Honest debates cannot begin with fiction.
Lord knew it was best to avoid daily dramas in the news cycle. But when the Trump administration’s current prominent automaker and space enthusiasts claim rights are a way to attract unauthorized immigrants to vote for the Democratic Party in the country, I admit it caught my attention. Let’s ignore the fact that unauthorized immigrants cannot vote (and no one has evidence that they are doing anything fraudulently). Instead, let’s focus on two reasonable questions. First, unauthorized immigration appears to use rights plans – as a retired researcher, I will focus on Medicare and Social Security, which suggests these plans are an appeal? Second, if we essentially spend authorized immigration, would it have a negative impact on the financials of these plans?
The answer to the first question is a loud “no”. Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for Medicare or Social Security retirement benefits. There is also no evidence that unauthorized immigration fraudulently receives substantial benefits. In fact, they do so in terms of income within the scope of unauthorized immigrants “engage” with these programs. That is, their employers may have paid FICA taxes on their behalf, even if they will never get the money back. This simple (some kind of unfair) fact explains why all studies suggest that unauthorized immigration actually suggests promote Financial health of medical insurance and social security. In short, mass deportation would harm the program’s trust fund to no avail.
OK, but what if these rights are attracting unauthorized immigrants, they hope that one day they will become authorized immigrants or even citizens? It is presumably for many of these people, this is actually their dream. How will this affect Medicare and Social Security? Here, the answer is of course more complicated. New immigrants will pay the system, receive benefits, and have children who are citizens, and then repeat the payment and receipt cycles. It is more difficult to predict future impacts.
But here, the evidence also seems to suggest that the worst immigration has no impact, at best, a net contributor to the system. In terms of health insurance, the potential for positive impact is mainly because immigrants spend less on health care than those born in the United States. Figure 1 shows the results expressed by the KFF table as a nationally representative sample. Of each type of health expenditure, immigration spends less than the locally born population. All in all, immigration costs only two-thirds of what locals do – $4,875 vs $7,277. Although Figure 1 applies not only to all immigrants (not only over 65 immigrants), the same study found that those on Medicare spend only 60% of native-born people. In addition to this lower spending, immigration also contributes a disproportionate share of health insurance, and if for other reasons, they are more likely to become worker taxpayers than local taxpayers.
In terms of social security, the potential for positive impact stems from the same trait – immigration is often the job of young people. This fact means that as the baby boomers age, new immigrants are contributing to the system just as we need. Additionally, immigrants have more children than locals, which means they will also increase the number of people paying, in the long run. So, at least for the next few generations, immigration and their children may be a system gift, not a burden. In fact, programs with higher immigration rates have lower procedural deficits in social security forecasts.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying we should allow unrestricted immigration policies. There are legal issues regarding immigration reform. For example, will more authorized immigrants be allowed to reduce the wages of existing American workers? If so, how many workers can ride? Are certain occupations that need targeted and what are they? And, despite the long-term contribution of immigration to the economy, how do we share the short-term costs of education and infrastructure everywhere? These are all important issues.
But if we start with immigrants coming here with a complete novel that takes advantage of rights, we will never be able to solve this kind of problem. If anything, these programs will take advantage of them.
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