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CBO on Migrant Workers
I came across this slide from the Census Bureau.
When you do the calculations on births/deaths/migrant workers you get the following results:
Annual births: 4.5mm
Annual deaths:2.9mm
Net change: 1.6mm
Net new migrant workers 790,000
From this one gets the total increase in population at ~2.6mm. Fully one-third of that growth comes from foreign immigrant workers.
I was surprised to see how big the migrant worker side of the equation
was. That comes to 66,000 a month. If you follow the monthly Non-Farms
Payroll report you know that there have been many months that we don’t
create that many net new jobs.
Our friends at the Congressional Budget Office just happened to have issued a report on this subject on Friday. Catchy title:
A slide that I thought was interesting shows just how much money is leaving the country from those foreign migrant workers:
The total came to $66 billion in 2009. That is a very big number. Of the
$31b that left the shores to go south of the border $20b ended up in
Mexico. Asia was the beneficiary of $17b of inward money flows. Of that,
$3.2b went to China. China manages to suck the blood out of the USA
every which way. We send them our money for interest on our debt. We
send them money for everything we buy from them. And those who come to
work here send back a few billion more.
Allow me to “play” with these numbers a bit. I believe that the vast
majority of the money going to Latin America (31b) is from undocumented
workers. The same is true for the $5b going to Africa. I will assume a
conservative estimate that only 50% of the $17b going to Asia is from
illegal workers (9b). I will be generous and exclude all of the money
(total 15b) going to Canada, Europe and the Middle East (there are many
undocumented workers in this set). My conservative estimate is that
~$45b a year is leaving the country from undocumented workers.
A question is, “How much of an illegal workers pay is being sent back home?” My answer to that is: “Somewhere between 0 and 50%".
Call it 25%. This means that a worker sends home one week of wages for
every month that they are here. I actually think the percent number is
lower. It is hard to get by in America with just three weeks of wages a
month. The savings rate for Americans is less than 5%.
If you accept my (conservative) one week in four argument then you can
conclude that the total wages being paid to these workers is ~$180b a
year (4 x 45b). That is a very substantial amount of money.
The average legal worker pays 7% in Social Security and other FICA
taxes. The average Federal tax rate is about 20% and the average state
income tax is another 5%. It comes to about 33 cents on the dollar.
Put that together and you get lost tax revenue of ~$60b (180*.33). I
think this is a pretty good estimate given that I excluded the $15b
going to Europe/Canada and 50% of Asia. But I will ‘haircut’ this
estimate down to $50b a year. That still is a hell of lot of money.
-A ½ Trillion over the next decade would be very welcome.
-$50b a year would solve all of the state’s problems if the money were committed to them over a long period of time.
-$50b a year would be a hell of a down payment on the energy infrastructure build out that we so desperately need.
-$50b a year would turn Social Security into a perpetual “pay as you go
system”. We could forget about any funding shorts falls forever.
-$50b a year would go a very long way to bring our educational system back up to par.
What would you do with an extra $50b a year? Let’s face it, we need this money and it would be very helpful if we had it.
The bottom line is that America needs immigrant workers. We also need
the tax dollars that come from the wages that are paid. We don’t need to
have all this money just leak out of they system while the social costs
of illegal workers stay in country.
This is America’s Black Economy. It stares us in the face every
day. For the life of me I can’t figure why we don’t confront the
problem. But notice that neither the Republican nor the Democrats have
even raised it as an issue for 2011. They are too busy fighting over
budget cuts, yet there is a big bucket of money right at their feet.
We don’t need to solve the broad immigration problem today. That is a
very complex/emotive task. We should start the process by making sure
that illegal workers pay their taxes. Just like the natural American
workers do.
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Not complainin'...I'm an AirFarce brat, but I don't pretend that it wasn't a jobs program / handout to my step-dad that kept us clothed and fed.
Bringing back good intel on Soviet capabilities was a jobs program?
Guess I shoulda just stayed safe and picked up litter on I99.
Or fixed radars on F4s.
Once our fiat paper inflates most Americans into poverty illegal aliens would probably be among the most resilient to survive this inevitable reality simply because their culture is conducive to poverty and they know how to live on little.
In California we have such a corrupt illegal alien supporting Assembly that they would rather see most hard working tax paying Californian's destitute rather than change their sick mind-set.
FAIR Releases First-of-its-Kind Comprehensive Study of Federal, State and Local Costs of Illegal Immigration
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=23198&security=1601...
We are not talking PC BS IMMMIGRANTS, we're talking Illegal Immigrants.
The MSM uses this well, as does the Dem's and the WH whores.
50 Billion doesn't even begin to touch the real numbers.
Go to an Emg room, or a Mat ward at your local big county hospital,You will not believe it.
Parkland Hosp in Dallas, in yr'08 wrote off 700 million alone on treatment of illegals and welfare recips.
And they cannot bill them a dime and collect it,plus we have a New American dropped right there. That's ONE hospital, and One years numbers.
At the Borders we have PG women dilated at 6-10,crossing to drop the kid on US Soil.
Literally
Exactly.
And the "write off" of $700 million is actually passed on to any insuarnce bill paying legal citizen, as are all the other costs associated with the invasion.
Many cities give hospitals a property tax abatement which is one shit load of money with the campuses they are in or building. They get that if 5% of their revenues is phantom which is then considered charity. 700 Million probably is to much for one hospital to get even on property tax, but there are other ways to get it. They know how to do or they wouldn't stay open.
Hospitals that are located in higher rent areas tend to put a huge value in the parking they give away to come up with their 5% each year. The accumulated deficiency caused by hospital property tax abatement for a city with 5-7 major hospital complexes has to be in the billions over a decade of time. All of them but one are for-profit hospitals too. It's usually the non-profit ones that actually gives away 5% worth of services.
That's why you must have knee-pads and irrefutable proof that the county's assessment is too high on your property to get a reduction even if housing has an accumulated loss in value of 40%-60% in your area. If they can't get it from mega hospital corp, then it's a gotta be us.
I have to pay teachers ( I don't have kids) and police who told me through their white-collar crime division that they don't do accounting. I said sarcastically, "Oh maybe you mean white-collar crime as crime committed by busboys, waiters and dishwashers. Sure glad my taxes go to pay your benefits". To which she replied "We pay taxes too sir" to which I replied "I'd like to pay taxes to myself too"
The FBI was a bit more encouraging. I had an almost irresistible desire to say "Ya know, while your not doing anything of consequence maybe you can help me out here..." but I pinched it off at the last second.
I am increasing disenchanted with protected classes of people, mainly the very wealthy and the govt workers that protect them and their property with help from us. Oh hang on, that's my toasted wheat bread (the mold wasn't too bad) with nothing on it. Ha, one meal a day keeps the fat away. Ribs? On Me? Nah, I don't think so anyway. Gotta go. Oh fuck , stairs.
Exactly.
Both sides.
Catering to the illegals and entitlement crowd, the elitists, and the government workers that are "protected". Many of them are not "protected" but are prisoners of their fate; they either join the lower class entitlement crowd or even worse, the responsible "middle class" that gets paid even less and fewer benefits for being:
1. A legal citizen.
2. Voting
3. Paying bills
4. Paying health insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
5. Paying taxes.
6. Not joining the underground illegal economy.
7. Believing that the Constitution means something.
we don't allow for profit companies to skim profits off of our police service, fire departments, libraries, ect; it is time we stop allowing this for our healthcare, utilities, and government function of money creation stolen by banks.
If you think your interests are alligned with your doctor's, think again, they are more alligned with organized capital, and with the lawyers
It's never 1 reason why countries go broke, but to many illegals doesn't help.
The entire multicultural shit is a disaster!
“This is America’s Black Economy. It stares us in the face every day. For the life of me I can’t figure why we don’t confront the problem. But notice that neither the Republican nor the Democrats have even raised it as an issue for 2011.”
I don’t know about you, but I have had to work for a company that used workers with forged green cards / working papers and always wondered why it is over looked.
The illegal workers can declare umpteen dependents and pay very little income tax.
The one thing they could not get out of was social security tax. Knowing this, the SS tax is collected and the worker will never use the benefits.
So if we do the math we have X amount of illegal workers.
Working for X amount of years.
Paying X amount of dollars in SS taxes.
And the gooberment gets to keep it.
Know your enemy………… Machiavelli 101
Wrong. If you come here illegally, get a forged SSN and work ten years (and pay ss) you will be entitled to benefits like any other American worker.
This fact blew my mind. But trust me it is the truth. If you pay into SS you get benefits. Legal/not legal DOES NOT MATTER. That is the law in our fair land.
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In reality most illegals don't apply for benefits. They don't know how and they're afraid to. If you don't apply, you don't get.
Furthermore, many Mexicans have used the same SSN so only the actual owner of that SSN, if any, would get the benefits. No doubt it's not only Mexicans. I just happen to have personal experience with them.
I have a hard time believing I would get SS benefits if I used a forged card with your SSN on it, especially if I had no documentation to prove that I really paid into the system.
i got to agree with you here, the SS administratioin cares nothing of legal status, and the same is true for the IRS
I guess you're not that bright. BECAUSE IT MADE YOUR EMPLOYER A FUCKTON OF MONEY.
as far as money outflows there isn't much difference between legal and illegal (migrant) workers. in CA the number of illegal (migrants) has dropped to almost nothing. the number of resident undocumented is much larger, these are people who have been assimilated but have no paperwork. there is no way these people are going back, they're Americans now.
Greenspan used to speak about this, he was in favor of bringing in more immigrant labor to fill the nations needs. As a solution Rep Issa CA-49, wants to allow more highly educated immigrants into this country. In his second term, Bush and Congressional Democrats forged an immigration policy, but Congressional Republicans blocked it, leaving us with no policy, or zero tolerance. But like firing state workers to save money in an economy with a huge income disparity is counter productive, so is a zero tolerance immigration policy.
assuming that some of these migrant workers are paid in cash, but most have forged or phony documents, which means money is withheld which they never see again.
and to look at it in real terms, when the guy who wants to clean your yard shows up in a cadillac and not an old bicycle, then you might think the system is really working in their favor. so far we're safe.
Yeah there are no illegal immigrants in California. The ones here have all assimilated. BWAHAHAHA
Pew Center for Hispanic Research or something like that had some estimates on the illegal population. Now why it is ok for them to stereotype and assume most of our illegals are Hispanic but no law enforcement is a seperate question but the number that blew me away was their estimate that illegals have about 5.5 million children of whom 4.5 million are, by virtue of a flawed in so many ways 14th amendment, US citizens.
Now, assuming average per student costs of public schools at $8000/year and with say, 3.5 million of these 'anchor' babies in school we've got a $25 billion education tab per year from hispanic illegals alone.
The Marie Antionnete's of our society enjoy purchasing their benevolent narcissistic arrogance with other people's money.
We have a dysfunctional family on the scale of a nation.
Sure....in the imaginary universe where Marie went to public schools, grew up on an AirForce base, slept in a car, put herself through college, and was gainfully employed from the age of 15 until now.
Have fun carting your outsized victim mentality to the Bastille.
"Marie went to public schools, grew up on an AirForce base, slept in a car, put herself through college, and was gainfully employed from the age of 15 until now."
Holy shit, that sentence describes my real life succinctly. I'm literally the Marie described.
We're twins!
Holloman / WSMR?
But I had my first real job at 11 as a dude ranch cook.
All the more obscene that she did all of that without privilege and yet was sold out by Wall Street and Washington for the sake of short term profits and votes.
If people want to be mules for Wall Street and Washington, chasing the carrot on a stick and getting whipped, climbing toward the illusory golden ring they are welcome to it.
As opposed to wasting time trying to beat the shit out of the cart?
Huh?
Are you laying down or agreeing with me?
The cart would be the illegals...it'll come to you...or...not.
oh yes they are being beaten and tortured on a daily basis by Joe Arpaio LOL
I feel the same way about the children of Europeans.
Everytime there is a new law to curb illegal immigration, I see millions of Europeans protesting in the streets of LA, Chicago, and Oakland, waving the French and German flags
If someone has $500k or more liquid why park it in US where it will either be confiscated to inflated away They go to Australia, Canada
- How many tax dollars disappear "under the table" to immigrants?
- How much would GDP drop without said immigrant workers?
- How much would a flood of (legal) immigrants help RE and other asset prices? (think of the 80s boom that saved Ronnie's ass)
"Just like the natural American workers do...:"
What the heck is a "natural" American worker?
Like, an Apache or Cherokee?
Bizarre!
False premise that throwing even more money at education will work.
Come on!
++++!
Bruce, love your posts and really appreciate your point of view and analysis. Thank you.
Here is a quote from the first mission statement of Rockefeller’s General Education Board in a document called Occasional Letter Number One (1906): “In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple….we will organize children…and teach them to do in perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way…..”
Bruce, our current education system is a success not a failure by design.
Is it so shocking to think that our educational system was designed to act as a switching station that directs our children to different tracks of the economy? Producing mindless workers, that our system needs to run the lower levels of the economy, is essential in order to sustain our economic way of life.
What do you think would happen if everyone in every high school in your state was a straight “A” student and they all got accepted to universities? What if that was the case in every high school across the country? Let’s just suppose that there was room in all of the universities for all of these kids. What would happen when they graduated from college? Where would they work? Is it possible to believe that all graduates could get jobs in upper management? Who would be left to work at Wal-Mart, Target, McDonald’s and Subway? Who would clean our pools and fix our plumbing? The economy that makes this country the greatest financial success in the world is built on the backs of the low and moderate wage-level workers, employed by large corporations. How many Harvard graduates are going to be satisfied working as a cashier or a waiter?
This system is an unmitigated success. We don't need to throw another dollar at it.
like your insight, same could be said of Iraq, 1991 to present, it is not a failure, as failure has been our aim the entire time=success
Its not my Education system...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/
Yes, Rocky, I agree. What this country needs to solve it's problems is a couple generations of good old fashioned poverty and starvation. That will instill that good old American work ethic. We can only hope it comes to pass, and rapidly!! We need to see more ribs on people.
Can I get a big cheer for poverty and starvation???
gh
LOL @ the sarcasm; further "so lets export everything we make, import nothing, we'll be so much better off"
big cheer for the ribs
Indeed
This is great, why does anyone with 2 cans of soup, a rifle with 50000 rounds, 4 acres of forest and 20oz of silver think they are well prepared for the apocalypse and fuck the rest of the country it can go to shit...
i know what you are thinking...
'cheeky fucker... i got 500 cans of soup'
it doesn't matter.
folks don't have to beaten to learn and i aint a fucking hippie - i'm hard on people but with a tough legal system which keeps the scum in line we can keep the ribs on hold.
Too random.
Let's get eugenic...everyone who tests with an IQ below 140 is drafted, regardless of physical condition, and sent into combat to take the oil reserves from Venezuela, Libya, etc ad nauseam
Would make the situation incredibly worse.
The US society is one that starts with inheritance. If ever the accumulated capital is reset, fear the worst in the US.
There are some of us who are prepared for the worst -- or close to it.
I'm in the deprivation and starvation camp. If an economy can be dismantled to start over, why can't the population as well?
When oil goes up to 200 to 300 hyperinflated dollars a barrel what do you think the population will do RR?
There will be a bunch of parked Hummers for sure. By the time oil ramps up to that point a lot will have already happened. Ain't like it's going to happen literally overnight. Might take a few days! Practically speaking, folks will have already burned down a few gov't buildings and the message will have been sent. I'm planning on stocking up on some more popcorn. I've got just about all I need stockpiled otherwise.
The US education system does not need rework.
It is constantly poaching talents from overseas, screwing the nations that trained the talents in the doing, both on spent education money and money making to come (investment side done)
Biggest irony might be that part of money sent back to all those 'illegals' are used to buy US exported food, sending the money back to the US and not trapping it in local economy.
Who knows? Reads like mercantilism...
Dos Zap - I go intp apts regularly - not that unusual to see 2 sets of bunk beds in each bedroom as well as the living room and perhaps the dining room as well, with a curtain or tablecloth as a room divider. I once opened a closet door and there was a guy laying there on a bunk roll watching like a 9" TV sitting on a little piece of furniture. There were clothes hanging in the closets.