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> Comparing these statistics across countries is useless without demographic adjustment. Why is it useless? Any aggregate number can be broken down different w

by mmooss 9mo ago

> Comparing these statistics across countries is useless without demographic adjustment. Why is it useless? Any aggregate number can be broken down different ways into different groupings - region, age, education, income, wealth, smoking/not, weight, smartphone use, exercise, sleep, etc etc. By your argument, any aggregate number is useless because, no matter what the researcher chooses, it could be broken down differently. So why choose race? I think the fact that so many in this discussion repeat the partisan trope - long used to oppose taxpayer-funded services such as healthcare, education, housing, food, etc. - of dividing people by race, is very telling.

sublinear 9mo ago
Hispanic isn't a race
rayiner 9mo ago
Statistics show there is a huge difference in life expectancy based on recency of immigration. Most hispanics in the U.S. are immigrants or children of immigrants. They have the second highest life expectancy despite having the lowest access to healthcare. That’s plausibly explained by the fact that immigrants are more likely to be healthier than the average person in their country.
- mmooss 9mo ago
  > immigrants are more likely to be healthier than the average person in their country. That makes sense to me. Unhealthy people are less likely to make the (often) physically gruelling trip and take on the potentially gruelling lifestyle, and all the uncertainty. The same, I expect, applies to motivation - people thoughtlessly call immigrants 'lazy', but the lazy people don't give up their familiar lives and move - many crossing jungles and risking criminals - someplace where they have nothing, not even legal status, often not even the language, and start from scratch - with the goal that after a lifetime of hard work, your children will be comfortable.
  - rayiner 9mo ago
    I think you have a stereotype in your head that applies to only a subset of immigrants. You're thinking of the H1B that busts his ass to get here. But you're overlooking the nephew who comes over years later under family reunification and is happy to live on subsidized housing and welfare benefits. Because of the way both the US and Canada treat family reunification, what happens is that a highly motivated initial wave of immigrants over time leads to waves of less motivated, less skilled immigrants. I've seen this in my own diaspora community (Bangladeshis)--especially over the last 10 years as migration hubs like NYC have become very generous with welfare benefits for immigrants. (Canada has always been that way. My cousin grew up in subsidized housing. While he was highly motivated and became a professional, tons of people around him were content to live on the welfare benefits.)
    - mmooss 9mo ago
      I'm not talking about skills at all and wasn't thinking of H1B. I'm talking about low-skilled people who come here with nothing and to build a life. They don't have much to cover indigent nephews, especially if they are undocumented. I have no reason to think nephews are any different. The 'welfare queen' narrative has long been used by those opposing public benefits (one source dates it to 1974 and says Ronald Reagan used it) but they never substantiate it. IMHO it's blaming the victim - is there any data saying poverty is caused by laziness? The data I remember atm says, 1) (from decades ago) people move in and out of the welfare system; they don't tend to stay in it, and 2) (much more recently) the leading cause of homelessness is medical bills. > NYC ... Canada Some of the most economicly dynamic places on earth. New Yorkers credit immigrants for a lot of that, as has much of America (until very recently).
      - rayiner 9mo ago
        > They don't have much to cover indigent nephews In places like New York, immigrants get lots of public support: https://empirejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Benefits-Chart-2025-02-14-1.pdf https://empirejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Benefits.... I found out recently that lots of Bangladeshis are in on the program where the city pays you to take care of your elderly immigrant parents. > I have no reason to think nephews are any different. They are different. It’s self-selection. It’s much easier to immigrate through family reunification in both the U.S. and Canada. Again, it seems like you have a stereotype in your mind that’s based on the folks who face rigorous selection processes or significant adversity in immigrating. But go wander around Little Bangladesh in Queens or the high rise subsidized housing in Toronto where my aunt and uncle live. More than half of Bangladeshis in America receive government welfare. There is no logical reason why this should be the case, since the only meaningful pathway from there to here is H1B (or these days O visas). It’s not like the U.S. has a land border with Bangladesh and there’s a large influx of illegal immigrants from there. The family reunification immigrants do not face the same selection pressures. Once there’s an ethnic network already in place in a city and government benefits, it’s very attractive for typical people to immigrate and take advantage of that. And these are typical people from countries that are deeply dysfunctional. > NYC ... Canada Some of the most economicly dynamic places on earth. > New Yorkers credit immigrants for a lot of that That’s a mythology that was developed to integrate the Ellis Island immigrants. But what’s the foundation of New York’s economy? It’s Wall Street, which dates back to 1703. London, which developed on a parallel course to New York, had few immigrants until the late 20th century. It was finance that powered the economic dynamism, not immigration. And note that there was a huge self-selection effect back then that doesn’t exist today. There was no welfare. Within 5 years. 30-50% of italian immigrants to America went back home: https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/the-great-arrival/ https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/.... And of course Canada’s economy has stagnated since it began its mass immigration experiment: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/high-immigration-is-worsening-canadas-economic-problems-says-report https://nationalpost.com/opinion/high-immigration-is-worseni...

by mmooss 9mo ago

sublinear 9mo ago

Hispanic isn't a race

rayiner 9mo ago

Statistics show there is a huge difference in life expectancy based on recency of immigration. Most hispanics in the U.S. are immigrants or children of immigrants. They have the second highest life expectancy despite having the lowest access to healthcare. That’s plausibly explained by the fact that immigrants are more likely to be healthier than the average person in their country.

mmooss 9mo ago
> immigrants are more likely to be healthier than the average person in their country. That makes sense to me. Unhealthy people are less likely to make the (often) physically gruelling trip and take on the potentially gruelling lifestyle, and all the uncertainty. The same, I expect, applies to motivation - people thoughtlessly call immigrants 'lazy', but the lazy people don't give up their familiar lives and move - many crossing jungles and risking criminals - someplace where they have nothing, not even legal status, often not even the language, and start from scratch - with the goal that after a lifetime of hard work, your children will be comfortable.
- rayiner 9mo ago
  I think you have a stereotype in your head that applies to only a subset of immigrants. You're thinking of the H1B that busts his ass to get here. But you're overlooking the nephew who comes over years later under family reunification and is happy to live on subsidized housing and welfare benefits. Because of the way both the US and Canada treat family reunification, what happens is that a highly motivated initial wave of immigrants over time leads to waves of less motivated, less skilled immigrants. I've seen this in my own diaspora community (Bangladeshis)--especially over the last 10 years as migration hubs like NYC have become very generous with welfare benefits for immigrants. (Canada has always been that way. My cousin grew up in subsidized housing. While he was highly motivated and became a professional, tons of people around him were content to live on the welfare benefits.)
  - mmooss 9mo ago
    I'm not talking about skills at all and wasn't thinking of H1B. I'm talking about low-skilled people who come here with nothing and to build a life. They don't have much to cover indigent nephews, especially if they are undocumented. I have no reason to think nephews are any different. The 'welfare queen' narrative has long been used by those opposing public benefits (one source dates it to 1974 and says Ronald Reagan used it) but they never substantiate it. IMHO it's blaming the victim - is there any data saying poverty is caused by laziness? The data I remember atm says, 1) (from decades ago) people move in and out of the welfare system; they don't tend to stay in it, and 2) (much more recently) the leading cause of homelessness is medical bills. > NYC ... Canada Some of the most economicly dynamic places on earth. New Yorkers credit immigrants for a lot of that, as has much of America (until very recently).
    - rayiner 9mo ago
      > They don't have much to cover indigent nephews In places like New York, immigrants get lots of public support: https://empirejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Benefits-Chart-2025-02-14-1.pdf https://empirejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Benefits.... I found out recently that lots of Bangladeshis are in on the program where the city pays you to take care of your elderly immigrant parents. > I have no reason to think nephews are any different. They are different. It’s self-selection. It’s much easier to immigrate through family reunification in both the U.S. and Canada. Again, it seems like you have a stereotype in your mind that’s based on the folks who face rigorous selection processes or significant adversity in immigrating. But go wander around Little Bangladesh in Queens or the high rise subsidized housing in Toronto where my aunt and uncle live. More than half of Bangladeshis in America receive government welfare. There is no logical reason why this should be the case, since the only meaningful pathway from there to here is H1B (or these days O visas). It’s not like the U.S. has a land border with Bangladesh and there’s a large influx of illegal immigrants from there. The family reunification immigrants do not face the same selection pressures. Once there’s an ethnic network already in place in a city and government benefits, it’s very attractive for typical people to immigrate and take advantage of that. And these are typical people from countries that are deeply dysfunctional. > NYC ... Canada Some of the most economicly dynamic places on earth. > New Yorkers credit immigrants for a lot of that That’s a mythology that was developed to integrate the Ellis Island immigrants. But what’s the foundation of New York’s economy? It’s Wall Street, which dates back to 1703. London, which developed on a parallel course to New York, had few immigrants until the late 20th century. It was finance that powered the economic dynamism, not immigration. And note that there was a huge self-selection effect back then that doesn’t exist today. There was no welfare. Within 5 years. 30-50% of italian immigrants to America went back home: https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/the-great-arrival/ https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/.... And of course Canada’s economy has stagnated since it began its mass immigration experiment: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/high-immigration-is-worsening-canadas-economic-problems-says-report https://nationalpost.com/opinion/high-immigration-is-worseni...