The High Cost of Cheap Labor (Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget)

Center for Immigration Studies ^ | Aug 26, 2004 | staff

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The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget

Executive Summary

This study is one of the first to estimate the total impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Most previous studies have focused on the state and local level and have examined only costs or tax payments, but not both. Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that, if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit would grow to nearly $29 billion.

Among the findings:

• Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.

• Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).

• With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their legal status or heavy use of most social services.

• On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.

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Imagine the impact on the State budgets.

[TomGuy]

Those who favor the cheap labor don't understand that the Americans subsidize illegals with health aid, education, social services. We all (except, of course, for the illegals) end up paying the bill.

[garandgal]

Read this, and prepare to be furious. Or maybe this is already happening elsewhere:

http://www.theiowachannel.com/news/3682016/detail.html

[kellynla]

already posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1199631/posts

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Sorry about that. It didn't show up in the search.

[henderson field]

That's right, boys and girls. The immigrants do not represent a cost savings, they represent a cost transfer. To you and me. One thing I would disagree with, though, and that is the amount of taxes they pay into the system. If the rest of the country is anything like the Southwest, they don't pay any taxes. They don't like to and nobody makes them do it. That's what the whole amnesty thing is all about -- registering them. First we register, then we confiscate. It's just like guns in that regard.