This is the second of a three-part series on the two issues that led to 2024’s anti-incumbent party backlash. This paper evaluates salient macroeconomic, demographic, and social factors that have or should inform immigration policy, as well as the policy solutions put forward by the incoming administration to address unauthorized workers in America.
The electorate is in a foul mood. Not just in the U.S., but globally, where incumbent parties have faced unprecedented levels of reversal. In each of the 10 major countries tracked by the Financial Times’ ParlGov global research, incumbent leaders were either given the boot or a painful thrashing.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models such as ChatGPT represent a transformative leap in the ability of machines to exhibit human-like behavior and to learn autonomously. AI can now surpass humans in a wide variety of cognitive tasks. Accordingly, a recent paper out of the University of Pennsylvania concluded that large language models could displace at least 10% of work tasks, affecting 80% of the US workforce.
In a report presented to Congress in 1790, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton described the “punctual performance of contracts”—that is, meeting all financial commitments on time—as a matter of national honor. It was also critical, Hamilton argued, to build confidence in a financial system and a national currency that could underwrite his fledgling country’s industrial development and provide “security against foreign attack”.