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I get what you’re saying, but I’m not inventing some fringe argument either.
People might not literally say “immigrants didn’t build the country,” but they say versions of it all the time: they didn’t pay into the system, they’re a net burden, they’re benefiting from what others built, etc. It’s the same idea, just phrased differently.
And yeah, a lot of people mean illegal immigration — but the reasoning behind the opposition is usually economic. Cost vs contribution. That’s what I’m responding to. If someone’s argument isn’t economic, then this post just isn’t aimed at them.
Also, just because you haven’t heard it in your personal circle doesn’t mean it isn’t common online or in political debates. Entire policy discussions revolve around “net fiscal contribution.” So I’m not saying everyone thinks this way — I’m saying that when people do argue economics, the math doesn’t support the anti-immigration conclusion.
If that argument doesn’t apply to you, that’s fine. It just means the post isn’t about you.
You are forgetting all other forms of taxation. I’m not sure where you got the 50k number but that could be state and federal. So you aren’t taking into account state income and property taxes. So your household income would be wildly inaccurate.
Are you not using the word “illegal” because Redditors frown upon it or are you really talking about all legal and illegal immigration? They are two wildly different groups of people and should not be analyzed.
We have some of the more lax economic contribution qualifications for permanent citizenship compared to other highly developed countries.
But basically your argument can be rewritten if adults all cost the government the same, Americans should cease having children and import 18 year olds…
99% of people arguing about immigration are talking about illegal immigrants.
This seems to be a strawman, as legal migrants are not the same as illegal ones, which is what popular discourse tends to focus on.
And even then, it's entirely possible for someone to do the maths and still desire a certain makeup of society, or to be surrounded by people who have abide the law.
Yeah, "burden" typically means "they are a cultural burden and we don't have assimilation policies so they create division by diversity, but that's unquantifiable so we assume they are also a burden on the public infrastructure taking advantage of naive social saftey nets funded by your very visible and under rewarded hard work - remember! The American Dream is real, if you are a good person who works hard enough, you will be safe, successful, and validated, so if you FEEL like you are hardworking but DON'T FEEL like those things, it's because someone is stealing from you, and it's probably those people who came here for the American Dream but aren't Real Americans."
It's not really a matter of statistics, as if most people really think in terms of statistics. It's a matter of people having narrative based identities in a system that fails to meet their expectations and offers them convenient, palatable scapegoats that permit them to "re-up" on their narrative dose.
BTW we can and do put numbers how strongly different values are held by different groups, how those relate to behaviors and outcomes etc.
So there is data on those thing, but numbers about money are easy to put in the headlines because people feel like they're knowledgeable about it. When you're trying to explain this culture of values, X, Y, and Z, that culture values this and that, and we can show it this way to the, it's not as easy to put succinctly in a headline and get a person to click, and or make assumptions you want.
Yes, we have an abundance of gardeners and a shortage of doctors. As a country we can and should use immigration policy to address our needs to some degree.
Where are these AMA trained and qualified doctors coming from? Surely we're not taking Guatemalan, Somalian, and Haitian doctors and just assuming they are fully legitimate without putting them through medical school?
If we have a shortage of doctors, we can fix that by reducing the barriers to becoming a doctor.
If we have a shortage of vegetable pickers, we can increase pay to increase labor supply.
We have the labor supply in the United States right now, all you need is to remove the barriers imposed on the native labor supply and stop undercutting their labor power by importing a lower caste who is willing to work more and for less.
India and other Asian countries come to mind for doctors, Cuba is another well publicized example.
We have plenty of immigrant field workers if we would just allow them to work legally.
as legal migrants are not the same as illegal ones, which is what popular discourse tends to focus on.
The popular discourse focuses on "illegal immigration" -- but the popular discourse is a distraction from the fact that the Trump administration isn't just going after "illegal immigrants." The Trump administration is actively shutting down as many legal pathways to enter the country as possible and even reclassifying people as "illegal" who already entered legally.
Trump is anti-immigration - both legal and illegal. He just prefers to focus on talking about "illegal immigration" because it's more popular to talk about deporting drug traffickers than it is to talk about deporting your neighbor with a family and a business (even though both are getting deported).
There is one exception to Trump's anti-immigration attitudes though: White South Africans. For some reason Trump has thrown open the door to White South Africans to immigrate legally.
From a fiscal standpoint, both legal and illegal immigrants:
Arrive after the infrastructure exists. Didn’t cost the country 18+ years of public education and healthcare. Work, consume, pay rent, and pay sales taxes. Pay payroll taxes and income taxes (yes, even many undocumented workers via ITINs or withheld W-2s)
The main difference is eligibility for benefits, not contribution — and undocumented immigrants are actually less eligible for most federal benefits.
So if the argument is about cost vs contribution, I’m genuinely asking:
what changes in the math that suddenly makes one acceptable and the other a “burden”?
If the concern is legality or rule-of-law, that’s a different discussion — but economically, the distinction people point to doesn’t do the work they think it does.
Happy to hear where you think the numbers diverge.
From a fiscal standpoint, both legal and illegal immigrants: Arrive after the infrastructure exists. Didn’t cost the country 18+ years of public education and healthcare.
Your top level post specified federal budgeting, but these expenses are almost entirely state funded. And infrastructure spending is usually debt-based using the promise of future tax proceeds, so arriving “after its built” isn’t saving anything.
Pay payroll taxes and income taxes
Agreed. But as you noted, only the upper income tiers get close to covering their own expenses via income taxes, and legal immigrants are actually fairly well paid on average, due to restrictive criteria for eligibility. Not so for illegal immigrants, who tend to be at the bottom of the economic ladder.
The main difference is eligibility for benefits, not contribution — and undocumented immigrants are actually less eligible for most federal benefits.
This part is a meaningful distinction. It’s also something most defenders of illegal immigration want to change. If you grant them amnesty and make them citizens, you immediately lose this distinction and they all become immediately net negative.
You're not wrong, but I think there is probably a strong case to be made that a lot of the pros granted by legal immigrants are also granted by illegal immigrants and the net effect from illegals is actually positive.
So back in my hometown there’s a business that’s decent size. My hometown consensus will tell you it’s about 60% black 39% white and 1% hispanic. This business and a couple others is entirely full of Hispanic people being paid under the table for cheaper labor because they don’t have papers. We have a decent amount of businesses like this including my ex’s families restaurant I helped managed they were from Mexico City and the entire kitchen staff were also illegal paid under the table. In a town that has a struggling economy and poverty is extremely high, there’s an argument to be made so many illegals getting paid for cheaper labor is affecting everyone else negatively, the legal immigrants even complain about it themselves.
Are the illegals the problem or are the businesses who are breaking laws so they can take advantage of vulnerable people to maximize their bottom line?
Some things go hand and hand is it wrong for these businesses to exploit them? Yes. Does it take away from the rest of the people in the town at the same time? Yes.
But you're laying the blame at the feet of people with no choice but to accept abysmal wages because they are illegal when it belongs at the feet of people who DO have a choice but choose to hire people who can't say no and then convince people like you it's the illegal person's fault
Perhaps if your business can't survive by paying respectable wages it isn't actually helping the economy
I’m not “convinced” it’s the illegal persons fault I’m simply just making a case for the sake of debate here. The net effects is actually positive in a lot of the cases your taking about result in exploitation at the hands of businesses and people in communities not getting jobs because these companies can exploit people for lower wages. Your entire point in net effects are positive usually work off of this system. Exploit illegal employees, don’t have to pay legal employees the proper wage, and maximize profit.
Saying they have no choice takes all of their agency away and lays the blame of being knowingly and illegal immigrant at the feet of every single other person which is a shifting of responsibility.
At the end of the day, they are coming in illegally to fill illegal voids in a job market. If the supply of workers doesn’t exist, the supply of jobs would need to actually shift to ethical measures. Both are wrong, but illegal immigrants are not indentured.
Care to elaborate? Because if the illegal immigration system in the US is actually slavery we should be tamping down on it even harder.
Tell me you can’t blame people for their actions without telling me, news flash everyone, every single human on earth, has motivations and feelings. That’s not an excuse.
Sure, I'll do it with a hypothetical. You're on the verge of starving to death, I offer you an apple but only if you let me take a finger. Am I really giving you a choice?
Tell me you can’t blame people for their actions without telling me, news flash everyone, every single human on earth, has motivations and feelings.
And y'all are only interested in blaming the more vulnerable populations for theirs and not the businesses who hold all the power or the government for directing enforcement on illegals rather than cracking down on the businesses at all.
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Illegal immigration, by its very nature, is an admission that you do not respect the laws of a country. That is a pretty big hurdle to overcome if you want to start that argument. Most illegal immigration is for remittance and returning to their country of origin after making money also. (See the information on the ongoing Somali community scandals in Minnesota issue. They are legal residents but groups in the community hold stronger ties to their country of origin than the US) Taking money out of a community. Then an excess of labor drives down labor costs, meaning wages, for citizens.
It's interesting that y'all always hold illegals to this standard of "respect for the rule of law" but that NEVER applies to businesses paying people under the table. Your argument doesn't hold so long as we give businesses a pass
Stop it. That argument is only a deflection. Always has been. Not only that but you just tried to tell me what my position is. You don't know my position.
You have made absolutely no counter argument. Only tried to pigeonhole me as a person to avoid my argument. If you don't have an actual position, kindly go to a political sub and play with your little friends.
It would be 10x easier and more effective to punish businesses for paying people under the table but we don't because we rely on underpaid illegal labor. It isn't a deflection when your entire starting point is breaking the 'rule-of-law' as some argument but then refuse to apply it equally.
Me breaking the law. And you breaking the law are two individual people breaking the law. I did not coerce you into doing it, nor did you coerce me. We are both guilty of a crime. Same with illegal migrants and the businesses who hire them. Both have committed a crime individual of each other.
And many jobs filled by illegal migrants are in farming. But if off season strawberries or iceberg lettuce tripled in price today. That would not greatly negatively affect the average person as they are luxury items. When a packing plant is raided by ICE, the next day locals are in line to apply for the jobs. By all means fine the business and arrest the person who authorized the illegal hiring.
People aren’t balance sheets. But if you insist on doing the math, anti-immigration arguments lose on math too.
Except your math is just sweeping generalizations. You haven't actually done the math of the cost / benefit of adding an immigrant.
You didn't cite sources, but assuming your $50k per household per year is correct, that's still an average across all federal spending. Some households benefit far more directly from that federal spending than others. Some households will have a more direct impact on increasing costs to the federal government than others. If someone's concern is that poor immigrants are going to use SNAP, Medicaid, etc. without contributing much to the tax base, those are direct costs incurred because those immigrants are here. That's a different situation compared to an upper-middle class family that may pay less than $50k / year in taxes, but only uses federal government services like highways and security from the military, where those costs are going to be the same with or without that household.
You’re right that this isn’t a full marginal cost model, but neither is the argument I’m responding to.
Most people claiming immigrants are a “burden” aren’t doing a careful SNAP-vs-Medicaid-vs-tax-base analysis either. They’re making a broad fiscal claim, and I’m showing that when you zoom out even slightly, that claim isn’t obvious at all.
Yes, some immigrants will use targeted programs. But many are ineligible for a lot of benefits, and almost all start paying sales and payroll taxes immediately. They also arrive without having cost the system decades of education and childhood healthcare, which matters when you talk about net contribution over time.
Meanwhile, plenty of native households receive very direct federal benefits too, and no one argues they “don’t deserve” to be here because of that. That’s the inconsistency I’m pointing out.
Where else do people deserve to be if not in their home country?
The argument that citizens start in the negative because of their education costs is, frankly, vile. Having an educated population is necessary for a modern civilisation to function. It isn't a cost an individual charges to the state, it's something a state requires of individuals to remain functioning. The cost is a right wing talking point who are banking on privatizing education for profit and cutting their taxes, regardless of the effect it will have on society.
The burden people talk about is almost always on housing when it comes to high levels of immigration, and depressed wages, and enforcement (borders and policing in the case of international gangs) in the case of illegal immigration.
The Dutch and Scandinavian countries have done extensive research, and the cost benefit analysis concluded that immigrants from western countries were either cost neutral or cost positive. Immigration from third world countries was cost negative. It’s resulted in them doing a swift u-turn on migration policy. Now even the left parties in those countries are anti immigration.
I’d imagine the cost benefit analysis would summarise similar in the US .
You're kinda moving the goalposts here. You made it sound like anyone who's not paying $50k in taxes isn't pulling their weight, which really isn't the case. Yes, there are Americans who aren't pulling their weight, but that's not something we want to be encouraging more of. I would bet a lot of the people who are opposed to immigration would be happy if there were somewhere else we could shuffle Americans who don't pull their weight off to, but recognize we're stuck with them since they already have citizenship.
By your own logic, immigrants that don’t make 250k are a burden and you have just proved that most American are a burden too but it’s coherent for them to want less people.
That’s not my logic, that’s exactly why the argument fails.
I don’t think immigrants or Americans are a “burden.” I’m showing that if you use that standard, it leads to ridiculous conclusions — like most Americans not “deserving” to be here either. You can’t apply a cost-benefit test only to immigrants and ignore it for everyone else. Either it applies to everyone, or it’s a bad framework.
So the point isn’t “people under $250k are a burden.”
The point is that using fiscal math to argue against immigration doesn’t work, because it blows up the moment you apply it consistently.
Keep in mind who pays for medical bills in the emergency room when someone doesn't have insurance, mustcbe treated and cannot be forced to pay. California is a good example of gaming the Healthcare subsidies system right now. Accounting magic.
You said that the USG spends $50k/household as an example of a financial liability associated with citizens, but didn’t mention any liabilities associated with illegal immigrants, instead only mentioning the ways in which they are financial assets.
Do you believe there are any financial liabilities associated with illegal immigrants? That’s the biggest hole in your logic as I see it
I don't believe your argument is very convincing to someone who believes that people which pay less to the system are a burden. Tbh it just sounds like whataboutism.
The obvious answer to your argument is asking "If we already have so many citizien which are a burden should we really invite even more over?"
Think about a family with 3 children which struggles to make ends meet, should they go to the orphanage and adopt 3 more just because they already take care of some?
If the argument is “I don’t like immigrants because they don’t act like me,” that’s a completely different discussion than whether they’re an economic burden compared to most native-born people.
From a business perspective I think there can be cultural differences that can be quite expensive both to their company and to the country. There can be fundamentally different attitudes towards corruption, bribery, nepotism, tolerance and gender equality, etc with some immigrant groups, even those with high technical skills.
Not exactly, while I think that might be true, that analysis would also apply to gender, race, age, etc., and my post/view is just around immigrants/natives.
Your scope seems to only start counting each individual life of the latest generation.
In the case of american families that have lived in the country since the 1800s, that is hundreds of years of generational country building to account for. As opposed to folks who just showed up last year, or in the last decade.
That logic also opens a door most people don’t actually want to walk through.
If we’re assigning “credit” or “debt” across generations, then we also have to accept that many white Americans benefited from systems their ancestors built through slavery and exclusion — which would imply an ongoing debt to Black Americans today. Most people reject that kind of inherited accounting, so it’s inconsistent to use inherited credit to exclude immigrants.
Also, only a small percentage of Americans today were actually here in the early 1800s. Almost everyone else descends from people who arrived later. At some point, “your ancestors showed up earlier” stops being a meaningful standard.
Either we judge people based on what they do and contribute now, or we get stuck in endless, selective historical accounting that doesn’t really hold up.
-There is no Benefit for the US in bringing poeople from Somalia or Afghanistan, they are too differnt from our culture and the issues this create outways any benefit.
- the risk vs benefit ratio of Muslim Immigration to the US isnt worth it. Too many of them end up killing innocents, so that group should be banned.
I can see some benefit for highly educated people from around the world to come here as well as less skilled people from the Americas tht have some cultural connection to us expecially in our southern states.
Regardless all of that should be legal. Illegal immigration should be discouraged
You’re mixing three very different arguments into one.
If your position is about culture or personal preference, that’s subjective — people can disagree on that. But that’s not an economic or safety argument anymore.
On safety specifically, the data doesn’t support the idea that Muslim immigrants are disproportionately violent. Terrorist attacks in the U.S. are overwhelmingly committed by U.S. citizens, not immigrants, and immigrants (including from Muslim-majority countries) commit violent crime at lower rates than native-born Americans. Saying an entire group should be banned because of the actions of a tiny fraction isn’t a risk-benefit analysis — it’s collective punishment.
On economics, low-skill immigrants from anywhere still work, consume, pay taxes, and arrive without having cost the U.S. decades of public investment. Whether they’re from Latin America, Africa, or Asia doesn’t change that math.
And on legality: fine — wanting an orderly, legal system is a reasonable position. But legality is a policy choice, not a moral trait of the person. You can support enforcement and acknowledge that immigrants, as a group, are not some unique burden on the country.
If the argument is “I prefer people culturally similar to me,” say that. Just don’t dress it up as economics or public safety — those claims don’t hold up when you look at the data.
You aren't even willing to have an honest discourse.
The issue is anyone can do whatever they want at any time, good or bad intentions alike, asylum or invasion all the same.
There should be a limit, and rules.
...and you clearly know you created a strawman on purpose. Your need to argue against a non-existent position is an immediate indicator that you are losing the debate.
Didn’t cost the country 18+ years of education, healthcare, etc.
Well for starters:
in the united states, education is primarily funded thru state or local taxes, so if you're using this comparison, you have to look at what the average American pays in state and local taxes, not property tax.
And like, most Americans just don't get government subsidized health care. So that's not a significant cost.
But as for some other factors you left out:
1) If you look at what the governement actually spends on programs to seniors far exceed programs for children. For example medicare is like 13% of the entire budget. So you're assumption about when the government is wrong.
It wouldn't be crazy to suggest that someone who moved here at 50 and lived to 100 got more from the government then someone who was born here and lived till 50.
2) Not all immigrants move here when they're over 18. A significant number of immigrants are children.
You seem to be missing that it's incremental. Saying that the US is financially screwed, so why not make the situation worse, is not a good argument. The real question is, if we add this one new immigrant, does the country get better or worse, in any category we want to look at?
The good news is that the math for some types of immigrants actually works out great. When skilled and educated people immigrate, they do incrementally make the country financially stronger, in addition to making it stronger in other metrics. When we add refugees, it definitely gets worse, at least on financial metrics.
I don’t want people that won’t assimilate to the western cultural world view. If they assimilate cool
If they form little enclaves like Dearborn or Minneapolis no thanks regardless of how much it costs or brings in.
That’s a cultural preference argument, and that’s fine — but it’s a different argument than economics or “burden.”
Also, enclaves aren’t new or unique to recent immigrants. Germans, Italians, Irish, Jews, Chinese, and Latinos all formed enclaves when they arrived. Over time, assimilation happened across generations. Dearborn or Minneapolis aren’t proof that assimilation fails — they’re proof that it’s gradual.
If the standard is “perfect assimilation immediately or no entry,” then basically no historical wave of immigrants would have qualified, including many whose descendants are now considered fully “American.”
So it’s fair to say you value assimilation. Just be honest that it’s about culture and social preference, not cost, taxes, or who “built the country.”
People who use the generic term 'immigrant' when making broad claims are intentionally conflating topics.
Very few people have any issue with legal immigration channels. There are of course tweaks people want here or there but this is not a contentious area of disagreement.
A second area of consideration is the Humanitarian arena. It is still part of legal immigration but does not automatically confer long term right to remain. This is where TPS (Temporary Protected Status) is addressed. There is a fair bit of political disagreement in this area. I would say mostly because it has become a back-door to long term immigration instead of a temporary status.
Illegal immigration though, where individuals don't follow the established channels, has a very different set of views on the political spectrum.
The problem I see repeated over and over is people who use statistics/information about 'Legal' immigration and proceed to apply it to all forms, including TPS and illegal immigration as if it was correct.
You made the very same mistake in how you present 'immigration' here.
Now to the point at hand. How does immigrant use of government services compare to non-immigrant use of public services. To be clear - the data is mixed. There are lots of avenues for 'cherry picking'. There are also expectations - such as TPS recipients who flee say a volcanic eruption - will need help. But - data does exist. Here is a report that does a reasonable job not only giving data but explaining how they came to the conclusions they did (methodology).
In short - your methodology is fatally flawed because tax burden vs spending is not very meaningful. Especially since the US government behaves like a teenager with parents credit card and runs almost a 2 TRILLION dollar deficit between revenue taken in and spending going out. Utilization of assistance programs and government funded benefits is a far more useful look. It also shows different conclusions.
I've not heard any hate on legal immigration, it's ILLEGAL immigration that is the issue. IDC if you immigrate, naturalize, pay into the system line the rest of us and that's it, you do you.
I have seen this too. I am of the mind that we need a moratorium for immigration. We have been opening and closing the immigration tap for all of our history. It's to prevent what I see as isolated communities within our borders that refuse to naturalize which is bad for social stability. The melting pot only works when all the ingredients mesh.
You’re correct that in the macro, country-wide level, immigrants are a net positive.
However, it’s also true that the benefits and costs of immigration aren’t shared equally. Poorer US born people are impacted more, and more directly, than those who are more well off.
Resource constraints are real. Native poorer and less educated people are competing for finite government and non-profit dollars with poorer, less educated immigrants. They’re also competing for lower-cost housing and lower-skilled jobs. Theres evidence that an abundance of low-skilled immigrants in an area can push down wages in low skilled jobs.
Public schools in places with high immigration are stretched especially thin. They’re called upon to have duplicate classes in multiple languages, programs that support children who don’t have the same type of formal education, and communicating with parents who aren’t fluent English speakers, and not familiar with US culture and the educational system.
These requirements do mean fewer resources are available for native-born students.
Immigration has pros and cons. Many immigrants come to the US, work hard, and never need public or charitable assistance. A lot of the argument comes down to if, or how much, a country feels morally responsible to take people in who will tax the system in the short term, even if, on average, they’re a net benefit in the long term, compared to the interests of their native-born citizens.
I see you mentioning numbers and studies but not specifying any.
If we’re talking about just doing the math, you have it wrong by your own standards by limiting it to federal funds, which don’t really share the burden of supporting immigration. First generation immigrants are a net fiscal cost to their state and local governments through education costs, policing, suppressing wages (often most impacting prior immigrant families), and housing costs.
From CATO:
“Results also differ by level of government. State and local governments often incur a less positive or even negative net fiscal impact from immigration, whereas the federal government almost always sees revenues rise above expenditures in response to immigration. “
Starting with your numbers because that’s what’s most quantifiably wrong: the US federal spending isn’t spent equally among households. There’s definitely some that take more than others that are considered to be tax burdens. In addition, does that income required to pay for the government include other forms of federal revenue generation like sales and corporate taxes?
The federal government is definitely overspending and cannot provide all the services it tries to in the long run. The conclusion that the Government’s mismanagement of funds which are temporarily generated by debt increases is a statement on the citizens “cost” isn’t reasonable. If I went out right now and bought the most expensive steaks to make dinner for you and then complained about how much you cost to feed that wouldn’t be reasonable. The government definitely needs to drive down those costs in any way possible which probably means massive cuts to Social Security, military funding and social services but that’s an entirely different conversation.
The conversation about immigrants “deserving” to be here is entirely different. Many people are making the claim that the government should be forced to accept anyone who illegally immigrates here rather than having the ability to deport them. This doesn’t apply to legal immigrants by the way since those that immigrate properly are selected to be here. The idea that it’s our responsibility to take in anyone who wants to be here no matter what the cost is, is irresponsible and part of the reason the government has to spend so much in the first place.
Now for the economics of it, while there is evidence that macro economically the immigrants (even illegal ones) net contribute to GDP, that doesn’t mean it’s an unquestionable positive for the country. Negative effects are much more local and ignored in GDP calculations. Smaller towns particularly in southern areas have several problems with the unrestricted illegal immigration. Most of these negatives are focused on poorer working class people as people arriving with little resources suddenly increase demand in their housing market, compete in labor markets and do in fact use government resources. Schools, police forces and hospitals in the areas most affected have an increase in people they need to service. While they may not be eligible for programs that also doesn’t mean they don’t use government funding. Hospitals that treat migrants who can’t pay may take state subsidized losses, public colleges may give scholarships to fund illegal students and much of that 50k per household per year you sited also goes to things like road maintenance that benefit illegal immigrants.
There’s also plenty of concern when it comes to cultural issues and drug trafficking that comes with allowing unscreened people in but that is a whole other post worth of content.
Of course upper middle class and higher class citizens can mostly ignore these costs. They can moralize about how we are helping the global south and benifit off of cheap labor and macroeconomic trends while the stores they shop at, neighborhoods they live in and services they rely on are unimpaired by illegal immigrants in other parts of the country. Many of these large cities when even faced with the needs of a laughably small number of immigrants being sent there panic and complain because of the logistical headache it causes.
Overall it’s not a calculation of no vs all immigrants. It’s a calculation that needs to be done on a case by case basis to see if it is a net positive for the host country. Immigration is not charity, nobody who isn’t a citizen has a right to be here.
I have done the math. I contend with the math you have provided.
I am not an individualist. We are groups. As a group, immigrants and illegal immigrants are a significant net drain. As a group natives are either significantly less of a drain, or in fact a net positive. (Even better if we only include whites, or white Anglo Saxons/heritage Americans)
The government spends $31,584 per household and households pay $30,426 in taxes, leaving a net receipt of $1,158 per household.
Based on the immigrant-only numbers below, natives are net contributors compared with immigrant households.
Lawful immigrant households: net position −$4,344 per household (they receive more than they pay.
Illegal immigrant households: receive $24,721; pay $10,334; net deficit $14,387 per household; aggregate annual net deficit ≈ $54.5 billion
If you want the alternate national aggregate for unlawful immigration used by a later estimate, it is $134.9 billion in costs and $19.0 billion in taxes paid, for a net $115.9 billion.
Your numbers are not as clear cut and certain as you've made out as I hope I've demonstrated with the sources and analysis provided.
I will add we have no moral obligation to take in strangers from strange land and pay for their well being. We have a moral obligation to our own people, certainly at least first and foremost.
cmv: If you think immigrants are a burden, you haven’t done the math
Then you proceed to do the math and show any immigrant making less that 240k per year would be a burden based on federal expenditures alone
Your math is wrong however. What you'd need to calculate is the marginal cost of a person. e.g. defense spending doesn't increase based on population at all. Social spending could actually be higher per capita.
. People say immigrants “don’t deserve” to live here because they didn’t build the country.
That's a straw man. What they're saying is: immigrants who cost society more than they benefit should not be allowed into the country. Very few people are upset about letting doctors, scientists, or engineers earn citizenship.
So by a strict cost-benefit logic:
* ~90% of Americans cost the government more than they pay
* And no one argues they “don’t deserve” to be here
You are overlooking the fact that the two categories of citizens and immigrants are fundamentally different.
A reasonable solution would be to allow people who support more expansive immigration policies to pay for the increased tax burden.
You didn't do the math either.
This is not only wrong, but poor data analysis as well.
In 2024 the US spent about $20k per citizen. (Less than half of what you claim)
Next, your supposition relies on equal distribution of that 20k. Spending and collecting are NOT balanced per capita.
The biggest "spending" is social security. Meaning our money that the government was supposed to put away for us. Only a small percentage of citizens receive social security.
Next, a dollar spent by the Department of Transportation has different beneficiaries than a dollar spent on education or, say, the DEA.
AND the cause of spending that dollar varies, too. Well-off families don't qualify for grants to go to college.
Trying to qualify the monetary 'value' of any person living in the US is going to take a lot more research than guessing at numbers...
But, government spending isn't the main reason to oppose illegal immigration anyway.
Illegal immigration causes suppressed wages for US citizens and creates communities outside the full protection of the law.
You’re mixing units. The ~$20k number you’re citing is per person federal spending. The ~$50k figure I used is per household federal spending. Same data, different denominator. That’s not a data error.
I’m also not saying spending is evenly distributed — but neither is the “immigrants are a burden” argument. That claim almost always relies on broad averages without doing a true marginal-cost analysis either.
Yes, Social Security and other programs benefit different people at different times. That actually weakens the burden argument, because many immigrants are working-age adults who are ineligible for the most expensive programs for years while still paying payroll and consumption taxes.
If the real objection is wage suppression or rule-of-law concerns, that’s a different and legitimate discussion.
Immigrants who want to be American and who want to work hard, support themselves and thrive aren’t a burden. They are assets.
Immigrants who are here illegally or who are looking to live off taxpayers are a burden.
It’s not just about individual income and their tax contributions. People who work and support themselves and their families also help to contribute whatever products or services their company produces. The company then pays taxes, too. It also invests in capital, creating more economic activity, which generates more tax revenue. Include all of that in your calculations.
Illegal immigrants who work jobs that pay cash under the table don’t pay taxes, which creates a burden.
Legal immigrants and natives who receive public benefits over multiple generations also create a burden.
I’ll preface this and say I’m in favor of immigration, just not unlimited immigration.
Hospitals have to pay for roughly $15billion a year in bills illegal immigrants don’t pay. That’s not end of world money, but it’s not nothing.
Regarding legal immigration, there’s a well respected study that concluded work visas are used to suppress wages rather than bring in needed talent. This means the numbers you suggest indicate legal immigrants are bringing in more money are massively inflated at the expense of deflating the numbers you indicate are supporting the idea domestic workers are more of a burden. In other words, the context of those numbers means those numbers don’t indicate what people think they indicate.
Is the US spending 50k PER household or 50k ON EACH household? Because that matters and if it is per household, not on each, then numerically the anti-immigrant math still works and your math is what flops. As you have it written in your post, your math is wrong.
Look, my ancestors were immigrants, came straight in through Ellis island. All I ask for is that anyone coming here does so legally. If you have papers you’re an American, simple as that.
Doesn’t this math fall apart when you include refugees? That’s a group of immigrants with no economic structure that almost entirely rely on the receiving government for support.
The premise of your post is wrong. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but I haven’t seen specific disapproval of immigrants - only illegal immigrants.
Mate the third world is crazy, and keep in mind that it is the population fleeing the third world. You’re importing a guy whose sister was eaten by dogs (yes AOT reference). But seriously these are people who have experienced extreme traumas with absolutely no way to deal with it aside from fanatical radicalization to something. The economics of it isn’t the problem, the West doesn’t want to be suddenly burdened with the generational traumas of the fucking Congo. Like do you ever think you’re just going to have a happy neighbor whose whole family was butchered and raped by god knows who and that guy is just going to join you in your BBQs and good times? Mate our homeless haven’t gone through half the shit as your average 3rd-worlder.
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The income they earn is credited to the actual holder of the Social Security number they're using. This causes taxable income for that person and can cause major problems such as tax liens and interest and penalties. They claim multiple dependents so the income taxes withheld is as little as is possible.
So yes, they pay into SS and Medicare but that's not the whole story.
~90% of Americans cost the government more than they pay
And no one argues they “don’t deserve” to be here
This is all completely besides the point. Countries do not exist to make line go up, they exist to provide a home for the people who live in that country. How much our current population costs has no bearing whatsoever on whether it's ok to import millions more people to use those same resources.
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Agreed. I can see that as the argument from the old world maybe. Most new world countries are pretty open to immigration.
According to GPT the math is sloppy and leaves out some factors.
Please share what's sloppy with me, regarding the idea of this post, to help inform my view...
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I get what you’re saying, but I’m not inventing some fringe argument either.
People might not literally say “immigrants didn’t build the country,” but they say versions of it all the time: they didn’t pay into the system, they’re a net burden, they’re benefiting from what others built, etc. It’s the same idea, just phrased differently.
And yeah, a lot of people mean illegal immigration — but the reasoning behind the opposition is usually economic. Cost vs contribution. That’s what I’m responding to. If someone’s argument isn’t economic, then this post just isn’t aimed at them.
Also, just because you haven’t heard it in your personal circle doesn’t mean it isn’t common online or in political debates. Entire policy discussions revolve around “net fiscal contribution.” So I’m not saying everyone thinks this way — I’m saying that when people do argue economics, the math doesn’t support the anti-immigration conclusion.
If that argument doesn’t apply to you, that’s fine. It just means the post isn’t about you.
You are forgetting all other forms of taxation. I’m not sure where you got the 50k number but that could be state and federal. So you aren’t taking into account state income and property taxes. So your household income would be wildly inaccurate.
Are you not using the word “illegal” because Redditors frown upon it or are you really talking about all legal and illegal immigration? They are two wildly different groups of people and should not be analyzed.
We have some of the more lax economic contribution qualifications for permanent citizenship compared to other highly developed countries.
But basically your argument can be rewritten if adults all cost the government the same, Americans should cease having children and import 18 year olds…
99% of people arguing about immigration are talking about illegal immigrants.
This seems to be a strawman, as legal migrants are not the same as illegal ones, which is what popular discourse tends to focus on.
And even then, it's entirely possible for someone to do the maths and still desire a certain makeup of society, or to be surrounded by people who have abide the law.
Yeah, "burden" typically means "they are a cultural burden and we don't have assimilation policies so they create division by diversity, but that's unquantifiable so we assume they are also a burden on the public infrastructure taking advantage of naive social saftey nets funded by your very visible and under rewarded hard work - remember! The American Dream is real, if you are a good person who works hard enough, you will be safe, successful, and validated, so if you FEEL like you are hardworking but DON'T FEEL like those things, it's because someone is stealing from you, and it's probably those people who came here for the American Dream but aren't Real Americans."
It's not really a matter of statistics, as if most people really think in terms of statistics. It's a matter of people having narrative based identities in a system that fails to meet their expectations and offers them convenient, palatable scapegoats that permit them to "re-up" on their narrative dose.
But burden is easier to say.
BTW we can and do put numbers how strongly different values are held by different groups, how those relate to behaviors and outcomes etc.
So there is data on those thing, but numbers about money are easy to put in the headlines because people feel like they're knowledgeable about it. When you're trying to explain this culture of values, X, Y, and Z, that culture values this and that, and we can show it this way to the, it's not as easy to put succinctly in a headline and get a person to click, and or make assumptions you want.
Yes, we have an abundance of gardeners and a shortage of doctors. As a country we can and should use immigration policy to address our needs to some degree.
Where are these AMA trained and qualified doctors coming from? Surely we're not taking Guatemalan, Somalian, and Haitian doctors and just assuming they are fully legitimate without putting them through medical school?
If we have a shortage of doctors, we can fix that by reducing the barriers to becoming a doctor.
If we have a shortage of vegetable pickers, we can increase pay to increase labor supply.
We have the labor supply in the United States right now, all you need is to remove the barriers imposed on the native labor supply and stop undercutting their labor power by importing a lower caste who is willing to work more and for less.
India and other Asian countries come to mind for doctors, Cuba is another well publicized example.
We have plenty of immigrant field workers if we would just allow them to work legally.
The popular discourse focuses on "illegal immigration" -- but the popular discourse is a distraction from the fact that the Trump administration isn't just going after "illegal immigrants." The Trump administration is actively shutting down as many legal pathways to enter the country as possible and even reclassifying people as "illegal" who already entered legally.
Trump is anti-immigration - both legal and illegal. He just prefers to focus on talking about "illegal immigration" because it's more popular to talk about deporting drug traffickers than it is to talk about deporting your neighbor with a family and a business (even though both are getting deported).
There is one exception to Trump's anti-immigration attitudes though: White South Africans. For some reason Trump has thrown open the door to White South Africans to immigrate legally.
What’s the difference in the math though?
From a fiscal standpoint, both legal and illegal immigrants:
Arrive after the infrastructure exists. Didn’t cost the country 18+ years of public education and healthcare. Work, consume, pay rent, and pay sales taxes. Pay payroll taxes and income taxes (yes, even many undocumented workers via ITINs or withheld W-2s)
The main difference is eligibility for benefits, not contribution — and undocumented immigrants are actually less eligible for most federal benefits.
So if the argument is about cost vs contribution, I’m genuinely asking:
what changes in the math that suddenly makes one acceptable and the other a “burden”?
If the concern is legality or rule-of-law, that’s a different discussion — but economically, the distinction people point to doesn’t do the work they think it does.
Happy to hear where you think the numbers diverge.
Your top level post specified federal budgeting, but these expenses are almost entirely state funded. And infrastructure spending is usually debt-based using the promise of future tax proceeds, so arriving “after its built” isn’t saving anything.
Agreed. But as you noted, only the upper income tiers get close to covering their own expenses via income taxes, and legal immigrants are actually fairly well paid on average, due to restrictive criteria for eligibility. Not so for illegal immigrants, who tend to be at the bottom of the economic ladder.
This part is a meaningful distinction. It’s also something most defenders of illegal immigration want to change. If you grant them amnesty and make them citizens, you immediately lose this distinction and they all become immediately net negative.
I've explained that is isn't about pure numbers, why not address what I've actually said?
Work with me to change your view.
You're not wrong, but I think there is probably a strong case to be made that a lot of the pros granted by legal immigrants are also granted by illegal immigrants and the net effect from illegals is actually positive.
But idk if the world is ready for that talk yet
So back in my hometown there’s a business that’s decent size. My hometown consensus will tell you it’s about 60% black 39% white and 1% hispanic. This business and a couple others is entirely full of Hispanic people being paid under the table for cheaper labor because they don’t have papers. We have a decent amount of businesses like this including my ex’s families restaurant I helped managed they were from Mexico City and the entire kitchen staff were also illegal paid under the table. In a town that has a struggling economy and poverty is extremely high, there’s an argument to be made so many illegals getting paid for cheaper labor is affecting everyone else negatively, the legal immigrants even complain about it themselves.
Are the illegals the problem or are the businesses who are breaking laws so they can take advantage of vulnerable people to maximize their bottom line?
You're blaming the wrong people here
Some things go hand and hand is it wrong for these businesses to exploit them? Yes. Does it take away from the rest of the people in the town at the same time? Yes.
But you're laying the blame at the feet of people with no choice but to accept abysmal wages because they are illegal when it belongs at the feet of people who DO have a choice but choose to hire people who can't say no and then convince people like you it's the illegal person's fault
Perhaps if your business can't survive by paying respectable wages it isn't actually helping the economy
I’m not “convinced” it’s the illegal persons fault I’m simply just making a case for the sake of debate here. The net effects is actually positive in a lot of the cases your taking about result in exploitation at the hands of businesses and people in communities not getting jobs because these companies can exploit people for lower wages. Your entire point in net effects are positive usually work off of this system. Exploit illegal employees, don’t have to pay legal employees the proper wage, and maximize profit.
Which again is a choice of the businesses that do that. That doesn't erase all of the economic benefits that illegals are shown to have
Ive spent hours searching for a studies on illegal immigration. There's almost none.
Please show me a study of the economic benefits to the lower or middle class from illegal immigrants. I feel like I'll be waiting for a long time....
Hours, huh?
Took me all of 30 seconds. You must not be very good at google
https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/mobilizing-against-inequality/post/five-ways-undocumented-immigrants-are-powering-american-economy
Saying they have no choice takes all of their agency away and lays the blame of being knowingly and illegal immigrant at the feet of every single other person which is a shifting of responsibility.
At the end of the day, they are coming in illegally to fill illegal voids in a job market. If the supply of workers doesn’t exist, the supply of jobs would need to actually shift to ethical measures. Both are wrong, but illegal immigrants are not indentured.
I think this is a pretty ignorant and naive view point. Tell me you don't know many immigrants without telling me.
"Indentured" comes in many flavors
Care to elaborate? Because if the illegal immigration system in the US is actually slavery we should be tamping down on it even harder.
Tell me you can’t blame people for their actions without telling me, news flash everyone, every single human on earth, has motivations and feelings. That’s not an excuse.
Sure, I'll do it with a hypothetical. You're on the verge of starving to death, I offer you an apple but only if you let me take a finger. Am I really giving you a choice?
And y'all are only interested in blaming the more vulnerable populations for theirs and not the businesses who hold all the power or the government for directing enforcement on illegals rather than cracking down on the businesses at all.
How do they have "no choice"? Are they forced to come here? Economic refugees aren't a thing.
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Economic refugees aren't recognized anywhere. Bring facts not feels.
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Illegal immigration, by its very nature, is an admission that you do not respect the laws of a country. That is a pretty big hurdle to overcome if you want to start that argument. Most illegal immigration is for remittance and returning to their country of origin after making money also. (See the information on the ongoing Somali community scandals in Minnesota issue. They are legal residents but groups in the community hold stronger ties to their country of origin than the US) Taking money out of a community. Then an excess of labor drives down labor costs, meaning wages, for citizens.
It's interesting that y'all always hold illegals to this standard of "respect for the rule of law" but that NEVER applies to businesses paying people under the table. Your argument doesn't hold so long as we give businesses a pass
Stop it. That argument is only a deflection. Always has been. Not only that but you just tried to tell me what my position is. You don't know my position.
You have made absolutely no counter argument. Only tried to pigeonhole me as a person to avoid my argument. If you don't have an actual position, kindly go to a political sub and play with your little friends.
It would be 10x easier and more effective to punish businesses for paying people under the table but we don't because we rely on underpaid illegal labor. It isn't a deflection when your entire starting point is breaking the 'rule-of-law' as some argument but then refuse to apply it equally.
Me breaking the law. And you breaking the law are two individual people breaking the law. I did not coerce you into doing it, nor did you coerce me. We are both guilty of a crime. Same with illegal migrants and the businesses who hire them. Both have committed a crime individual of each other.
And many jobs filled by illegal migrants are in farming. But if off season strawberries or iceberg lettuce tripled in price today. That would not greatly negatively affect the average person as they are luxury items. When a packing plant is raided by ICE, the next day locals are in line to apply for the jobs. By all means fine the business and arrest the person who authorized the illegal hiring.
`or to be surrounded by people who have aside the law'.
Seems like you're suggesting immigrant is synonymous with law breaker ..
Illegal migrant ≠ legal migrant.
It helps to actually read what's been written rather than half reading and assuming.
Except your math is just sweeping generalizations. You haven't actually done the math of the cost / benefit of adding an immigrant.
You didn't cite sources, but assuming your $50k per household per year is correct, that's still an average across all federal spending. Some households benefit far more directly from that federal spending than others. Some households will have a more direct impact on increasing costs to the federal government than others. If someone's concern is that poor immigrants are going to use SNAP, Medicaid, etc. without contributing much to the tax base, those are direct costs incurred because those immigrants are here. That's a different situation compared to an upper-middle class family that may pay less than $50k / year in taxes, but only uses federal government services like highways and security from the military, where those costs are going to be the same with or without that household.
You’re right that this isn’t a full marginal cost model, but neither is the argument I’m responding to.
Most people claiming immigrants are a “burden” aren’t doing a careful SNAP-vs-Medicaid-vs-tax-base analysis either. They’re making a broad fiscal claim, and I’m showing that when you zoom out even slightly, that claim isn’t obvious at all.
Yes, some immigrants will use targeted programs. But many are ineligible for a lot of benefits, and almost all start paying sales and payroll taxes immediately. They also arrive without having cost the system decades of education and childhood healthcare, which matters when you talk about net contribution over time.
Meanwhile, plenty of native households receive very direct federal benefits too, and no one argues they “don’t deserve” to be here because of that. That’s the inconsistency I’m pointing out.
Where else do people deserve to be if not in their home country?
The argument that citizens start in the negative because of their education costs is, frankly, vile. Having an educated population is necessary for a modern civilisation to function. It isn't a cost an individual charges to the state, it's something a state requires of individuals to remain functioning. The cost is a right wing talking point who are banking on privatizing education for profit and cutting their taxes, regardless of the effect it will have on society.
The burden people talk about is almost always on housing when it comes to high levels of immigration, and depressed wages, and enforcement (borders and policing in the case of international gangs) in the case of illegal immigration.
The Dutch and Scandinavian countries have done extensive research, and the cost benefit analysis concluded that immigrants from western countries were either cost neutral or cost positive. Immigration from third world countries was cost negative. It’s resulted in them doing a swift u-turn on migration policy. Now even the left parties in those countries are anti immigration.
I’d imagine the cost benefit analysis would summarise similar in the US .
You're kinda moving the goalposts here. You made it sound like anyone who's not paying $50k in taxes isn't pulling their weight, which really isn't the case. Yes, there are Americans who aren't pulling their weight, but that's not something we want to be encouraging more of. I would bet a lot of the people who are opposed to immigration would be happy if there were somewhere else we could shuffle Americans who don't pull their weight off to, but recognize we're stuck with them since they already have citizenship.
>If “deserving to be here” is about who paid more than they took
Do you have any examples of people championing such a view?
By your own logic, immigrants that don’t make 250k are a burden and you have just proved that most American are a burden too but it’s coherent for them to want less people.
That’s not my logic, that’s exactly why the argument fails.
I don’t think immigrants or Americans are a “burden.” I’m showing that if you use that standard, it leads to ridiculous conclusions — like most Americans not “deserving” to be here either. You can’t apply a cost-benefit test only to immigrants and ignore it for everyone else. Either it applies to everyone, or it’s a bad framework.
So the point isn’t “people under $250k are a burden.”
The point is that using fiscal math to argue against immigration doesn’t work, because it blows up the moment you apply it consistently.
Keep in mind who pays for medical bills in the emergency room when someone doesn't have insurance, mustcbe treated and cannot be forced to pay. California is a good example of gaming the Healthcare subsidies system right now. Accounting magic.
Whose logic are you arguing? I’ve never heard this argument
You said that the USG spends $50k/household as an example of a financial liability associated with citizens, but didn’t mention any liabilities associated with illegal immigrants, instead only mentioning the ways in which they are financial assets.
Do you believe there are any financial liabilities associated with illegal immigrants? That’s the biggest hole in your logic as I see it
I don't believe your argument is very convincing to someone who believes that people which pay less to the system are a burden. Tbh it just sounds like whataboutism.
The obvious answer to your argument is asking "If we already have so many citizien which are a burden should we really invite even more over?"
Think about a family with 3 children which struggles to make ends meet, should they go to the orphanage and adopt 3 more just because they already take care of some?
For argument’s sake, a child educated here for 18+ years will be better assimilated than an adult immigrant.
If the argument is “I don’t like immigrants because they don’t act like me,” that’s a completely different discussion than whether they’re an economic burden compared to most native-born people.
From a business perspective I think there can be cultural differences that can be quite expensive both to their company and to the country. There can be fundamentally different attitudes towards corruption, bribery, nepotism, tolerance and gender equality, etc with some immigrant groups, even those with high technical skills.
If I can show some immigrant ethnic groups/immigrants from certain countries are burdens while others are not would it change your opinion?
Not exactly, while I think that might be true, that analysis would also apply to gender, race, age, etc., and my post/view is just around immigrants/natives.
Your scope seems to only start counting each individual life of the latest generation.
In the case of american families that have lived in the country since the 1800s, that is hundreds of years of generational country building to account for. As opposed to folks who just showed up last year, or in the last decade.
That logic also opens a door most people don’t actually want to walk through.
If we’re assigning “credit” or “debt” across generations, then we also have to accept that many white Americans benefited from systems their ancestors built through slavery and exclusion — which would imply an ongoing debt to Black Americans today. Most people reject that kind of inherited accounting, so it’s inconsistent to use inherited credit to exclude immigrants.
Also, only a small percentage of Americans today were actually here in the early 1800s. Almost everyone else descends from people who arrived later. At some point, “your ancestors showed up earlier” stops being a meaningful standard.
Either we judge people based on what they do and contribute now, or we get stuck in endless, selective historical accounting that doesn’t really hold up.
-There is no Benefit for the US in bringing poeople from Somalia or Afghanistan, they are too differnt from our culture and the issues this create outways any benefit.
- the risk vs benefit ratio of Muslim Immigration to the US isnt worth it. Too many of them end up killing innocents, so that group should be banned.
I can see some benefit for highly educated people from around the world to come here as well as less skilled people from the Americas tht have some cultural connection to us expecially in our southern states.
Regardless all of that should be legal. Illegal immigration should be discouraged
You’re mixing three very different arguments into one.
If your position is about culture or personal preference, that’s subjective — people can disagree on that. But that’s not an economic or safety argument anymore.
On safety specifically, the data doesn’t support the idea that Muslim immigrants are disproportionately violent. Terrorist attacks in the U.S. are overwhelmingly committed by U.S. citizens, not immigrants, and immigrants (including from Muslim-majority countries) commit violent crime at lower rates than native-born Americans. Saying an entire group should be banned because of the actions of a tiny fraction isn’t a risk-benefit analysis — it’s collective punishment.
On economics, low-skill immigrants from anywhere still work, consume, pay taxes, and arrive without having cost the U.S. decades of public investment. Whether they’re from Latin America, Africa, or Asia doesn’t change that math.
And on legality: fine — wanting an orderly, legal system is a reasonable position. But legality is a policy choice, not a moral trait of the person. You can support enforcement and acknowledge that immigrants, as a group, are not some unique burden on the country.
If the argument is “I prefer people culturally similar to me,” say that. Just don’t dress it up as economics or public safety — those claims don’t hold up when you look at the data.
You aren't even willing to have an honest discourse.
The issue is anyone can do whatever they want at any time, good or bad intentions alike, asylum or invasion all the same.
There should be a limit, and rules.
...and you clearly know you created a strawman on purpose. Your need to argue against a non-existent position is an immediate indicator that you are losing the debate.
Well for starters:
in the united states, education is primarily funded thru state or local taxes, so if you're using this comparison, you have to look at what the average American pays in state and local taxes, not property tax.
And like, most Americans just don't get government subsidized health care. So that's not a significant cost.
But as for some other factors you left out:
1) If you look at what the governement actually spends on programs to seniors far exceed programs for children. For example medicare is like 13% of the entire budget. So you're assumption about when the government is wrong.
It wouldn't be crazy to suggest that someone who moved here at 50 and lived to 100 got more from the government then someone who was born here and lived till 50.
2) Not all immigrants move here when they're over 18. A significant number of immigrants are children.
You seem to be missing that it's incremental. Saying that the US is financially screwed, so why not make the situation worse, is not a good argument. The real question is, if we add this one new immigrant, does the country get better or worse, in any category we want to look at?
The good news is that the math for some types of immigrants actually works out great. When skilled and educated people immigrate, they do incrementally make the country financially stronger, in addition to making it stronger in other metrics. When we add refugees, it definitely gets worse, at least on financial metrics.
I don’t want people that won’t assimilate to the western cultural world view. If they assimilate cool If they form little enclaves like Dearborn or Minneapolis no thanks regardless of how much it costs or brings in.
That’s a cultural preference argument, and that’s fine — but it’s a different argument than economics or “burden.”
Also, enclaves aren’t new or unique to recent immigrants. Germans, Italians, Irish, Jews, Chinese, and Latinos all formed enclaves when they arrived. Over time, assimilation happened across generations. Dearborn or Minneapolis aren’t proof that assimilation fails — they’re proof that it’s gradual.
If the standard is “perfect assimilation immediately or no entry,” then basically no historical wave of immigrants would have qualified, including many whose descendants are now considered fully “American.”
So it’s fair to say you value assimilation. Just be honest that it’s about culture and social preference, not cost, taxes, or who “built the country.”
People who use the generic term 'immigrant' when making broad claims are intentionally conflating topics.
Very few people have any issue with legal immigration channels. There are of course tweaks people want here or there but this is not a contentious area of disagreement.
A second area of consideration is the Humanitarian arena. It is still part of legal immigration but does not automatically confer long term right to remain. This is where TPS (Temporary Protected Status) is addressed. There is a fair bit of political disagreement in this area. I would say mostly because it has become a back-door to long term immigration instead of a temporary status.
Illegal immigration though, where individuals don't follow the established channels, has a very different set of views on the political spectrum.
The problem I see repeated over and over is people who use statistics/information about 'Legal' immigration and proceed to apply it to all forms, including TPS and illegal immigration as if it was correct.
You made the very same mistake in how you present 'immigration' here.
Now to the point at hand. How does immigrant use of government services compare to non-immigrant use of public services. To be clear - the data is mixed. There are lots of avenues for 'cherry picking'. There are also expectations - such as TPS recipients who flee say a volcanic eruption - will need help. But - data does exist. Here is a report that does a reasonable job not only giving data but explaining how they came to the conclusions they did (methodology).
https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Immigrants-and-USBorn
In short - your methodology is fatally flawed because tax burden vs spending is not very meaningful. Especially since the US government behaves like a teenager with parents credit card and runs almost a 2 TRILLION dollar deficit between revenue taken in and spending going out. Utilization of assistance programs and government funded benefits is a far more useful look. It also shows different conclusions.
I've not heard any hate on legal immigration, it's ILLEGAL immigration that is the issue. IDC if you immigrate, naturalize, pay into the system line the rest of us and that's it, you do you.
its more the fact that a large portion barely makes an attempt if at all to assimilate into their new culture, at least for me
I have seen this too. I am of the mind that we need a moratorium for immigration. We have been opening and closing the immigration tap for all of our history. It's to prevent what I see as isolated communities within our borders that refuse to naturalize which is bad for social stability. The melting pot only works when all the ingredients mesh.
You’re correct that in the macro, country-wide level, immigrants are a net positive.
However, it’s also true that the benefits and costs of immigration aren’t shared equally. Poorer US born people are impacted more, and more directly, than those who are more well off.
Resource constraints are real. Native poorer and less educated people are competing for finite government and non-profit dollars with poorer, less educated immigrants. They’re also competing for lower-cost housing and lower-skilled jobs. Theres evidence that an abundance of low-skilled immigrants in an area can push down wages in low skilled jobs.
Public schools in places with high immigration are stretched especially thin. They’re called upon to have duplicate classes in multiple languages, programs that support children who don’t have the same type of formal education, and communicating with parents who aren’t fluent English speakers, and not familiar with US culture and the educational system.
These requirements do mean fewer resources are available for native-born students.
Immigration has pros and cons. Many immigrants come to the US, work hard, and never need public or charitable assistance. A lot of the argument comes down to if, or how much, a country feels morally responsible to take people in who will tax the system in the short term, even if, on average, they’re a net benefit in the long term, compared to the interests of their native-born citizens.
I see you mentioning numbers and studies but not specifying any.
If we’re talking about just doing the math, you have it wrong by your own standards by limiting it to federal funds, which don’t really share the burden of supporting immigration. First generation immigrants are a net fiscal cost to their state and local governments through education costs, policing, suppressing wages (often most impacting prior immigrant families), and housing costs.
From CATO:
“Results also differ by level of government. State and local governments often incur a less positive or even negative net fiscal impact from immigration, whereas the federal government almost always sees revenues rise above expenditures in response to immigration. “
The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States | Cato Institute https://www.cato.org/white-paper/fiscal-impact-immigration-united-states
Yes the federal government doesn’t spend as much but that’s because their purview is foreign policy and not community structure.
Starting with your numbers because that’s what’s most quantifiably wrong: the US federal spending isn’t spent equally among households. There’s definitely some that take more than others that are considered to be tax burdens. In addition, does that income required to pay for the government include other forms of federal revenue generation like sales and corporate taxes?
The federal government is definitely overspending and cannot provide all the services it tries to in the long run. The conclusion that the Government’s mismanagement of funds which are temporarily generated by debt increases is a statement on the citizens “cost” isn’t reasonable. If I went out right now and bought the most expensive steaks to make dinner for you and then complained about how much you cost to feed that wouldn’t be reasonable. The government definitely needs to drive down those costs in any way possible which probably means massive cuts to Social Security, military funding and social services but that’s an entirely different conversation.
The conversation about immigrants “deserving” to be here is entirely different. Many people are making the claim that the government should be forced to accept anyone who illegally immigrates here rather than having the ability to deport them. This doesn’t apply to legal immigrants by the way since those that immigrate properly are selected to be here. The idea that it’s our responsibility to take in anyone who wants to be here no matter what the cost is, is irresponsible and part of the reason the government has to spend so much in the first place.
Now for the economics of it, while there is evidence that macro economically the immigrants (even illegal ones) net contribute to GDP, that doesn’t mean it’s an unquestionable positive for the country. Negative effects are much more local and ignored in GDP calculations. Smaller towns particularly in southern areas have several problems with the unrestricted illegal immigration. Most of these negatives are focused on poorer working class people as people arriving with little resources suddenly increase demand in their housing market, compete in labor markets and do in fact use government resources. Schools, police forces and hospitals in the areas most affected have an increase in people they need to service. While they may not be eligible for programs that also doesn’t mean they don’t use government funding. Hospitals that treat migrants who can’t pay may take state subsidized losses, public colleges may give scholarships to fund illegal students and much of that 50k per household per year you sited also goes to things like road maintenance that benefit illegal immigrants.
There’s also plenty of concern when it comes to cultural issues and drug trafficking that comes with allowing unscreened people in but that is a whole other post worth of content.
Of course upper middle class and higher class citizens can mostly ignore these costs. They can moralize about how we are helping the global south and benifit off of cheap labor and macroeconomic trends while the stores they shop at, neighborhoods they live in and services they rely on are unimpaired by illegal immigrants in other parts of the country. Many of these large cities when even faced with the needs of a laughably small number of immigrants being sent there panic and complain because of the logistical headache it causes.
Overall it’s not a calculation of no vs all immigrants. It’s a calculation that needs to be done on a case by case basis to see if it is a net positive for the host country. Immigration is not charity, nobody who isn’t a citizen has a right to be here.
I have done the math. I contend with the math you have provided.
I am not an individualist. We are groups. As a group, immigrants and illegal immigrants are a significant net drain. As a group natives are either significantly less of a drain, or in fact a net positive. (Even better if we only include whites, or white Anglo Saxons/heritage Americans)
The government spends $31,584 per household and households pay $30,426 in taxes, leaving a net receipt of $1,158 per household.
Based on the immigrant-only numbers below, natives are net contributors compared with immigrant households.
Lawful immigrant households: net position −$4,344 per household (they receive more than they pay.
Illegal immigrant households: receive $24,721; pay $10,334; net deficit $14,387 per household; aggregate annual net deficit ≈ $54.5 billion
If you want the alternate national aggregate for unlawful immigration used by a later estimate, it is $134.9 billion in costs and $19.0 billion in taxes paid, for a net $115.9 billion.
Your numbers are not as clear cut and certain as you've made out as I hope I've demonstrated with the sources and analysis provided.
I will add we have no moral obligation to take in strangers from strange land and pay for their well being. We have a moral obligation to our own people, certainly at least first and foremost.
[https://static.heritage.org/2013/pdf/sr133.pdf https://www.fairus.org/sites/default/files/2017-09/Fiscal-Burden-of-Illegal-Immigration-2017.pdf https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-consequences-of-immigration
Your post disproves itself.
Your math is wrong however. What you'd need to calculate is the marginal cost of a person. e.g. defense spending doesn't increase based on population at all. Social spending could actually be higher per capita.
A reasonable solution would be to allow people who support more expansive immigration policies to pay for the increased tax burden.
You didn't do the math either. This is not only wrong, but poor data analysis as well.
In 2024 the US spent about $20k per citizen. (Less than half of what you claim)
Next, your supposition relies on equal distribution of that 20k. Spending and collecting are NOT balanced per capita.
The biggest "spending" is social security. Meaning our money that the government was supposed to put away for us. Only a small percentage of citizens receive social security. Next, a dollar spent by the Department of Transportation has different beneficiaries than a dollar spent on education or, say, the DEA. AND the cause of spending that dollar varies, too. Well-off families don't qualify for grants to go to college. Trying to qualify the monetary 'value' of any person living in the US is going to take a lot more research than guessing at numbers...
But, government spending isn't the main reason to oppose illegal immigration anyway. Illegal immigration causes suppressed wages for US citizens and creates communities outside the full protection of the law.
You’re mixing units. The ~$20k number you’re citing is per person federal spending. The ~$50k figure I used is per household federal spending. Same data, different denominator. That’s not a data error.
I’m also not saying spending is evenly distributed — but neither is the “immigrants are a burden” argument. That claim almost always relies on broad averages without doing a true marginal-cost analysis either.
Yes, Social Security and other programs benefit different people at different times. That actually weakens the burden argument, because many immigrants are working-age adults who are ineligible for the most expensive programs for years while still paying payroll and consumption taxes.
If the real objection is wage suppression or rule-of-law concerns, that’s a different and legitimate discussion.
Immigrants who want to be American and who want to work hard, support themselves and thrive aren’t a burden. They are assets.
Immigrants who are here illegally or who are looking to live off taxpayers are a burden.
It’s not just about individual income and their tax contributions. People who work and support themselves and their families also help to contribute whatever products or services their company produces. The company then pays taxes, too. It also invests in capital, creating more economic activity, which generates more tax revenue. Include all of that in your calculations.
Illegal immigrants who work jobs that pay cash under the table don’t pay taxes, which creates a burden.
Legal immigrants and natives who receive public benefits over multiple generations also create a burden.
I’ll preface this and say I’m in favor of immigration, just not unlimited immigration.
Hospitals have to pay for roughly $15billion a year in bills illegal immigrants don’t pay. That’s not end of world money, but it’s not nothing.
Regarding legal immigration, there’s a well respected study that concluded work visas are used to suppress wages rather than bring in needed talent. This means the numbers you suggest indicate legal immigrants are bringing in more money are massively inflated at the expense of deflating the numbers you indicate are supporting the idea domestic workers are more of a burden. In other words, the context of those numbers means those numbers don’t indicate what people think they indicate.
Is the US spending 50k PER household or 50k ON EACH household? Because that matters and if it is per household, not on each, then numerically the anti-immigrant math still works and your math is what flops. As you have it written in your post, your math is wrong.
Look, my ancestors were immigrants, came straight in through Ellis island. All I ask for is that anyone coming here does so legally. If you have papers you’re an American, simple as that.
Doesn’t this math fall apart when you include refugees? That’s a group of immigrants with no economic structure that almost entirely rely on the receiving government for support.
The premise of your post is wrong. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but I haven’t seen specific disapproval of immigrants - only illegal immigrants.
"Immigrants, on the other hand:
Well ... I mean, some of them do, right? Kids immigrate illegally. And illegal immigrants then have kids, who cost the country those things.
Mate the third world is crazy, and keep in mind that it is the population fleeing the third world. You’re importing a guy whose sister was eaten by dogs (yes AOT reference). But seriously these are people who have experienced extreme traumas with absolutely no way to deal with it aside from fanatical radicalization to something. The economics of it isn’t the problem, the West doesn’t want to be suddenly burdened with the generational traumas of the fucking Congo. Like do you ever think you’re just going to have a happy neighbor whose whole family was butchered and raped by god knows who and that guy is just going to join you in your BBQs and good times? Mate our homeless haven’t gone through half the shit as your average 3rd-worlder.
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The income they earn is credited to the actual holder of the Social Security number they're using. This causes taxable income for that person and can cause major problems such as tax liens and interest and penalties. They claim multiple dependents so the income taxes withheld is as little as is possible.
So yes, they pay into SS and Medicare but that's not the whole story.
This is all completely besides the point. Countries do not exist to make line go up, they exist to provide a home for the people who live in that country. How much our current population costs has no bearing whatsoever on whether it's ok to import millions more people to use those same resources.