Archives: Reg Murphy Pubs

Serving students with disabilities in American public schools

Written by Melissa Trussell on . Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 17% of children 3 to 17 years old have one or more developmental disabilities. These include intellectual disabilities, hearing loss, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, and a host of other conditions classified as developmental disabilities by the CDC.

In the 2023-24 school year, 7.9 million public school students ages 3 to 21 received special education or related services. This was an increase of greater than 3 percent from before the coronavirus pandemic and represents the highest number of special education students ever served in our schools.

Nationally, in 2023-24, 15 percent of all public school students ages 3 to 21 received special education services for disabilities. In Georgia in the same year, 13.3 percent of public school students in grades K-12 were served in special education. And in the Glynn County School System, 16.3 percent of K-12 students were enrolled in special education. The most common category of disability served in public special education is specific learning disabilities (e.g. dyslexia, auditory or language processing disorders, etc.), which characterizes over 30% of all special education students in the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights is currently responsible for enforcing the three major federal laws protecting students with disabilities in schools:

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, authorizes federal grants to local school systems to fund programs supporting disadvantaged students.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities by any program or activity receiving federal funding. Applied to schools, Section 504 both prohibits discrimination and requires accommodation (e.g. accessible facilities, extra time on assignments, preferential seating) for students with disabilities. Around three percent of public K-12 students in the U.S. receive accommodations only under Section 504. The majority of public school students with disabilities are served also under a third major statute, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

IDEA requires that all students with disabilities are afforded free and appropriate education (FAPE). Under IDEA schools provide specialized instruction through Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to students whose disabilities limit their ability to access the general education curriculum. Under IDEA, students are kept with their non-disabled peers as much as possible and given additional supports as needed.

Special education staff are the boots on the ground implementing these protections to ensure that every student’s individual needs are met and that each one receives FAPE. Their methods are guided by student data and delivered with care. And, what they do works. A study of over 575,000 students in New York City showed that for students with specific learning disabilities, educational gains are significantly greater when they receive special education services, and achievement is greatest when they begin to receive services earlier in their education.

When I hear politicians talk about defunding or dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, these are the students I worry for most. My concerns are increased by the hurried and chaotic way in which the current administration has made other recent changes to federal agencies. The U.S. DoE does not tell states or districts what to teach or not to teach, but it does mandate and fund education for students with disabilities. Dismantling the Department without carefully considering, planning, and codifying what other entities would be responsible for enforcing and funding IDEA, will leave school systems powerless to provide the specialized instruction required for children with disabilities to flourish in schools and beyond. Our children will suffer the consequences. And, in a future column, we will look at how our labor force and greater economy may also suffer.

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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

Glynn Economy Turns in a Remarkable 2024

Written by Don Mathews on . Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

The conventional way of evaluating the performance of the Glynn County economy in 2024 is to compare Glynn’s 2024 economic numbers to its 2023 numbers. The Glynn economy’s 2024 performance looks pretty good if evaluated that way.

Evaluate that performance by considering features of the world in which it happened, and the performance of the Glynn economy in 2024 looks nothing short of remarkable. 

First, the conventional approach. 2023 was a big year for the Glynn economy. For that matter, so was 2022.  2024 was a slight variation of the two.

Preliminary estimates indicate that from December 2023 to December 2024, Glynn’s labor force increased by 1.1%, Glynn employment increased by 0.6%, and the difference in the two percentages nudged the county’s unemployment rate up from 2.5% to 2.9%.    

As one-year percentage changes go, labor force growth of 1.1% is strong, and employment growth of 0.6% is respectable. An unemployment rate below 4% is terrific, below 3% is exceptional. 

Hospitality and tourism activity in fiscal year 2024 was off by a mere 0.2% from a booming, record-shattering fiscal year 2023. The dip in hospitality and tourism activity was partially offset by a 0.2% increase in inflation-adjusted retail sales in 2024. Building permits for residential construction increased from 786 in 2023 to 910 in 2024, while the valuation of those projects increased from $251.7 million to $278.3 million. The Port of Brunswick turned in a monster year in 2024, with 22% jump in auto and machinery units processed from 2023.

On that basis, the Glynn economy posted a pretty good performance in 2024.

That performance happened in a world shaped by February 23, 2020, when Italy attempted to contain a massive outbreak of coronavirus by locking down eleven towns. The news caused a global financial panic, which became a global financial meltdown when markets opened on March 16. Financial institutions and investors buried markets in sell orders in a mad rush for cash; liquidity in the global financial system all but evaporated.

To stem the meltdown and fortify banks through the pandemic, the Federal Reserve and other central banks purchased trillions of dollars in securities. From late February to mid-July 2020, the assets on the Fed’s balance sheet increased from $4.17 trillion to $7.13 trillion. The figure reached $8.95 trillion in April 2022.

Meanwhile, the pandemic raged.     

From 2015 thru 2019, the U.S. money supply increased at an average annual rate of 5.6%. The Fed’s emergency measures to stem the meltdown caused the U.S. money supply to increase by 26.5% from February 2020 to February 2021, and 10.9% from February 2021 to February 2022, which tallies to an increase of 40.4% from February 2020 to February 2022. That caused the 12-month rate of inflation to increase from 1.4% in January 2021 to 9.1% in June 2022.

The Fed responded to the inflation with aggressive monetary tightening, raising its key interest rate from 0.15% to 5.4% in a series of steps between March 2022 and July 2023. It held the rate at 5.4% for the next 17 months. In years past, monetary tightening of that magnitude would all but guarantee a recession.

In short, the features of the world we might want to consider in evaluating the performance of the Glynn economy in 2024 are: the deadly pandemic, the surge of inflation, and two-plus years of aggressive monetary tightening, all back-to-back-to-back within a span of five years. For the Glynn economy to deliver, in the teeth of all that, the year it delivered in 2024, is nothing short of remarkable.

How to Identify and Prevent Elder Abuse

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

Many seniors fear falling victim to elder abuse. Financial scams targeting the elderly, neglect in assisted living facilities, and emotional or physical abuse from one’s adult children are real threats to seniors in the US and around the world.

Elder abuse is “an intentional act or failure to act that causes or creates a risk of harm to an older adult,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most definitions of elder abuse have three elements: (1) a single or repeated act of commission or omission, (2) occurs within a relationship of trust, and (3) causes harm or distress to an older person.

Physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, neglect, and emotional or psychological abuse are all forms of elder abuse. Research shows that emotional or psychological abuse is the most common form of elder abuse. Much elder abuse occurs at the hands of family and caretakers. Financial abuse is the exception, as many perpetrators are unknown to the victims. Elder abuse can result in psychological damage, financial devastation, physical harm, or death.

Elder abuse tends to go unreported, so it’s hard to know exactly how common it is. Research shows that between 10-20% of seniors experience elder abuse. Low rates of reporting make elder abuse a challenge to study or prevent. In their research, Drs. Mark Lachs and Jacqueline Berman found that the elder abuse incident rate was 23.5 times greater than the number of cases referred to social services, law enforcement, or legal authorities.

Recent social science research helps us to better understand causes of elder abuse. Dr. Jennifer Storey’s 2020 literature review examined 198 studies on elder abuse to better understand risk factors for elder abuse. There are eight broad overarching perpetrator and victim risk factors for elder abuse: (1) problems with physical health, (2) problems with mental health, (3) problems with substance use, (4) dependency, (5) problems with stress and coping, (6) problems with attitudes, including attitudes toward caregiving by perpetrators or victims minimizing abuse, (7) previous instances of experiencing or witnessing abuse, and (8) problems with relationships.

Much elder abuse is preventable. Additionally, prevention is more cost-effective than dealing with the consequences of abuse. Psychologists, physicians, nurses, social workers, and police should receive research-informed training on elder abuse. Educating and establishing a culture of advocacy empowers professionals to identify conditions that are conducive to elder abuse and take action to mitigate this abuse.

It is also necessary to strengthen health and long-term care systems to prevent abuse. Training, adequate staffing, and competitive wages are key steps to ensure that the care needs of the elderly are met. Initiatives like these require intentional leadership and significant funding, but promise to mitigate abuse in institutional settings.

Outside of nursing homes and long-term care facilities, reducing elder abuse faces many hurdles, including dependency among perpetrators and victims. Policymakers and practitioners can implement research-informed risk management efforts to prevent elder abuse and educate the public. Public health campaigns can inform the public of risk factors associated with elder abuse and empower people to protect themselves or seniors in their lives.

Want to know more? I’ll be giving a lecture titled “Crime and the Elderly” at the Saint Simons Island Public Library tonight (Wednesday, 1/15/2025) at 6:00 p.m. I am the first talk in the 2025 Coastal Georgia Reads lecture series, which is sponsored by the Marshes of Glynn Libraries. The event is free and open to the public. I hope to see you there.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.

The U.S. Needs Lots More Reynolds Cottages

Written by Don Mathews on . Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

Two of my favorite lists are: (1) wonderful things happening in the City of Brunswick these days (list is long), and (2) things in the works that will soon move from this list to the first list. Keep an eye on Forward Brunswick’s Reynolds Cottages project. It’s scheduled to jump from list 2 to list 1 in January 2026, when construction of the 46th cottage adorning a two-acre parcel in the New Town district of Brunswick is completed.

The project plan shows a variety of cottages: studio, one-, two- and three bedrooms; a mix of one and two stories. Twenty-one will be sold and 25 rented. As American housing goes, the cottages are on the small side, appropriate for many budgets and right for a walkable neighborhood. The style is a perfect fit: an older, simpler design, each equipped with both charm and front porch, each exactly what you’d expect a cottage in Brunswick to look like.

Designers know some optics tricks. A neat one is placing buildings of particular sizes and shapes in particular ways to make a neighborhood appear much less densely populated than it actually is. To see the trick executed masterfully, visit old neighborhoods in an old city. Or wait a year and visit Reynolds Cottages, where 46 front porch-equipped cottages, two lots of green space and an alley with parking will appear cozy yet comfortable on two acres.

Lance Sabbe, Executive Director of Forward Brunswick, hopes Reynolds is the first of several cottage projects in Brunswick. City workers, first responders and folks who enjoy genuine neighborhood living are target Reynolds residents.

Reynolds Cottages is a type of residential housing that city planners and housing industry people call “missing middle housing.” Urban designer Daniel Parolek came up with the term in 2010. Fourteen years later, ‘missing middle housing’ also functions as the most accurate three-word description of the country’s current housing problem that one can imagine. That’s no coincidence. What inspired the term also caused the current housing problem: local zoning laws.

Local use- and density-based zoning laws were unknown in the U.S. until 1904, widespread by 1940, ubiquitous by 1970. The result is that we have restricted ourselves from building little housing other than detached single-family homes and large apartment buildings – the two extremes of housing density. The housing we built plenty of before 1940 are the types between the two extremes: stacked duplexes, stacked triplexes, stacked fourplexes, courtyard apartments, cottage courts, rowhouses and townhouses. Because we build very little middle-density housing, it’s missing from the housing stock. Hence the name, missing middle housing. And hence the crux of the current housing problem.

The country’s current housing problem goes beyond home prices and rents, which are through the roof. No less a problem is the mismatch between the housing that’s available and the budgets, living space preferences and lifestyle preferences of a large and increasing number of American households. The characteristics and circumstances of American households vary a great deal more than their housing options, which are limited to the variety in budget-feasible detached single-family homes and the variety, to the extent there is any, in apartments in large complexes.

Middle density housing, such as Reynolds Cottages, economizes on land and building materials. It comes in great variety. It specializes in getting the most out of smaller spaces, a blessing for smaller budgets. It provides the density necessary to draw local entrepreneurs to open their one-of-a-kind shops that make for a walkable neighborhood. It’s the housing our country lacks.

It takes a good organization and a good community for a development such as Reynolds Cottages to happen. We are fortunate to have both.

The American Family is Changing

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

Growing up, my grandparents, parents, aunts, cousins, and I gathered for a shared meal each Thanksgiving. Cousins who had moved away would often travel home. We had as many as five generations gather each Thanksgiving. Everyone prepared a dish or two. Eating was the main event, but there was always football, looking through Black Friday ads in our local paper, a marathon of dessert eating, and spending time together.

This year, I’ll travel to Charleston, South Carolina to visit my in-laws with my wife and our dog. My mother-in-law is excited for her “granddog” to visit. My sister-in-law isn’t coming home from Omaha this Thanksgiving, but she’ll travel for Christmas. We will be joined by a neighbor, a divorced woman whose adult sons are visiting their own in-laws.

Thanksgiving traditions haven’t changed too much over the years. Most Americans still gather with loved ones. Turkey is still a staple, though its price has skyrocketed in recent years. The Lions and Cowboys still host football games, but the Lions are now Super Bowl contenders.

On the other hand, the American family has changed a lot over the past few decades. There have been major shifts in the living arrangements and family structure of Americans, according to data from the US Census Bureau’s decennial census and the American Community Survey. There is no longer one dominant family form. Family is now experienced in increasingly diverse ways, including a “chosen family” with commitments that are independent of biology or marriage.

Marriage is less common than a generation ago. Married-couple households made up only 47% of all households in 2022, down from 71% in 1970. Changes to family become even more stark if you look at younger adults. In 1970, 67% of Americans ages 25 to 49 were living with a spouse and one or more kids. In 2021, it’s only 37%. Americans ages 25 to 49 have a range of family living arrangements, including cohabitating with kids (5%), unpartnered with kids (6%), married with no kids (21%), cohabitating with no kids (7%), or living with other family members (11%).

Marriage is changing in the US. Americans are getting married later in life. A rising share of American have never been married. Same-sex marriages now make up over 1% of all marriages. Interracial or interethnic marriages are more common. Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher are more likely to be married and less likely to have children.

Americans are having fewer children than ever before. Fertility rates in the US have declined drastically in recent decades. Fertility has declined by about 2% annually in recent years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics. The total fertility rate for the US was 1616.5 births per 1000 women in 2023. This is far beneath the 2100 births per 1000 women that are necessary to replace a population. The US has typically been below replacement level since the early 1970s and has been below replacement level every year since 2007. Those who do have kids are having them later in life and having fewer kids overall.

More Americans are living alone, while a rising percentage of young adults are living with their parents. Women living alone are 16% of all US households in 2022, compared to 12% in 1970. Men living alone are 13% of all US households in 2022, compared to 6% in 1970. Conversely, adult children are more likely to live with their parents than in the past. 55% of women and 57% of men ages 18-24 lived with their parents in 2022, compared to 35% of women and 55% of men in 1960.

As you sit around the table with family this Thanksgiving, you’re likely to see that your company reflects changes to the American family. The demographics of family have changed, but the functions of family have not. I wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving!

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.

Skip Mounts

Reg Murphy: A Conversation and the Wings of a Butterfly

Written by Skip Mounts on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Skip Mounts.

Yesterday, people of many communities came to St. Simons Presbyterian Church to celebrate the life of Reg Murphy. His personal story is filled with many places including the Atlanta Constitution, the San Francisco Examiner, the Baltimore Sun, the National Geographic Society, the United States Golf Association just to name a few. While humble and quiet, yet thoughtful, Reg’s impact on the world was that of a giant.

Reg and I met in 2012 when he was named the inaugural Brown Family Executive-in-Residence in the School of Business and Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. As Executive-in-Residence, Reg held office hours, met with students, participated in classes, joined faculty meetings, and met with anyone who dropped by. He gave of his time generously, always without question.

Truth be told, I was more than a frequent visitor to Reg’s office. Little did I understand and appreciate at the time Reg’s influence as Executive-in-Residence. Quite simply, he transformed us. One my visits with him was significant in the development of the School of Business and Public Management into a unit of the College that is of Brunswick compared to one that is simply located here – from being inward-focused to being community-focused. I want to tell you about this visit and our conversation.

In the fall of 2017, Don Mathews completed a study of the local economy focused on its experience in the Great Recession of 2007 to 2014. According to the data, our part of the world entered the recession first compared to the rest of the country. In addition, we were the last to exit it. If you do the math, the Golden Isles was that part of the country in recession the longest.

During this visit, Reg and I discussed these findings. He asked two questions. The first was what media outlet was available to us to get these findings out? Reg felt this research was so important that it needed to be circulated among the public. Several days later, I talked to Don about a media outlet. He suggested an article for the Brunswick News as he had been thinking about doing a weekly column. I said that such a column was a lot of work for one person and suggested that the College’s three economists – Don, Melissa Trussell, and I, – share the writing by having each of us take a week. This is how the Wednesday column in the Brunswick News – ‘From the Murphy Center’ – came about. It is the primary product of the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies at the College. To date, 370 articles have been written for our community, all from an interdisciplinary group of seven academics. Nowhere in the United States will you find such a thing in a local paper running for over 7 years.

Reg’s second question was why was our local recessionary experience so long? What made recovery so difficult? Together, we felt that the local economy was relatively stagnate, lacking something driving change and creativity, the hallmarks of a healthy and vibrant economy. We discussed a possible lack of a culture of entrepreneurship in our community and among our students. In time, this question has led to the building of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for the Golden Isles. Now seen in the Lucas Center for Entrepreneurship, programs focused on the development of area entrepreneurs have touched over 700 residents and students in the past three years. No other center supporting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship can claim such an impact.

Edward Norton Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, developed the notion of the Butterfly Effect. This is the idea that in complex and interrelated systems like the climate, the flap of a butterfly’s wings in one corner of the world could cause a tornado elsewhere in the world weeks later. This captures the impact of this one conversation with Reg. This conversation was the impetus ultimately leading to the creation of two unique ventures found in the School of Business and Public Management and the College: the Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies and the Lucas Center for Entrepreneurship. Due to one simple conversation, our School, College and community will never be the same. Thank you, Reg.

Dr. Skip Mounts is a Professor of Economics and the Dean of the School of Business and Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. He is also an associate of the Reg Murphy Center for Policies Studies and the Art and Lindee Lucas Center for Entrepreneurship.

Polling and Winning on the Margins

Written by Heather Farley on . Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

We are closing the door on the 2024 Presidential election and, once again, polls and the media fell short in predicting the outcome. Since Donald Trump entered politics in 2016, polls have often underestimated his support, and 2024 was no exception.

There is a popular narrative that this is because both the polls and the media are biased toward Democrats. While media bias can be a valid issue, I propose an alternative explanation grounded in polling limitations and the dynamics of this year’s race.

As a social scientist, I have spent a fair amount of time analyzing methods and biases in research and when it comes to researching humans, there is definitely room for error.

You likely noticed in the many Presidential candidate polls that came out over the last sixth months or so, that there is a margin of error listed. This margin of error tells us how much the poll results might vary if the survey were conducted multiple times. It’s shown as a percentage and gives an idea of the uncertainty in the poll’s results. So, if the margin of error were ±3%, we could assume that either candidate could go up to three percentage points higher or lower than the reported number. A “good margin of error” is at or below ±3%. When polls approach ±5%, it is considered too high to draw useful conclusions. In 2024, however, the race was considered so close, particularly in the swing states, that the polling was effectively useless. In other words, with both parties polling a percentage point or so higher or lower than their opponent, margins of 3% didn’t give us much indication of what to expect.

Likewise, the outcome of the election was on the margins. Indeed, Trump swept the swing states because he picked up the one or two percentage points, and sometimes even less, needed to win the electoral college votes in key states. The surprise, I think, was that he earned the margins in almost every case leading to a sweep.

Was this a failure of poll legitimacy? Not necessarily. Leading polls did not exhibit faulty methods or embedded biases. Instead, human factors limited data reliability.

Good data requires good sampling. Sampling in this case can be tricky. Republicans are less likely to engage with media or polling due to distrust, leading to underrepresentation. Conversely, Democrats, particularly college-educated ones, often engage more, skewing data representation.

So where can we turn in future elections to help us predict what might be coming? One new tool released by the Washington Post this year caught my eye and I hoped it might be useful – not in predicting outcomes but levels of support. The tool showed candidates’ online donor counts by zip code, offering insights into grassroots support. In Glynn County, for example, Trump had only 7% more donors than Harris but secured a 26-point lead, demonstrating that donor counts, while indicative of enthusiasm, aren’t great predictors. Not in Glynn County at least.

An interesting, if not controversial, place one might turn for consistently accurate prediction is betting markets. In this election cycle, several prediction betting companies turned out to be successful in accurately predicting the eventual outcome. Companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket put the odds of winning the election in Trump’s favor earlier and more consistently due to the numbers of bets they were receiving. Free market purists may not be surprised by this.

These markets are not scientific in any way and come with potential problems (eg. foreign participation, financial incentive to work against certain election outcomes, low governance and regulation of these platforms). But, when people put money into something, there’s no lying or virtue-signaling to mislead the messaging. In a historical look at Presidential betting markets, Economics researcher, Koleman Strumpf highlights that cutting out the human pitfalls and looking just at the numbers has proven to be remarkably accurate and efficient.

I still believe in the legitimacy and validity of polling. In many cases polling is an excellent tool. When it comes to Donald Trump, or any candidate who can divide the nation so narrowly, I’m not so sure. This season has convinced me to look to the markets for clues as well.

Dr. Heather Farley is Chair of the Department of Business and Public Administration and Associate Professor of Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies and an environmental policy scholar. The opinions found in this article do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

The Economics of Mass Deportation

Written by Don Mathews on . Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

[Note: I prefer not to bicker over the terms, illegal immigrant and undocumented immigrant. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) refers to a person in violation of U.S. immigration law as a noncitizen. I will, too.]

Best estimates put the population of U.S. noncitizens at roughly 11 million. 8.3 million noncitizens constitute 5% of the U.S. labor force. A proposal to deport all 11 million in one or a few fell swoops is on the table. Let’s consider the economics of mass deportation.

First, the direct costs of deporting 11 million noncitizens. Each one must be caught, arrested, detained, legally processed and removed. The branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tasked with catching, arresting, detaining and removing is Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). ERO consists of 7,600 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel. It deployed 1,300 of its workers to the Southwest border for much of FY 2023. Even so, ERO made 170,590 arrests of noncitizens in FY 2023. It has the capacity to detain up to 30,000 people at any given time. On average, a noncitizen is detained for 37.5 days while their case is legally processed. Legal processing is handled by the Office of Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). OPLA consists of 1,750 attorneys and support staff, which leaves it understaffed by 667. Nevertheless, ERO removed 142,580 noncitizens to more than 180 countries in FY2023.

One wonders what it would cost to build and operate the hundreds of additional detention facilities, and hire, train and pay the tens of thousands of additional ERO and OPLA personnel necessary to make mass deportation viable.

Next, the indirect costs. The working, spending, tax paying, investing and entrepreneurship of noncitizens generates $1 trillion a year in real GDP and $100 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes paid. Deporting the 11 million would mean deporting $1 trillion a year in production and $100 billion a year in tax revenues each and every year they’re gone.

Deporting the 11 million would also destroy jobs for U.S. born workers, perhaps as many as 730,400. The figure comes from a 2023 study on the labor market effects of U.S. deportations in 2005-2014. The study finds that for every 500,000 noncitizen workers deported in 2005-2014, 44,000 U.S. born workers lost their jobs. The reason is clear. Many noncitizens will do jobs U.S. born workers won’t. The jobs are vital to production: if they can be filled, a business is launched. The business fills other jobs with U.S. born workers. Remove the vital workers, the business shuts down.

The 8.3 million noncitizens in the U.S. labor force are heavily concentrated in agriculture, food processing, hospitality and especially construction. Noncitizens do vital jobs in each, especially construction. Noncitizens also own and manage businesses in each, especially construction.

Jack Herrera describes the ramifications for Texas in the November issue of Texas Monthly. The Texas economy has been soaring since 2000, a classic business boom, population boom, construction boom combo, with one dreaded vulnerability. In Texas, says Herrera, “Cutting off the supply of undocumented workers would be like cutting off the supply of concrete and lumber.”

Texas business folk instruct Texas politicians, frequently and with urgency: if the border closes, the boom crashes. The politicians get it. They satisfy the base with plenty of “the border’s a disaster” rhetoric. Meanwhile, builders build, uninterrupted. With open gates, mass deportation is futile. The U.S. has a serious housing problem. Hurricanes happen, too. The effort to deport one-fifth of the country’s construction workers may commence in three months. Who builds the new deportation detention facilities is the rub.

We can change the world around us by noticing it

Written by Melissa Trussell on . Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

I had a big birthday last week. The kind where you enter a new decade of life. So, my last several weeks have been characterized by reflection and introspection. A strong theme has emerged—gratitude.

It’s kind of cool that as I was approaching and reflecting on this personal milestone, Interim President Evans challenged all Coastal employees to make this academic year a year of gratitude. Dr. Evans invited Tom Speaks, co-author of the book Appreciology, to campus in August to engage our campus community in conversations around cultivating a culture of appreciation and gratitude. A primary takeaway for me from his visit was a loose definition of appreciation as “noticing.”

I’m trying it—slowing down, noticing. And, I find– as Tom Speaks teaches– that a natural response to the noticing is gratitude for what I notice.

I am grateful the physical needs of my family are met. We have food, housing, transportation, etc. I am equally grateful for the ways in which I notice the emotional and social needs of myself and my family being met.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed just in the last 7 days:

My parents and grandparents deeply love my son and invest in him in intentional, life-giving ways.

Friends I met decades ago remain close and connected with my family.

My faith community shows up for my family and me, actively loving us in countless tangible and intangible ways.

I am valued and supported by colleagues who make work uplifting.

The work I do is meaningful and fulfilling, and my students recognize and reciprocate my care for them.

I have been guided in life by mentors who have been intentional about helping to mold me into the economist, educator, friend, mother, person I was created to be.

I could go on and on about the good things my family, friends, and coworkers bring to my life. I have good people. But, what business does an economist have with all this mushy, gratitude stuff, and why is it the subject of a column such as this? It turns out, gratitude is of great economic significance. Financial advisors find that individuals who express more gratitude for what they have are less likely to make big mistakes with their personal finances. In addition, grateful people are healthier and happier. My colleagues and I have written in the space before about the effects of a mental health crisis on our society in general and on our workplaces more specifically. A meta-analysis of sixty-four randomized clinical trials, published last year, found that the intentional practice of gratitude—noticing—significantly decreased symptoms of anxiety and depression while also improving patients’ overall moods.

But practicing gratitude does more than just lift one’s own spirits. If shared, it can shift the mood (and productivity) of those around you. CNBC reported in 2019 that 60% of employees are more motivated by recognition than by money, but 82% believe their supervisor does not appreciate them for what they do. At the same time, feeling unappreciated was cited as a reason for quitting by 79% of those who quit their jobs.

Imagine the impact in our own lives if we took more time to notice and be grateful. What if we could change our world simply by noticing it?

And imagine the impact on our workplaces and the economy more broadly if we took more time to express aloud our gratitude for the people around us and the work they do. On average, replacing an employee costs 1.5 to 2 times that employee’s annual salary. What if keeping them costs only a “thank you?”

Let’s not just imagine the impact of gratitude on the world around us. I invite you to join me in becoming more intentional about the practice of noticing.

Thank you for reading our weekly columns. We notice, and we are grateful.

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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

Immigration is an Economic Issue

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

Fifty-five percent of Americans want increased limits on immigration, according to a July 2024 Gallup Poll. This is the first time in nearly two decades that a majority of Americans have supported reductions in immigration.

Donald Trump has made border security his signature issue in his 2024 campaign. Trump’s hardline anti-immigrant stance promises mass deportation of “illegal aliens” and reduced immigration. Kamala Harris has offered support for asylum seekers and acceptance of some “undocumented immigrants” living in the US. Recently, the Harris campaign started running an ad that calls for adding more Border Patrol agents, stopping human traffickers, and prosecuting transnational gangs. The presidential nominees’ stances reflect the national mood on immigration.

Republicans and Democrats in our nation have very different opinions on immigration, according to the Pew Research Center’s Annual Policy Priorities Survey. Dealing with immigration is a policy priority for a majority of Republicans, but a lower priority for Democrats. In fact, there are only two issues that saw a larger divide between folks in the two parties: “protecting the environment” and “dealing with climate change.” The economy is a different story. Strengthening the economy is the top policy priority for Democrats and Republicans in 2024.

Immigration and the economy are intertwined. Insights from demographers can help us to understand why immigration is essential for a healthy US economy. Social demographers consider how economic, institutional, social, cultural, and biological processes shape birth rates, death rates, and migration.

An increasing share of developed nations are in a demographic trap that forecasts bleak futures for their economies. Excluding any immigration or emigration, countries need a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to replace their population or maintain their population size. There is an initial economic boom when birth rates decline below replacement level as there are more working-age people than dependent children and elderly people. However, decades of low birth rates result in a shrinking and aging populations. Developed nations face the dual economic challenges of a rising population of dependent seniors and a dearth of working-age adults participating in the economy.

More than half of the nations on earth have fertility rates that are below replacement level. The demographic situation is especially dire in nations like South Korea, Ukraine, Italy, and Spain. The US has a 2024 fertility rate of 1.84 children per woman—far below replacement level. Conversely, the world population overall continues to increase due to rapid population growth in developing nations due to high fertility rates, which brings a different set of challenges. Immigration and emigration can address or exacerbate these economic challenges in both developing and developed nations.

Immigration is essential to the health of economies in developed nations with fertility rates below replacement level, especially those with a growing population of dependent seniors. Workers are needed to provide labor in many essential industries, including construction and farming. In addition, immigrant workers, including many undocumented immigrants, fund entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Immigration under the Trump and the Biden administrations has been a significant factor in US economic growth. Many economists claim that the influx of working-class immigrants have reduced inflation. Immigration can fuel an economy by providing necessary workers for nations with low fertility rates.

The US has not passed comprehensive immigration reform in a half century. Comprehensive immigration reform can stymie illegal immigration and facilitate legal immigration that is essential to fuel the US economy. Gridlock and ever-increasing partisanship in Congress makes bipartisan legislation unlikely. It’s hard to imagine a future where our elected officials compromise to pass bipartisan legislation that meets the needs of the American people. Instead, each presidential administration attempts to manage immigration through executive orders. The immigration laws and policies that are enacted will have repercussions for the US economy and shape the future of our nation.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.