I was trying to research this, but I could not find any good data that backed up either position that didn’t come from some obviously biased source. I add the qualifier because I want to target the population of illegal immigrants themselves, and maybe their families, not their legal descendants in a couple generations of time, who will presumably have similar patterns to the general population. Basically I am asking, are we paying for illegal immigrants, or are they paying for us?
Do Illegal Immigrants pay more or receive more in benefits, in a 10-year timeframe?
byu/Weird_Melody inAskEconomics
Posted by Weird_Melody
1 Comment
https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-government-budgets-1994-2023
The data show:
1. For each year from 1994 to 2023, the US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government.
2. Over that period, immigrants created a cumulative fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 US dollars, including $3.9 trillion in savings on interest on the debt.
3. Without immigrants, US government public debt at all levels would be at least 205 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)—nearly twice its 2023 level.
These results, which do not account for any of immigration’s indirect, tax-revenue-boosting effects on economic growth, represent the lower bound of the positive fiscal effects. Even by this conservative analysis, immigrants may have already prevented a fiscal crisis.