Thu 19 Oct 2006
I found a very thorough article via Arts and Letters Daily that answered my questions on the contributions versus costs of undocumented immigrants. They contribute, according to this author, about 7 billion to social security that they never claim. In addition, they pay enough property and sales tax to fund their children’s education. Overall, the author claims, the cost to the public is a wash. However, native-born residents of border states do end up paying over $1000 a year to support newcomers. Full article here:
Immigration Nation by Tamar Jacoby, in the Journal of Foreign Affairs.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
The whole situation is so complex that I wonder about the assumptions in such a study. But I WAS getting to a point on whether my old job was actually serving a social purpose . . . so I am glad to be out of the field (although I did think it was good for some people to be in my line of work to have moderate views on the topic).
October 20th, 2006 at 3:30 am
yes, there are definitely lots of competing numbers/perspectives out there… I should have made clear in my intro that she is making an argument, based on certain pieces of data, that seems reasonable and well-supported to me.