Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Illegal Immigrants Actually good for US economically

I have my bachelors degree in Spanish, for those of you who don't know. Many of my senior papers were written on immigration, and I've done quite a bit of research during my 4 1/2 years of college, as well as living abroad in Mexico for awhile, so I do know what I'm talking about here.

Nonetheless, I'm not an expert (most of us bloggers aren't either).

This is from an article I read in USA Today in early 2008 (I read it in TIME as well, but can't find that one right now) goes right in the face of many arguments about deporting the 11 million illegals we have.

Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how
much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn't fully
tally it. But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions
of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One
rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year.

Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal
workers, just as it does for legal workers.

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't track a worker's immigration
status, yet many illegal immigrants fearful of deportation won't risk the
government attention that will come from filing a return even if they might
qualify for a refund. Economist William Ford of Middle Tennessee State
University says there are no firm figures on how many such taxpayers there
are.
"The real question is how many of them pay more than they owe. There are
undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of people in that situation," Ford said.
...
"It's a mistake to think that no illegal immigrants pay taxes. They
definitely do," said Martha Pantoja, who has been helping Hispanic immigrants
this tax season as an IRS-certified volunteer tax preparer for the non-profit
Nashville Wealth Building Coalition.
...
Pantoja said she has helped a number of construction workers who,
because they are classified as independent contractors by their employers and
have no taxes withheld, owe big tax bills come April. Beyond income tax, they
have to pay the full Social Security and Medicare taxes due.
The
Social Security Administration estimates that about three-quarters of illegal
workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and
Medicare.

...
The impact on Social Security is significant, though, because most
of that money is never claimed by the people who pay it but instead helps cover
retirement checks to legal workers.

"Overall, any type of immigration is a net positive to Social Security.
The more people working and paying into the system, the better," Hinkle said.
"It does help the system remain solvent."
The Social Security Administration
drew from census and Immigration and Customs Enforcement data in 2007 to project
the effects of higher and lower immigration patterns.
If net immigration is
high at 1.3 million people a year, the SSA's combined trust fund would be
exhausted in 2043. But the fund runs out four years earlier if
annual net immigration amounts to about half that — 472,500 legal immigrants and
250,000 illegal immigrants.
...
In 2006, then IRS Commission Mark Everson told Congress that
"many illegal aliens, utilizing ITINs, have been reporting tax liability to the
tune of almost $50 billion from 1996 to 2003."
An IRS spokesman said
more recent figures aren't available.
The Social Security and Medicare taxes
from mismatched W2s for the same period was $41.4 billion,
Hinkle said.

That adds up to roughly $90 billion in federal taxes during
they eight-year period.

The IRS defends the ITIN system, despite
criticism that some illegal immigrants have used it to open bank accounts, get
mortgages and establish a record of residency and taxpaying they hope might
someday lead to legal status.

"The ITIN program is bringing taxpayers into the system," Everson told
Congress.
Ford, of Middle Tennessee State University, said a majority of
economists agree that illegal immigrants are a net benefit for the U.S.
economy.

He said the tax contributions from illegal immigrants, including sales
taxes, property taxes and excise taxes (such as the gas tax), are
significant.

He calculates that illegal immigrants contributed $428 billion
dollars to the nation's $13.6 trillion gross domestic product in 2006
.
That number assumes illegal immigrants are 30% less productive than other
workers.

"If anything we need more immigrants coming into the country, not less,
especially with the baby boomers retiring," he said.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's hard to believe and without seeing it in writing I probably wouldn't have. I'm not going to get into anything more here, because we already have on my blog, but your realistic approach to the immigration problem has merit and I think most people would see the benefit. Notice I say most! :-)

Unknown said...

So the argument being presented here is that it's a tax base. The only thing that's holding ALL back from paying taxes is that they are worried about being deported.

Having worked with the DoD and one other 3 letter agency, I know that the IRS could care less about deportation, what they do love is other people's money.

The entire thing is a weak argument because if they weren't here in the first place, we wouldn't need the extra revenue.

What the article doesn't address is the rising crime rate in sanctuary cities, the cost of spanish translation of all products and services including emergency, and the diseases that we haven't seen in years coming across our borders at an alarming rate.

James' Muse said...

But Blue, many of those things would happen with legal immigration, too. And in those cities, only 25% of the criminals are hispanic, which means that 75% aren't.

The costs of emergency care and such are offset by the extra taxes those pay. In the end, illegal immigration, money-wise, costs less than we gain.

Unknown said...

So, what you're saying is that there is 25% more crime?

You'd be hard pressed to prove that point with MS-13 and others at the heart of many of the cities and crimes not reported.

There is no way that costs are offset by taxes being paid by illegals. You and I also forgot about the costs of state and federal social services being doled out to these people.

Illegal is illegal. There isn't gray area involved here. I don't care what president let illegals run across the borders (all borders). The bottom line is that we can't handle the working class sudden population boom. We already have unemployment being given out at an increasing rate and we don't need more and more people coming here to get a handout and working under the table in many cases. So, no, I don't believe a magazine with a clear agenda giving out select information and not showing all of the facts.

Sandy said...

To me (I'm no expert), immigration sounds logically good and necessary - with the vast majority of our aging population retiring (and soon) where else can we find a big enough wage earning, tax paying, base to replace them in keeping social security afloat?

But we need to find an immigration program that works. The worst case scenario would be letting the costs of social benefits exceed the tax revenues.

James' Muse said...

Blue: you're right that illegal is illegal. That's why I've proposed paying a fine. Those that commit crimes get kicked out after jail time.

James' Muse said...

Blue: Is there somewhere we can see some data on crime rate correlation from illegal immigrants?

Also, about the social services doled out: if they are paying taxes, just like you and I, then it isn't costing us anymore to give services to them than it is just regular poor people.

People keep treating illegal immigration like its not a crime but an illegal identity. Pay a fine for the crime, but one can't be perpetually a criminal. No other law treats someone's existence as a crime.

dmarks said...

James said: "And in those cities, only 25% of the criminals are hispanic, which means that 75% aren't."

If he were so concerned about the crime problem, he'd deport native-born Americans first. They cause more crime than illegal aliens, after all.