“In the past ten years, the flow of undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. has slowed dramatically. And because many undocumented immigrants are either deported or move home every year, the total number living in the United States is currently falling at rate of about a hundred and sixty thousand a year. Consequently, the competitive pressure being placed on the wages of low-skilled American workers, who do similar jobs to low-skilled immigrant workers, is declining, the paper says. Indeed, many industries that employ a lot of low-skilled immigrant workers—such as agriculture, construction, and food services—are facing a potential shortage of labor.” From The New Yorker: The Facts About Immigration.

+ “Between 1996 and 2015, the number of working-age adults receiving disability climbed from 7.7 million to 13 million. The federal government this year will spend an estimated $192 billion on disability payments, more than the combined total for food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and unemployment assistance.” WaPo on rural America’s turn to disability: Disabled, or just desperate?

+ There’s been a lot of talk about the coal industry in the past weeks and months. It turns out that the industry has gotten pretty small. It currently employs about 76,000 people (or about as many as the bowling industry).

+ Neiman Lab: From coal to broadband to Trump’s budget, The Daily Yonder reports on rural life for the people actually living it.