One thing that did come up was that immigrants are a net contributor to the UK
https://twitter.com/ayocaesar/status/12 ... 66533?s=21
This fact was thrown in without a challenge because our Home Office will helpfully supply figures that can sort of prove it Ish if you don’t dig too deep, take a lot on trust and don’t use much logic. After all it is an emotive subject and to publicise that every Asylum seeker that we accept could come with a potential £500,000 bill won’t play too well.
I’m often accused of coming up with anecdotal evidence and such like but let me float a few back of my fag packet figures here. It is to look at purely the statement eg the financial cost, not any social benefits or morality.
Let’s say we have a couple coming to the UK from the Third World.
They are both 25 and come here with three children aged 5, 6 and 7 so no cost to us of their birth in a NHS hospital.
They both work for a salary of £25,000 each.
None of the above is an outrageous example imo.
It is a fact that the third world birth rate is higher and £25,000 is the figure that is deemed by many as too high with regard to the new UK points system. It is £5000 lower than the average wage but as we are often told immigrants take on the lower paid jobs.
We have over twice as many immigrants from non EU countries as we do from EU countries.
One figure I have seen quoted on FullFact is EU immigrants contribute £1.05 for every £1 they take out. For non EU countries they put in £0.85 for every £1 they take out. That doesn’t seem an unreasonable estimate and in isolation kind of makes you wonder about net contributions given the respective numbers but moving on.
Remember we are only talking the cost/net financial contributions. I accept that an immigrant may cure the Coronavirus, win the X Factor or give us the most effective way to de fluff your navel but we are talking pounds shillings and pence and Mr and Mrs Average.
The cost to the state of educating a child at school is roughly £4,700 per pupil at primary school and £6,200 per pupil at secondary school. For ease let’s say a linear £5,500 per year. Let’s say none of our couples 3 children go onto higher education so they are going to go to school for 10-12 years.
So the bill to the state to educate those 3 children is £181,500 working on zero inflation and rises.
Also up to 16 they will each qualify for child benefit of £20.70 per week for the first and £13.70 for each of the other two. So that’s a shade under £25,000 again working on zero inflation and rises.
So the cost to the state for our couple just for the 3 children being alive and going to school is £206,500.
Our couple on £25,000 each will each pay roughly £2500 tax and £2000 national insurance so they are contributing £9000 a year between them.
They both work uninterrupted for 42 years until the 67 retirement age so they contribute a total of £378,000. So after their children’s schooling and child benefits they are contributing a net £171,500 over their working lives.
Let’s assume the state has made no provision for housing.
The wife is going out to work in the big wide world which isn’t always so and maybe less so amongst certain demographics due to cultural reasons.
They do not claim for help with school meals, school uniform etc etc.
None of the children go to 6th form
None of the children go to University and run up a student loan which they are never going to repay
The five of them only make the most minimal call on the NHS because £171,500 over 42 years for two people and say 33 years for the children until they are 16, and not supported by the parents, isn’t paying for too many heart transplants.
Which then leaves the million dollar question. What happens to our couple then? We deport them and they receive no pension, which doesn’t sound terribly fair to me? Otherwise once they start to receive their state pension they aren’t going to remain net contributors for very long.
Even if we repeat this model for every immigrant I’m struggling to see the whole net contributor argument no matter what Home Office figures might be dredged up.
For example there are at least 115,000 Somalians in the UK and the unemployment rate amongst them is 40% plus. So we need 43,000 of our couples, 86,000 tax and NI contributions to just pay for the Somalians job seekers allowance before we even look at housing them, NHS, schooling etc etc.
So no I’m not seeing it.
I accept you can throw in a billionaire that will offset many of the bills and skew the figures but that simply encourages a points system where we are choosy.
Maybe Russian oligarchs get an automatic 50 points and Somalians get an automatic minus 50 points?
It sounds harsh but as the lady said, stealing the line of a famous conservative commentator. facts don’t care about your feelings.