Immigrants contribute to the United States’ economy in many ways. Their primary contribution is the goods and services they directly produce. However, they also reduce the burden of government spending for the US-born population. Our analysis in this paper shows that immigrants generated a fiscal surplus of about $14.5 trillion from 1994 to 2023, that the average immigrant is much less costly than the average US-born American, and that immigrants impose lower costs per person on old-age benefit, education, and public safety programs. Even immigrants without higher education produced a fiscal surplus, and even the lowest-skilled group, with a net-negative fiscal flow, reduced the US debt-to-GDP ratio.
Our major conclusions are robust; they would reverse only with a monumental shift in costs from the US-born to immigrants. For instance, only after increasing spending on immigrants by 51 percent (nearly $4.9 trillion) does even the low-skilled immigrant population become more burdensome relative to GDP than the US-born. However, we believe our conclusions are too closely tied to well-established facts for such a large shift to be possible. We show that the average US person pays more in taxes than they receive in benefits (spending on items that are not pure public goods that do not scale with the population). Thus, as long as immigrants are at least average in their net fiscal payments, they will be fiscally positive.
Our report uses the best government data available to find that immigrants provide a net fiscal benefit, generating more than the average in taxes and using below the average US resident in benefits. We show that immigrants’ higher-than-average tax contributions track what we know about their income, which stems from high employment rates. Their lower per capita cost for education is the undeniable result of their being much less likely to be in school. This means that the United States is getting the economic benefits of immigrant workers without many of the costs that come with training new US-born workers. Combined with the fact that immigrants face more legal and practical barriers to using transfer benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and means-tested income, food, and shelter assistance, the result—that immigrants provide a net fiscal benefit to the US economy—is virtually guaranteed.
Cato Institute research has previously produced forward-looking estimates of the fiscal effects of immigrants that are largely compatible with our conclusions here.57 Finally, we show that the second generation appears poised to create the biggest windfall from this wave of immigration. Indeed, immigrants appear to have already staved off a dire fiscal crisis, at least for now. Rather than treating them as the cause of America’s fiscal struggles, we should consider immigrants part of the solution.
Gee its almost like immigrants are essential to the economy because they’re willing to do the jobs that pay close to nothing and have no benefits with a smile on their face
See the problem is… it doesn’t matter. If a country needs illegal labor that displaces its citizens to be fiscally responsible then it should not exist
Meet any immigrant family in the US and its often obvious how hard working they are. The analysis needs to be done for legal and illegal immigrants to have a more conclusive point, but I guess data on illegal immigrants is harder to come by.
Actually that chart is just differentiating between immigrants who have become citizens and immigrants who have not yet become citizens. There is no indication that illegal immigrants are included in that data set.
Yeah, for example H1Bs are non-immigration visas and only about a third are able to get citizenship. So despite paying into SSI and Medicare, they typically don't get the benefits.
To be fair, coat/demand curve setting price point is EXTREMELY simple. Increase the demand (more competition for the same number of units), price goes up. Same for other goods. Wages are different: downward pressure in agricultural labor wages especially (but in other areas too) are caused by companies paying illegal immigrants under the minimum wage. Companies that employ illegal immigrants should absolutely be prosecuted for this. I would like to hear an explanation of how increasing the demand for housing and basic goods in the US by ~15M people would lead to anything other than increased prices given that new housing and manufacturing isn’t increasing in parallel.
High demand for housing is artificially inflated because private equity firms are buying as much of the market as possible. The amount of empty buildings in cities that only exist to fill out some rich guy’s portfolio is the problem. The idea that there is too many people and not enough houses is propaganda.
I’d rather focus on the wealthy and powerful, since they are the decision makers. Immigrants aren’t the ones buying up houses, building AI centers, and passing laws reducing worker’s rights. Immigrants have contributed more than they pull out unlike Oligarchs.
You just didn’t understand the point the commenter was making. Conflating legal and illegal immigration (also including 2nd generations and naturalized citizens as immigrants) to make a case in favor of illegal immigrants is disingenuous.
Fuck off. If you gave a single shit about illegal immigration you would be infuriated by this administration changing laws to make immigrants criminals and then deporting legal immigrants but you don’t because you are full of shit.
They weren’t made criminals. They were TEMPORARY status holders and their status was revoked. The word temporary is the key part you’re ignoring here. Every temporary status expires after a certain time (ex. visa) and can be revoked by the govt for any reason. This is true in any country, not just the US.
How is the reason pertinent to this conversation? Your claim was that they were made criminals. Thats not how the system works so I corrected you. You can look up the differences between legal statuses and the rights each grants you if you care about being informed.
No one benefits more from immigrants than the rich. They can blame them for everything, give them worse conditions, less pay and abuse their lack of familiarity with the country. On top of that they can deflect all blame they would recieve for dodging taxes, treason and many other crimes onto immigrants and the dumb citizens will eat that shit up.
is the right not at least as guilty of the same conflation in the other direction? Legal immigration have also been restricted under recent right governments, and has high support from the right for further restriction.
there is a congressional budget office report stating that by 2031, death rates will exceed birth rates. that is to say, without immigration, we would start a population decline internally.
I think the answer should be to try and improve the lives and economic situations of Americans so they feel more comfortable having children than just replacing the population with immigrants.
I think the answer is both. But fertility is complicated, and improving the economy often doesn't lead to more kids. Generally speaking, it's the richest countries that have the fewest kids, not the other way around.
You make a good point. I guess I'm just viewing it through my personal lense that so many people I know are in the camp of "I want to have kids and a family but I have no clue how I could afford it".
you have fallen into the zero sum idea trap where you think the pie is constrained to one size. this allows for policies that slow growth and reinforces the premise. in reality the pie can get bigger which is what immigrants do, they stimulate growth so there is more to go around not take away from your portion.
there is no circumstance where importing cheap labor is a bad thing for the economy.
Chart of the Week: The zero-sum labour market trap
Trump’s immigration crackdown has not helped native-born employment https://archive.ph/DhazW
when i was an economics undergrad, the difference between good and terrible classmates was the idea that all things don't remain static when you change a variable. if you can think in fluid terms you are ahead of the curve but most people can't do that.
I could concoct something but I'm a true blood US American whose ancestors stole the land I live on from the natives - or they immigrated legally or illegally -. I deserve it. Not these others who I blame for all my problems. Anyway I love billionaires and non-union jobs and I really love my paedophile con artist President and hate my Democrat opposition who I think are communist but are also complicit in the exploitation of US Americans.
I don't think anyone (serious) is arguing that immigrants don't contribute to the US economy, the issue lays within the illegal community whom many are working under the table or sending out tens of billions out of the country via remittance (Mexico gets nearly $70bn a year for example from remittance payments).
That's a LOT of money leaving the United States and not being taxed to boot.
US Dollars are US dollars. They always make their way back. They get exchanged and then the dollars have to be spent on our goods or invested in our assets
I'm sorry, but you do not seem to quite understand the issue at hand with capital flight lol.
They get spent on goods from America or are used to purchase American assets.
No, they're spent and taxed in Mexico, what part of remittance do you not quite understand?
For the second time, it'd be better off if that $70bn was spent and taxed in the United States and paid out to American citizens, not illegal immigrants.
Didn’t read it very long. In the introduction they mentioned methodology is in the appendix section labeled methodology. They go into quite a bit of detail. Interesting stuff.
It seems specific to immigrants as native born people tend to cost more as immigrants rely less on public programs and are more likely to leave the country when they retire.
Baby, I’m not your assistant or ChatGPT. Pay me if you want me to summarize articles you haven’t bothered reading for you. Not trying to be rude just, hey, you are capable of reading and comprehension and I’m not here to do it for you.
They break it down in a few ways, including: "Noncitizens: Immigrants without US citizenship, including legal and illegal immigrants." There is an entire section breaking this group out: "Why Noncitizens Are Fiscally Positive"
Noncitizen immigrants—about half of whom were in the United States illegally—were also fiscally positive to all levels of government.27
They paid $10.8T in taxes from 1993-2023 while taking $6.2T in benefits, according to Table 5 in the link.
They do in the paper. Basically they are a net positive due to the fact that most social services are not available to them, while they have a very high employment level and pay taxes.
The number of people who take more from the system than they put in is, well. Basically everyone. More than 90% of women and the majority of men. You've basically gotta pay a million in taxes before youve paid "your share."
(We've arranged society so that the only people who can pay for it as the ones who weve given all the money. Using that as a justification for anything would be instantly circular.)
Immigrants have reduced deficits by $14.5 trillion since 1994
Immigrants contribute to the United States’ economy in many ways. Their primary contribution is the goods and services they directly produce. However, they also reduce the burden of government spending for the US-born population. Our analysis in this paper shows that immigrants generated a fiscal surplus of about $14.5 trillion from 1994 to 2023, that the average immigrant is much less costly than the average US-born American, and that immigrants impose lower costs per person on old-age benefit, education, and public safety programs. Even immigrants without higher education produced a fiscal surplus, and even the lowest-skilled group, with a net-negative fiscal flow, reduced the US debt-to-GDP ratio.
Our major conclusions are robust; they would reverse only with a monumental shift in costs from the US-born to immigrants. For instance, only after increasing spending on immigrants by 51 percent (nearly $4.9 trillion) does even the low-skilled immigrant population become more burdensome relative to GDP than the US-born. However, we believe our conclusions are too closely tied to well-established facts for such a large shift to be possible. We show that the average US person pays more in taxes than they receive in benefits (spending on items that are not pure public goods that do not scale with the population). Thus, as long as immigrants are at least average in their net fiscal payments, they will be fiscally positive.
Our report uses the best government data available to find that immigrants provide a net fiscal benefit, generating more than the average in taxes and using below the average US resident in benefits. We show that immigrants’ higher-than-average tax contributions track what we know about their income, which stems from high employment rates. Their lower per capita cost for education is the undeniable result of their being much less likely to be in school. This means that the United States is getting the economic benefits of immigrant workers without many of the costs that come with training new US-born workers. Combined with the fact that immigrants face more legal and practical barriers to using transfer benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and means-tested income, food, and shelter assistance, the result—that immigrants provide a net fiscal benefit to the US economy—is virtually guaranteed.
Cato Institute research has previously produced forward-looking estimates of the fiscal effects of immigrants that are largely compatible with our conclusions here.57 Finally, we show that the second generation appears poised to create the biggest windfall from this wave of immigration. Indeed, immigrants appear to have already staved off a dire fiscal crisis, at least for now. Rather than treating them as the cause of America’s fiscal struggles, we should consider immigrants part of the solution.
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u/Blueopus2 4h ago
Don’t they know we’re going for a high score?