Immigration and World Poverty Explained with GUMBALLS - Does Immigration Really Help The Poor?

Immigration and Global Poverty

Presenter Roy Beck argues that U.S. immigration is not an effective way to reduce global poverty. He uses gumballs to illustrate the difference between the scale of immigration and the number of people living in poverty.

Beck says the United States has admitted an average of about 1 million legal immigrants annually since 1990. He contrasts this with World Bank figures estimating that 3 billion people worldwide live on less than $2 a day:

• 650 million in Africa
• 890 million in India
• 480 million in China
• 810 million elsewhere in Asia
• 105 million in Latin America

He argues that people from the very poorest populations are less likely to migrate because extreme poverty makes migration difficult. In his view, the United States tends to attract people from comparatively better-off countries, including Mexico. He estimates that 5.6 billion people live in countries with average incomes below Mexico’s.

Beck contends that even admitting 2 million immigrants a year would be too small to make a meaningful difference to poverty on this scale, while potentially adding pressure to U.S. workers, resources, and infrastructure. He also argues that migration can deprive poorer countries of energetic and educated people who might otherwise contribute to improving conditions at home.

He says population growth adds roughly 80 million people annually to the impoverished populations he discusses, further limiting the impact of migration. His conclusion is that poverty should be addressed where people live, since the vast majority cannot migrate to wealthy countries.