Ever go to a Pizza Party, only to find there are not enough "slices" to go around? If only the hosts had order "extra large" Pies, instead of those mediums, then everyone might have gotten a slice.
Well the Economic Pie operates much the same way: the more the Opportunity, the more People go home full and and happy. And happy people are people who tend to spend their paychecks.
And it is the 'spending of money' that makes the Economy go round, and makes it (Opportunities) grow for everyone. too. They called this the Multiplier Effect in the college Econ courses I took, and it's kind of important, like fundamentally important. (Assuming you want Economies to grow, organically, like the yeast rising in a Pizza crust.) This effect is sometimes referred to as demand-side stimulus, too.
There is a competing theory (supply-siders) that asserts that somehow the Wealthy hoarding their Money will "Create Jobs" -- through the occasional "spilling over" of their full cups, into the general saucer of society. Yet somehow after decades of waiting for the that "sloshing over" of these new jobs from the Wealthy sector, that economic myth seems to have been mostly debunked.
Real Life has a way of defanging the best of Wealth-capturing, off-shoring fables.
Here's another Myth that needs to join the dust-bin of Economic Illiteracy -- that of the negative effect that the gainfully employing Immigrants, will have on that US Pizza party ...
Immigration Reform 2013: 5 Common Myths, Debunked
by Paul Stern, policymic.com -- Oct. 18, 2013
[...]
1. They Take Our JobsCertainly the most common and also erroneous myth about immigrants is that they negatively affect the employment of native-born Americans. Instead, studies by experts at the American Enterprise Institute suggest that immigrants have no effect on native jobs. A study from the Center for American Progress (CAP) actually shows a positive correlation between higher levels of immigrants and job growth. The CAP study also encourages legalization and the granting of citizenship to undocumented immigrants, which in their estimates could result in over 150,000 jobs per year. It is certainly easy to blame immigrants for jobless Americans, but all studies show that immigrants do not take slices from the pie; they in fact make it bigger.
Legal status alone would lead to the creation of 121,000 extra jobs annually over the next 10 years, they found. Getting citizenship within five years would increase that to 159,000 jobs per year. And receiving both legal status and citizenship this year would create an extra 203,000 jobs annually.
[...]
If the party hosts passed the hat for donations, they could buy more pizza, not less. And the happily working guests are the ones most likely to kick into that "economic stimulus" hat. (ie. part with their walking-around-money, for the occasional impulse buy.).
And THAT is what really keeps the wheels of the Economy turning ... People buying stuff. The more people, the better ... the faster the Multiplier Effect goes.