How does illegal immigration affect housing and health care 'affordability'? \ stacker news ~Politics_And

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How does illegal immigration affect housing and health care 'affordability'?

36 sats \ 22 comments \ @Bell_curve 11 Nov Politics_And_Law

Imagine 33 milion plus illegal aliens self deported.

How would that affect the cost of housing (renters and homeowners)?

How would that affect the cost of health care? How many fewer people waiting in hospitals and ER?

@elvismercury

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0 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

#1280137

100 sats \ 11 replies \ @Scoresby 11 Nov

The reason healthcare costs are exorbitant is not (laughably) how many people there are; the reason costs are high is because stupid-ass regulations have turned the market into a shitshow.

The same for housing. It's not like all the houses are filled up with illegal immigrants but poor joe the plumber could afford to buy one if there were just fewer people here. What's happening is cities have regulated the piss out of housing and it's expensive to build in most places in the US. On top of this, the government subsidizes home ownership by pushing mortgages. Of course the price of housing is going to go up when you point a firehouse of money at it.

But beyond this, I don't believe numerical size of the population has much to do with the price of anything. A market works at 10 million people and it works at 100 million people.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

You deliberately ignore apartments and multi family housing units.

Let's say population in CA and TX is now 100 million people... by your stupid logic, this has no impact on the price of renting or home ownership

Let's say the population is 1 trillion people... by your dumb logic, housing market works at 1 person and 1 trillion people

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 12 Nov

given that there is quite a bit of land, if the population naturally moved up to 1 trillion, I don't think housing would be more expensive.

You might argue that "naturally" is doing a lot of work here.

I will concede that if the population changed dramatically in a very short period of time, we would have distortions of price. But immigration has been an ongoing phenomenon over the last several centuries and I don't believe that the market has been unable to adjust to it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

several centuries

USA is 249 year old

I don't consider 2.5 centuries "several"

Now you are making up words and their definitions

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 11 Nov

Maybe in your fantasy land but not in Los Angeles or California

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Scoresby 11 Nov

Here's a chart of new housing in 2024 for major cities in Texas and California:

Here for comparison is the median home price in those same cities in 2024:

Now, I live in Texas, so I can attest to it being an ugly wasteland, but at the same time, I suspect the difference in price is not wholly tied up in this aesthetic value: California can't build houses.

In case you believe California has a much higher number of illegal immigrants, the numbers I could find were these:

California has 2.3 million illegal immigrants. Texas has 2.1 million source.

I'm not buying the "too many people" explanation of home prices (nor of any other thing).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

California is a sanctuary state. Texas is not.

California has strict gun control. Texas does not.

California provides financial assistance to illegal aliens openly. Texas does not.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

Your source is wrong, there are more than 14 million illegal immigrants nationwide.

There are more than 2 million illegal immigrants in CA.

The nationwide number is closer to 33 million at least, CA has at least 10 million illegal wetbacks

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 12 Nov

yes, but i prefer to use sources that actually exist.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

https://nchstats.com/homeowners-insurance-rates/

According to this site, CA home insurance is cheap compared to the rest of the country. I can tell you this is factually incorrect. Have you heard of wildfires in CA, specifically last January?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

you prefer to use sources that support your biases

Fixed it for ya

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 12 Nov

aka NPC behavior

102 sats \ 8 replies \ @BeeRye 11 Nov

If all at once, instant collapse of every market.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 11 Nov

Completely worth it, because even if there is a 'collapse' which you are wrong about, markets will recover

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @BeeRye 11 Nov

naive. For every trade, there is a liability and an asset, a maker and a taker. remove 33 million people at once without proper settlement, and no one can know how much damage that would do, or even if it would benefit the people you think it will.