concept. This worked well as a means to provide housing for the citizens without. Unfortunately, after 1974 the public housing was only on a decline. They were suspended and then torn down with half replaced nearly twenty years later. This left thousands of vulnerable people and children once again homeless. Four years after that destruction of public housing, an amendment is put in place to further limit the construction of new public housing. That is just after 10,000+ units have been destroyed (NLIHC). This is the story of public housing in America.

The only recent action towards solving any housing issue by the federal government revolved around rental assistance. Rental assistance was offered as an alternative option to the housing crisis that faced the nation. When public housing had halted in 1974, the government turned to housing vouchers. Rental assistance is similar to a housing voucher, both reduce the cost of housing. Rental assistance through money and a housing voucher through the promise of money to the landlord of the property (government pays landlord). Money has not been spent in over fifty years on a direct form of housing for the homeless or vulnerable populations.

It is hard to believe such a rapidly growing and dangerously vulnerable population would be swept under the rug for so long. Every year is a record-breaking year for a new highest count of homelessness. This is the progress we make. In 2023, nearly 700,000 people experience homelessness on a given night (Soucy). These people struggle to live daily life and are forgotten by their neighbor. America has seemingly forgotten these citizens of its nation. It is time to pick up where they left off in the 1970s. There needs to be a change in the action taken against this housing crisis facing America.

In conclusion, there is a housing crisis facing America. One that has been dealt with on and off. There should be a change in the action taken by the government to see a bigger change in the situation for the positive.

Your reaction got me thinking about why the two areas of public welfare where the American welfare system most severely fails are housing and mental health care. With mental health care, it’s pretty obvious that people do give up on anyone with a chronic severe illness. Even families give up on them, so I think social workers have a difficult quest when it comes to shifting opinion toward creating a humane and effective system of mental health care (including prevention and treatment for substance use issues). But, with housing, I can only imagine that the stigma against paupers, the contempt our society has for persons in the bottom third, or bottom 20% or the 11% below the poverty threshold, is at the psychological root of our failure.

I’ll give you some insights.

First, if you look a the history of public housing in the United States, you’ll notice that from the beginning, public housing was conceived as a solution for persons who were very poor, and the idea was to make wholesome and modest places for very poor persons to live.  If you look at societies that do a much better job with public housing (e.g., The Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong), you’ll see that in those lands, the provision of housing was seen as a human right, or an economic necessity, and public housing is available for middle-income and moderate-income as well as low-income people.  In some of those societies, from a fifth (in Denmark) to over half of the population (80% in Singapore, one of the wealthiest countries in the world) lives in housing that was subsidized by the government.  Based on Census data on household incomes combined with Department of Commerce reports on housing costs and expenditures, it seems to me that about a quarter of American households could benefit from public housing or housing choice vouchers, but in fact, less than 4% get into such housing. (I’m getting that “less than 4%) by summing up the households participating in various housing voucher programs and public housing and Tribal housing and taking that as a percentage of the 127 million American households).

Once the public sector gets involved in providing subsidized or public housing (and encouraging social housing), it typically needs to respond to the market and provide increases in social housing / public housing while also increasing the productive of lower-cost private market housing.  In societies (such as Hong Kong) where public housing is not enlarged to meet demand and little is done to boost the construction of private-market affordable housing, you can get skyrocketing costs for low-end housing (see paper by Michael B. Wong from 2022). The Faircloth Amendment of 1998 put a cap on the provision of public housing, and although our housing choice voucher programs have expanded, the increase in units available to persons with vouchers has been lamentably small compared to the explosive growth in demand.  And so, I think even though about 45% of Hong Kong residents live in public housing and less than 4% of American live in public or subsidized housing, we have similar problems with the governments decreasing (or failing to adequately increase) the supply of affordable housing, and we’re getting similar results (rapid, dizzying increases in rental and home prices).

So, the United States has a limited housing policy because we have assumed (incorrectly) that subsidized housing should only be for the very poor, and our policy of not expanding public and subsidized housing makes the problem worse by allowing the market to drive up housing prices for those who cannot afford them.

Another issue is that housing policies are not seen as federal issues, and so our federal programs are trivial, and states and counties and cities are not stepping up to shoulder the weight of this obligation. With a few exceptions, most towns and cities allow developers (who often contribute significantly to county and city mayoral and city council candidates) to build urban sprawl type communities where the houses are all for persons in the top half of the income distribution (more expensive houses have higher profit margins), but there are relatively few incentives for developers to invest in the creation of mixed-income or low-income housing.  The sort of dense housing construction model (e.g,, as in Carmel, Indiana) that provides significant tax revenue for local government is ignored for the financially unsustainable extension of road, sewer, and water infrastructure out to expanding suburbs, where tax revenue is low and the cost of maintenance and replacement of public infrastructure is much higher than tax revenue (making these places a long-term trap for city bankruptcy). Cities, counties, and states also do not see that ending homelessness is really their responsibility, and you can see in any city or state budget that the amount giving to the creation of social housing, rapid re-housing, permanent supportive housing, or locally-controlled public housing is often trivial. 

Another issue we have is that the social experiment we did with public housing in the 1940s through the 1980s demonstrated that it’s a bad idea to segregate and isolate concentrated populations of impoverished households. Persons in households with low incomes benefit from living and rearing their children in a community where many of their neighbors have higher incomes.  Concentrating and isolating poor people in large communities where everyone is poor tends to foster anti-social behaviors and oppositional (sometimes criminal) subcultures.  The lesson we should have taken from this fact is that in our urban planning and affordable housing policies we must always scatter subsidized and public housing throughout a community, and create decent and attractive affordable and public housing that blends well with market-rate housing that remains attractive to middle-income and upper-income home buyers and renters, even if some public or subsidized housing is mixed in nearby. Instead of taking that lesson to heart, it seems to me that government leadership has instead only remembered the idea that concentrated poverty is bad, and therefore both parties seem to accept the Faircloth Amendment and agree that we should move away from a public housing model.  Public housing is not such a social threat when it is available to households in the entire bottom third of the income distribution and it is widely dispersed and attractive, but it can be a source of public disorder when it is ugly, poorly designed, and concentrates persons in the bottom 10% of income all together in a densely packed area that is isolated from jobs and middle-income neighbors.

To my way of thinking, a problem here is that Americans want wealthy and middle-income citizens to pay only about 20% to 35% of their incomes to the public good, but if we accepted a situation where the combined local/state/federal government took a larger share of personal income (not radically more, just up to 25% to 40%, an increase of about 5-percentage-points or a 20% to 15% increase in total taxes paid to all government units through all levels of taxation), we could provide things like an adequate supply of public and subsidized housing, universal health care, and adequate funding for public schools and universities, as well as child protective services, mental health and substance use treatment services, and so forth. Yet, the rhetoric around government spending is focused on the premise that the government, at whatever level, is inefficient and is likely to spend increased revenue in ways that are unproductive, ineffective, or wasteful. Governments are huge entities, and there will always be some error and waste in any large and complex human organization. But people can’t distinguish between serious problems that make a policy unfeasible and the problems that are like random error, just minor fluctuations in the economy or government work.  At any rate, there is no desire by politicians, even in a Democratic Party dominated state such as Illinois, for any revenue increases (increases in taxes). Thus, I fear that our governments will not gain the revenue necessary to adequately fund housing policies that would help make housing affordable and available in a sustainable way.  

Works Cited

NLIHC. “Public Housing History.” National Low Income Housing Coalition, 17 Oct. 2019, nlihc.org/resource/public-housing-history. 

Soucy, Daniel, et al. “State of Homelessness: 2024 Edition.” National Alliance to End Homelessness, 5 Aug. 2024, endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/.

Hands of the People

As the 2024 Presidential election is coming near, something is always brought up. The popular vote and the electoral college. The United States is the only democracy in the world where a presidential candidate can win the popular votes and still lose the election. Because of the Electoral College, this has happened five times in the United States history. The most noticeable and recent was in 2016, when Hillary Clinton got more popular votes than Donald Trump but lost in the Electoral College.

But why did the founding fathers make the electoral college? The founding fathers were deciding how to choose the president for the first time in the world’s history, they were setting a precedent. There were three main reasons why they did not want to have a popular vote. Mainly, they did not trust people in the 18th century to be informed enough to make educated decisions. Second, they feared a headstrong “democratic mob” would steer the country astray. And lastly, a populist president appealing directly to the people could command dangerous amounts of power.

However, the electoral college also has racist origins. When deciding how many electors to assign to each state, the question of whether the count of enslaved persons should be included as a portion of the count of a state’s total population confounded the authors. in 1787, around 80% of Southerners were enslaved Black people who could not vote, however, Southerners wanted more representatives, and came up with the "three-fifths compromise" where three-fifths of the enslaved Black Population would be counted to allocating representatives and electors and federal taxes. The compromise ensured that Souther States would ratify the

 constitution and gave Virginia, home to more that 200,000 slaves, a quarter of the total electoral votes required to win the president. For 32 of the United States first 36 years, a slave-holding Virginian occupied the White House.

The Electoral College was for a country that has slavery and masses of uneducated voters who would elect demagogues and dictators who would destroy the nation. Mostly, the Founding Fathers’ assumptions proved untrue. When the electoral college was created in 1787, there were no political parties, however today most electors have to vote for their party’s candidate. It was also assumed that each elector’s vote would be counted, however, all but two states passed laws to give all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the state's popular cote count, and there is no semblance of elector independence. The founding fathers also assumed that most elections would not be decided by the people or the electors, but by the House of Representatives. After George Washington's unanimous election, they believed future elections would feature a large amount of candidates who would divide the electoral pie in smaller pieces, giving Congress a chance to pick the winner, however when political parties formed, the number of candidate shrank. Only two elections have been decided by the House, and the most recent one was in 1824.

When the electoral college was first formed in the United States other countries followed as well. In the Americas, Colombia adopted an electoral college in 1821, Chile adopted one in 1828, Argentina in 1853. In Europe, Finland adopted an electoral college in 1925, and France in 1958. However, over time, these countries changed their minds. All of them abandoned their electoral colleges and switched to directly electing their presidents by popular vote. Colombia switched in 1910, Chile in 1925, France in 1965, Finland in 1994, and Argentina in 1995. The United States is the only democratic country with an electoral college.

Many people argue that the electoral college gives power to smaller states and ensures that that all parts of the country are involved in selecting the President of the United States.

However, I have to disagree because, if anything, it allows swing states to decide instead of the people. In a democracy, the people should have the power to decide who is in or out of the office, it should be in hands of the people. The President should be a representative of and by the people.

Eight years ago I wrote something about the Electoral College.  We have the same opinion about it. 

A student speaks in favor of SNAP benefits

For this reflection paper, I would like to write about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). From what I can recall, SNAP is a program that gives temporary money to households and individuals for food. Individuals with dependents and/or disabilities get longer periods of time for them to use SNAP. If people do not have dependents or a disability, they have to be working to be considered for SNAP benefits. This program is regulated in the Food Bill, and executed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

I think that more money should be given to this program as it is greatly essential for those trying to get out of poverty, meaning that each household/individual would get more SNAP money each month. People receiving these benefits often do not have enough money to feed themselves or their families by the end of the month, even if they try to budget the benefits.

Especially now with the inflation on food in the country. I believe that the program did increase its budget because of inflation, but that still kept the people in the program struggling for 3 meals a day.

I am glad that this program allows struggling people to receive quality foods as well, such as from farmer’s markets and whole foods markets. However, the amount of these locations that accept EBT cards are limited. I wish that more or all of these locations would be encouraged to accept SNAP. Owners of these shops would still be paid for their products, and these families would get the quality food that they required to improve their lives. Similarly, not all locally and/or family owned restaurants/markets accept SNAP either, and if the Food Bill had more easy programming for these restaurants and shops to transition into also accepting EBT, that would benefit the local economies and the people overall.

I know many individuals who are using SNAP or who have used SNAP in the past to meet their dietary needs. They often had to go through hoops to receive their EBT cards and the benefits that they needed as some of them had difficulty proving their disability. I believe that this process humiliates those that desperately need this assistance. I understand that those working behind the scenes and with the loads of paperwork are likely to be overburdened and

behind on the processes behind SNAP. So I suggest a more streamlined process for the SNAP application should be created. This way, those working behind the scenes have less loads of work to take on, and it would be easier for the people who require SNAP to obtain the assistance they need.

The numbers of households and persons benefiting from SNAP benefits had been relatively consistent (around 10 million households and 20-25 million persons between 1980 and 2008) during most of my life, but the Great Recession sent the number of households using SNAP up to over 20 million, and the number of persons benefiting from SNAP has been above 40 million. SNAP was a program that always ha da cost around $30 to $50 billion, but then during the Great Recession the SNAP program went up to about $100 billion for a few years, and it went up to nearly $120 billion during the COVID recession in 2020-21.  In FY 2022, 41.2 million persons in 21.6 million households were using SNAP each month. The most recent information I could find (for August 2024) showed 42.2 million persons in 22.5 million households receiving benefits worth $8.053 billion ($96.6 billion per year). Average benefits were $211.52 per person in 2023.  Over a third (37%) of those receiving SNAP receive the minimum benefit, 26% of all SNAP recipient households have earned income, and among SNAP-receiving households with children, 50% have earned income (Key Statistics, 2024).  Generally, most households earning less than 130% of the poverty threshold qualify for SNAP benefits. The exception are the non-disabled adults without children, who can receive only three months of SNAP benefits, but if they are in job training or working at least 20 hours per week, they can continue receiving SNAP benefits. 

For decades, people had pointed out that SNAP benefits were set at a low level that would not cover actual food expenses.  The food budget used to set maximum SNAP benefits was outdated. However, starting in 2021, benefit levels were increased to match more accurately the actual costs of eating nutritious food.  As a result, if you look at the costs of the program, they have dramatically increased in the past couple years, and will likely remain about $100 billion per year (after including the cost of administering the program).

One thing that interests me is how real (inflation-adjusted) incomes for persons at the 10th, 20th, and 30th percentile have gone up (according to the 2023 income report from the Census Bureau that came out in September of of 2024). Unemployment is low, and incomes are rising faster than inflation even for low-income earning households, and yet, the percentage of the population receiving SNAP (at 130% of poverty or lower) is remaining fairly steady, or even slightly increasing. This suggests to me that much of the improvement in this “good economy” for low-income households has meant going from terrible low-paying jobs to bad low-paying jobs, or from no jobs to bad low-paying jobs (even a bad low-paying job is an improvement over no job in terms of income).  Ideally, a booming economy would mean that persons who work full-time and still don’t earn enough to get over 130% of poverty (still qualify for SNAP) would become rare. 

Let’s think about what the family close to that 130%-of-poverty margin might experience. Imagine a family with two young children and one adult staying home to care for the children while the other adult works full-time in one job, 37.5 paid-hours per week with 9 unpaid holidays and 10 paid days off each year (sick leave and vacation), so essentially 240 work days each year and 1,800 hours worked each year.  Families with 4 persons have a poverty threshold of $31,200, and 130% of that is $40,560, which is what about what a person earns working for $22.50 for 1,800 hours per year (they would earn $40,500).  With two children and an income of $40,500, the family would have $4,000 in refundable tax credits for the children, and an EITC of $3,992. Thus, after payroll withholding for Social Security and Medicare and the benefits of EITC and Child Tax Credits, the income before state and federal income taxes would be $45,394, and the household (in Illinois) would probably qualify for about $400 extra SNAP money for help with groceries (assuming about $1,200 for rent and no significant assets over $5,000 in value).  For Federal income taxes, there would be something like a $32K standard deduction, leaving $4,500 of taxable income to pay 10% (so, total tax bill is about $450, and the EITC would actually only get a payback of $3544, approximately). If they lived in Illinois, they would have about $360 in state income tax, but the state of Illinois earned income tax credit would erase most of that, leaving them with possibly $160 in state income taxes to pay.  

So, after taxes and EITC and Child Tax Credits and Social Security and Medicare withholding, we’re looking at $3,732 earned income and $400 per month in SNAP benefits, and if the children were in school, they would qualify for free lunches (also, like SNAP, a 130% of poverty threshold).  I’ve already said their rent is $1,200, so they have $2532 each month for other expenses, and as their income is under 133% of poverty, they would be covered by Medicaid (if they lived in Illinois or any of the other states that has expanded Medicaid up to 133% of poverty). Insurance on two cars: $120, maintenance and repairs and gas for two cars over a year would average about $160 per month. Utilities in their apartment might average $200 per month (more in winter and summer, less in late spring and early autumn), and their internet service, cell phone service, and cost of their phones might run about $130 per month. Let’s guess one car is paid for, and the other car has a loan that they are paying off with $400 per month payments.  Let’s say also that one of them is paying off college student loans, about $400 per month.  That covers basics of transportation and utilities and such, and leaves them $1,522 per month.  Typically, adults might spend about $450 per month on food, I’ll suggest a monthly food budget for this family of about $1,300.  SNAP benefits cover $400, and $900 comes from their income, leaving them about $622 for all other expenditures. Other expenditures would include durable goods like computers and appliances and clothing and shoes and furniture, nondurable goods like toilet paper and soap, entertainment other than the internet, services like child care, out-of-pocket medical care, and putting aside money for savings.  The $1,200 monthly rent I estimated is about right for a two-bedroom apartment in Sangamon County (fair market rent for a two-bedroom, which is the 40th percentile, is $1,132). In Chicago, the two-bedroom apartment cost is going to be closer to $1,800, which is $600 more than what they would pay in Springfield, and leave them with about $22 for everything else after covering food, housing, utilities, transportation, and debt serving on college loans and car loans. The higher rent would increase their SNAP benefit, but still, they would be in a tight squeeze.

The result of this examination of a hypothetical family is to determine that at just under 130% of poverty, a household with one full-time adult earning $22.50 per hour and a stay-at-home partner and two children can just about make ends meet, but only because they are helped by about $400 per month in SNAP, plus the benefits of the child tax credits, Earned Income Tax Credits, and Medicaid, as well as free school lunches.  But them in a place like Chicago where they would pay $600 more each month for rent, and they can’t make it.  They seriously must cut down on food (very rarely eat out, or only eat the least expensive sort of food you can get when eating out), get by with just one car, and have a very small budget for clothing, appliances, and probably but nothing in savings each month. For such a family, the $400 per month in SNAP benefits and the free school lunches (if their children are in school) make a huge difference, because their income is close to the minimum they need to live a dignified and autonomous life. If the stay-at-home parent takes a job, child care expenses will go up substantially, as will the costs of transportation, and the increased income will diminish the EITC and get the family off Medicaid and on to the subsidized health care exchanges to find a subsidized health care plan for their family. If the second adult income is over about $800 per month, the family would lose the $400 in SNAP benefits.

Actually, for the adult earning “a little bit” by working very part time, bringing in another $1000 per month, is going to be paying about $226 of that $1,000 in payroll and income taxes, another $500 in lost SNAP and Medicaid benefits and decreasing EITC benefits, and end up with only about $274 more in spending money, which might be lost if they need to pay more for day care or child care and mass transit or use of a second car while off at their job earning that $1,000.  This shows that for a family with one income-earner at about 130% of poverty (one adult earning $22.50 working full-time year-round), it’s probably not economically viable for the second adult in the household to work part-time, as the loss of benefits and increased taxes cancel out most of the higher gross pre-tax household income. 

Considering immigration policies proposed by two candidates, a student's reaction

  In light of the upcoming elections, I have tried to keep myself as informed as possible about both candidates’ policy plans for their potential time in office. As much as I would like to argue that morality is salient in terms of who we choose to run our country, I am actively trying to remove myself from the mindset of “moral righteousness” and concentrate on policies that would ultimately better the lives of all Americans while increasing the health of our economy. One policy area that is completely divided—and I cannot seem to understand why—is the issue of immigration. This is one aspect of the divide I do believe we need to not only look at in terms of policy, but also in terms of understanding the value of human beings.  

I recommend that we approach many questions with open-minded attitudes. If you could cleanse your heart so that no remnant of either love or hate could linger there, so that love would not blindly incline you toward error, or hate repel you from truth, you would be in a better mental state-of-mind to dispassionately consider the arguments of various sides. Of course, you must not abandon your moral compass, so that you can apply your ethics and values to the contrasting opinions, but that needs to come after you have open-mindedly considered each position with sympathy and trust in the side that presents its position. 

Before I get into a more neutral view of the candidates differing views on immigration, I feel it would be insincere not to explain my own thoughts on the issue. I understand that immigration policies are put in place to protect our country and that all countries have their own set of immigration laws in place. Some countries are made up of mostly foreign-born citizens while others have strict regulations so much so that it is almost impossible to gain citizenship. Those who know the history of what this country was built on understand that the earliest “American” citizens were literally immigrants themselves. My irritation lies in that fact; Christopher Columbus didn’t discover this land. There were successful, thriving tribes of indigenous people living here first who had their land forcefully taken over, were reduced to slaves, and were essentially given a death sentence in doing so. These “great Americans” were immigrants themselves, and we gloss over that undeniable fact with ease when we are talking about how strict and sometimes brutal, we feel the need to be with immigration laws today. I can agree to a certain extent that immigration laws are imperative to keep this country safe, fruitful, and flourishing. Though it is deplorable to me that some of us justify those laws simply because this is our country, and we should keep everyone else out. Due to our history, the logic—or lack thereof—of many individuals entitlement to gatekeeping this country simply infuriates me. But I digress.

I think the nations with many immigrants, such as the United Arab Emirates, do not give citizenship to the guest workers and foreign residents, but I could be wrong.  Western European nations and the USA tend to have a percentage of the population between the high single digits and low double digits that are foreign-born. I think the United States these days has about 15% of the population foreign-born (including my wife and my brother-in-law, and two of my four grandparents when they were alive). Germany has 18% of its population as immigrants, and 28.7% of its population has a migration background. In the UK, it’s 16% who are foreign-born. In France, it’s a little over 10%. In Canada, it’s about 23% of the population. In United Mexican States about 1% of the population is foreign-born, including about 800,000 who were born in the United States of America.  Taiwan has about 3.4% of it’s population foreign-born, mostly from Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The role of immigration in protecting a country has two sides.  Many people are concerned that with declining birth-rates, a country will be weakened as its population declines unless it allows some immigrants to help stabilize the population.  Thus, immigration boosts a nation’s population and makes it stronger.  On the other hand, many citizens do not want to have so many immigrants enter their country that they feel their national culture is threatened or diluted, and sometimes people feel their nation may face a security threat if immigrants actively try to change their countries in ways that weaken the cultural strength of the nation. 

The United States and other nations of the Americas are societies made of mixtures of indigenous people/ideas and immigrants or persons enslaved and brought to the land. As Samuel Sewall put it in his hymn for peace written on January 1, 1701: “…So Asia and Africa, Europa with America, All four in concert join'd, shall sing…” We’re all brought together here because of the decisions of our ancestors (or ourselves, if we are immigrants). The countries of Europe may claim to have cultures based on tribes or ethnicities or cultures that have existed on their land for many centuries, and those cultures may be favored as the “national” cultures, although in most cases, there are many minority ethnicities and historical colonies of other ethnic groups even in the nations of Europe and Asia, not to mention the vast diversity of tribal peoples in most African lands. 

All governments have a duty to protect their citizens.  In democratic societies, the government should also generally enforce policies that are favored by the electorate, with the limit that the Constitution or values enshrined in the Constitution should be held as more important than any temporary whim of the electorate (if the electorate feels strongly enough about an issue, they must have means of changing the constitution, but that approach should be a more difficult process than passing mere laws). Most Americans like immigrants, and want to keep the nation open to a certain number of people who come here as part of family unification efforts, and bring in a smaller group of people who have skills or abilities that American citizens lack, and bring in an even smaller group of people who are fleeing oppression or danger in their homelands. The minority who are actively xenophobic and only want to allow in immigrants who are like them (English-speaking western Europeans or Canadians, I suppose) are especially vocal and vehement in their opposition to immigration, but they are certainly not a majority of the population. Perhaps most Americans prefer that only 5% or 10% of the population ought to be foreign-born, and they feel uneasy when 15% of us are foreign-born.  

When we are talking about the policy proposals of both candidates, we need to fully understand both sides. Donald Trump’s emphasis on fixing what he feels is a broken immigration system is to continue building the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, which ideally would be fully funded by Mexico. He aims to restrict both legal and illegal immigration, which focused on a travel ban on Muslim-majority countries. He introduced a “zero-tolerance” policy that separated children from their parents who were entering the country illegally. He has proposed merit-based immigration laws that gave preference to skilled workers over family-based immigration to bring focus to the job market and increase economic health.

I must address a few concerns with his proposals. First, I literally cannot comprehend the effectiveness or efficiency of this idea to prohibit illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. Throughout history, walls have been somewhat successful in keeping invaders out during war. However, walls deteriorate. People find ways to breach them, build tunnels under them, or find ways around them. There is not one wall in history that has been completely invulnerable. I also genuinely do not understand how or why Mexico would agree to pay for such securities—I mean, how would that country benefit from such an expensive endeavor? That is a huge promise with no factual backing as to how he would get Mexico to agree to such terms. 

I think every humane government official in almost any country would prefer that 100% of immigrants and visitors entered their country following legal processes, and no one came in illegally, without permission or documents. Persons who enter a nation without authorization are vulnerable to many cruel and dishonest practices.  Employers and landlords may cheat them and exploit them, and they would have little recourse to seek legal help. Their exploitation would lower wages in the sectors of the economy where they found employment (e.g., agriculture, food processing, landscaping, construction, informal day labor), and that would harm citizens and legal immigrants, whose wages in those sectors would be depressed by competition with the undocumented or illegal workers. Yes, some economists (Milton Freedman comes to mind) have said that the phenomenon of illegal immigration and an illegal workforce is beneficial to everyone (he claimed exploitation as an illegal worker in the American labor force still gave illegal immigrants a better life than they could hope for working in their countries-of-origin). 

So, this is to say that Democratic and Republican candidates should generally agree that they would like to stop illegal immigration, but they differ in the methods they proposed to use, and how far they would like to prioritize this policy goal. Trump claims it is one of his highest goals. He would dramatically increase resources devoted toward the issue. His behavior suggests his words may be false, since when the Democratic and Republican legislators had a bipartisan bill to increase and reform resources used for immigration and the fight against illegal immigration, Trump told Republican legislators not to pass that law. Many people who become undocumented or illegal residents come here legally (arriving at airports or legal border crossings), and just overstay their allowed time here. A wall wouldn’t stop that type of illegal immigration. Illegal crossing into the United States is very dangerous, and many people die crossing in remote areas.  Perhaps walls that are staffed with border guards all along the border would save lives, but the walls could be electronic at possibly a lower cost than creating a massive metal wall the whole length of the border.

Now, I want to touch on Kamala Harris’s immigration proposals. Harris wants to build a pathway for citizenship while still increasing immigration restrictions (i.e. improved asylum rules and partial border shutdowns if illegal crossings reach a certain number). She focuses on family reunification policies, keep DACA in place, and emphasizes immigration rights that she believes are important to increase the economy. From what I have researched, she believes in equality for immigrants while trying to address the root cause of the migration from South and Central America. 

I have gone past my hour time limit for this assignment, and although I have more, I wish I could say about this issue, I want to say this; there is a humane, respectful, and responsible way to go about immigration policy. We may never figure out the perfect way to deal with immigration, we must remember that these individuals are human beings. I can say undoubtedly that Trump’s immigration policy proposals are not only ineffective but also lack the understanding that these people are human beings who deserve quality of life, no matter where they came from or where they may end up. Immigration is an issue that I believe in the depths of my soul should be treated with humanity. 

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2024-presidential-candidates-stand-immigration/story?id=103313097

https://www.docketwise.com/blog/where-the-2024-presidential-election-candidates-stand-on-immigration

Trump also seems to lack any understanding of the USA’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol (which the USA accepted on 1 November 1968—The Senate consented to accession, and President Nixon signed it). Our obligations are to accept any person who presents herself or himself on our territory and requests protection and asylum from persecution, and allow them to remain in our nation while we investigate the veracity of their claims of persecution. We cannot send them back to the place where they say they will be persecuted unless we find that their claims of persecution are false or without merit. 

As President Nixon said: “United States accession to the Protocol would thus constitute a significant and symbolic element in our ceaseless effort to promote everywhere the freedom and dignity of the individual and of nations; and to secure and preserve peace in the world.”