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Britain
Migration has brought 'zero' economic benefit
2008-03-31
Ten years of record immigration to Britain has produced virtually no economic benefits for the country, a parliamentary inquiry has found.

A House of Lords committee, which is due to report next Tuesday, will call into question Government claims that foreign workers add £6 billion each year to the wealth of the nation. It is expected to say this must be balanced against the increase in population and their use of local services such as health and education, resulting in little benefit per head of the population.

"Our overall conclusion is that the economic benefits of net immigration to the resident population are small and close to zero in the long run," the report will say.
Posted by:anonymous5089

#6  DV: The problem is, you bring in one person to work a low paying job, his wife and kids come in, and you spend the equivalent of a upper middle class salary in welfare and socialist benefits to his ENTIRE family.

It's worse than that. They bring in their grandparents, who then get on Medicaid, food stamps and SSI. Basically, businesses that employ illegals get a subsidy from other taxpayers. If they had to foot the full cost of their benefits, businesses that employ illegals wouldn't do so. It was Milton Friedman who said that mass immigration is incompatible with the welfare state. He was right.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2008-03-31 15:14  

#5  Another issue is the amount of money sent overseas to support relatives rather than spent locally and reintroduced into the economy. If you balanced that by cutting foreign aid payments this might be nothing, but otherwise it should be tallied as a negative.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2008-03-31 14:11  

#4  Woodrow - I've noticed that the few places that pay a so-called "living wage" (that is, way above market wages) all seem to be public entities (such as cities).

So, they're not paying the above-market wages out of their own pockets but out of the taxpayers' (i.c., other people's) pockets.

Using other people's money to feel good about themselves. Yup, they're all Democrats librul. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2008-03-31 13:07  

#3  There is such a thing as a living wage: If the employer doesn't pay it, someone else ends up footing the bill

Somebody else ends up footing the bill in any case. Do you think the money comes from the Payroll Fairy?
Posted by: Pappy   2008-03-31 12:54  

#2  The problem is not immigration. The problem is that employers want to bring in people who will work below a living wage. The key is the living wage. If employers do not pay a living wage, then society will have to pick up the tab to pay for what these people can not: subsidized housing, medical, schools, free food, etc.

This is the same problem we have here in America. Individually, employers can get cheap labor but in the big picture our humanitarian societies then get stuck footing the bill for all of the costs that the employers wage does not permit.

There is such a thing as a living wage: If the employer doesn't pay it, someone else ends up footing the bill unless the rest of us are willing to accept abject poverty and starvation resulting around us.
Posted by: Woodrow Slusorong7967   2008-03-31 10:46  

#1  The problem is, you bring in one person to work a low paying job, his wife and kids come in, and you spend the equivalent of a upper middle class salary in welfare and socialist benefits to his ENTIRE family.
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-03-31 09:27  

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