Do Illegal Immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in "government services"?

[Cutlerzzz]

http://www.good.is/post/undocumented-immigrants-pay-more-in-taxes-than-they-use-in-services/

http://news.jornal.us/article-4671.Illegal-Immigrants-Pay-Billion-in-Taxes--Immigration-Reform-could-be-the-reason---Video.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/30/AR2010043001106.html

[wannaberocker]

Well the Washington Post uses the Term "Immigrants". Now i wonder if they speak of "immigrants" or "illegal Immigrants"? There is an important distinction to be made between the two.

I wonder how they estimate the number amount that illegals use in govt services? Or how much they pay into the tax system. I ask this because our govt officials often cant really say how many illegal immigrants are there to being with. Iv heard estimates of 12 , 15, 20 million. I just dont know how you get over the so many unknowns to come to the conclusion that they give more in taxes than they take in govt services.

[oyarde]

How would you calculate it ? Do they have things deducted from a paycheck they will not recieve Federal benefits for ? Yes . What about resources used that are not paid for ? Who knows ..

[sailingaway]

I've seen stuff on this, and the thing is they use federal numbers and that is only 10% of the education budget, and not most of the medical, either. Then when they say immigrants they mean legal immigrants and our legal immigration system is slanted (except for family chain migration) towards getting the best and brightest, such as the guys who created google. That slants the numbers. I have seen a number of breakdowns and yes, they take far more out. That plus it is not spread evenly but swamps particular services like schools in border areas and uses far disproportionate amounts of money on language. In the end their kids come out of school bilingual, but the school systems have to cut language services for the kids who know English, so American kids are not bilingual with any fluency, and are at an immediate market disadvantage on graduation.

As a parent, the schools are my concern with this issue. The flippant say 'no one should subsidize schools' which is nice, but not how our system works. We do subsidize them.

[Zippyjuan]

Certainly at the Federal level they contribute more than they receive. Illegal aliens are not elgible for federal programs like Social Security or Medicare yet if they are working with a fake SS number, they are paying those taxes (along with their other income taxes). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090202673.html

The contributions by unauthorized immigrants to Social Security -- essentially, to the retirement income of everyday Americans -- are much larger than previously known, raising questions about the efforts in many states and among Republicans in Congress to force these workers out.

In response to a research inquiry for a book I am writing on the economics of immigration, Stephen C. Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration and someone who enjoys bipartisan support for his straightforwardness, said that by 2007, the Social Security trust fund had received a net benefit of somewhere between $120 billion and $240 billion from unauthorized immigrants.

That represented an astounding 5.4 percent to 10.7 percent of the trust fund's total assets of $2.24 trillion that year. The cumulative contribution is surely higher now. Unauthorized immigrants paid a net contribution of $12 billion in 2007 alone, Goss said.



Programs like education and healthcare are paid and decided on at the state level.

[wannaberocker]

IM just waiting for a future article by Paul Krugman that will say that Illegal immigrants are an economic Stimulus. How you ask?

1. If an illegal immigrants steals someones social security number. THe origional owner of the SS number has to use resources to track down who stole the number (thats money going into the economy).
2. If an uninsured illegal immigrant is involved in a car accident . Thats money going into repairs.
3. If a criminal illegal alien gets arrested for a crime. THat forces states to build new prisons and hire more cops and administrators (more jobs).
4. If we make spanish our national language and require everyone learn spanish. We can create a whole new govt agency for teaching spanish. That also means new hireing for spanish teachers.


LoL i figured its just a matter of time when Paul Krugman and others like him propose such ideas (keeping my fingers crossed) lol.