The US federal budget is in dire straits. The 2022 budget deficit will be $1.4 trillion, with publicly held federal debt of about $24.6 trillion — Roughly equal to 94% of GDP. And that doesn’t include about $6.9 trillion of other debt that’s accounted for in Social Security, Medicare, and other government programs.
Congress must ultimately address this imbalance by raising revenues, cutting spending, or both. Governments should increase legal immigration and raise revenues instead of raising taxes.
The Congressional Budget Office states that publicly held federal debt 118% of GDP in 2033 — and that assumes there are no wars, pandemics, or other emergencies in between that will spur governments to spend trillions more. But that’s only for the next decade.economist penn wharton Federal government debt is estimated to grow to about 225% of GDP over the next 30 years. This does not include local and state government obligations.
Immigration contributes more to tax revenues than it consumes government profits, so increasing legal immigration fills that void without significantly increasing taxes.
Kate Institute Recently released white paper It details the financial impact of immigration in the United States. Adapted from the fiscal model created by the National Academy of Sciences, all immigrants would, in present value terms, pay about $267,000 more in taxes at the state, local, and federal levels than they would consume in the next period. I found out that I would have to pay 30 years. If the immigrant population were to double her size, with no change in average age or education, that would add about $11.9 trillion in net tax revenue over the next 30 years.
More importantly, it’s additional income without tax increases.
The taxes immigrants pay and the benefits they receive are highly dependent on the immigrant’s age of arrival in the United States and final level of education. For example, a high school dropout immigrant who arrives at age 25 will pay about $216,000 more in taxes than she will receive over the next 30 years. However, immigrants arriving at the same age who eventually receive a graduate degree will pay about $1.3 million more in taxes than they receive.
Unskilled immigrants arriving between the ages of 20 and 24 are in the financial sweet spot with the widest gap between what they pay in taxes and what they receive in benefits. For highly skilled immigrants with a bachelor’s degree or above, the financially advantageous age is from she’s 25 to she’s 30. Immigrants in these age groups arrive without access to government benefits or public schooling. As a result, they can start working right away, pay taxes, and continue working for decades before retiring and receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits.
The financial cost of U.S.-born immigrant descendants complicates matters, but their inclusion will have a positive financial impact over the next 30 years. and you pay $57,000 more in taxes than the benefits you consume. For immigrants who eventually complete a graduate degree, the positive contribution dwindles to about $1.1 million.
Age, increasing education, and decreasing consumption of government benefits are the three main reasons immigrants pay more in taxes than they do on benefits. More than 60% of her immigrants are in the prime working age range from her 25 to her 54, the time when welfare access is lowest and employment taxes are highest. In contrast, only 38% of U.S.-born Americans are of prime working age.
Immigrants are also more educated than ever, and as a result earn higher wages and pay higher taxes. For example, an immigrant and her U.S.-born American under the age of 27 have about the same level of education. However, in 2013, the immigrant was less educated than the native when she was 18.
Finally, immigrants consume less government benefits than second- and third-generation Native Americans.Immigrants, on average, consume less benefits than Americans of three or more generations at any age to exclude From 5 to 17 years old.
The difference is most pronounced in retirement entitlement programs, where immigrants aged 65 and older earn on average more than $110,000 less than third-generation Americans aged 65 to 80, and about $7 more than second-generation Americans. $6,000 less. Government restrictions on the welfare of new immigrants may explain some of this difference.
Increasing legal immigration at all skill levels, especially highly educated young immigrants, will help governments balance their books. More legal immigration won’t completely solve America’s fiscal problems, but it will increase tax revenue without raising tax rates. Congress will have to curb spending and reform the near-bankruptcy eligibility program no matter what happens to legal immigration, but liberalizing immigration will generate more revenue without increasing taxes. can. The time has come for immigration to become part of the financial debate.
Alex Nowrastheh is Director of Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.
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