Everyone Will Benefit with Immigration Reform (part #2)

Yesterday I listed several areas in which every person in this country will benefit when there is immigration reform which would legalize the millions of people living here illegally; the military, Social Security, our economy, our future economy, education and national security. That column only talked about our economy, this one will continue with the others, starting with Social Security and our military.

We all know the undocumented people living here have broken the law by coming in illegally or overstaying their visa and yet, something has to be done to get them registered and legalized. A majority of our citizens say we should find a way to solve this problem. This country needs them.

One reason we need these undocumented workers to become legal residents is to keep Social Security funded. Fifty or 60 years ago, when Social Security was new, it took 20 workers to keep enough tax money flowing in to keep a retired person on Social Security. Within 25 years, at the rate we are going now, there will only be two workers paying money in to cover each retiree. And in 25 years all the baby boomers will be in that group of retirees and the next generation will be getting ready to retire. Add the fact that people are living much longer than before and it's easy to see why we need more young workers now. We also need a steady supply of young workers coming into the system. The young immigrant workers who are already here may be the answer to the Social Security funding problems of the future.

The reason most of these people came here was for work, because there is no work in their home countries that will support their families. If these millions of workers were suddenly sent back to their countries, it would cripple those economies along with hurting ours. They would be sent to the end of very long unemployment lines and never have any hope of finding work. The money they had been sending home to their families would stop and this would hurt the families and their economy.