The hidden cost of illegal workers

Low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more in services than they pay in taxes.

from the March 19, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

To Rector of the Heritage Foundation, America has to be tough on illegal immigration. He figures at least a billion people worldwide would like to live in the US. But that toughness needs primarily to be aimed at employers of illegals, not at illegals themselves. "There have to be serious consequences to employers for hiring illegals," he says. Such firms could be readily located, since about half of illegals use fake Social Security numbers that can be detected by the Social Security Administration, he adds.

Reflecting the public's concern, Congress has been striving to deal with immigration. CIS's Krikorian suspects the Senate will pass an immigration bill that would let illegals stay and eventually get citizenship. But he doubts the bill will get past the House, where an amnesty is the "kiss of death" – a guarantee that Democrats will lose their majority in the next election.

Rector worries about the costs of opening the country to a new flood of immigrants. A proposed Senate measure. "would be financially ruinous for the United States," he charges.

Rector calculated that a bill passed by the Senate last year would have increased the number of immigrants gaining legal status over the next 20 years by 55 million to 60 million. Most of those immigrants probably would have less than a high school education. And since low-skilled individuals, legal or illegal, cost the government much more than they pay in taxes, Uncle Sam would be out-of-pocket $70 billion a year.

Rector calculates that the average household of a high school dropout pays about $9,600 in taxes, including payroll, sales, excise, possibly income (often offset by the Earned Income Tax Credit), property, etc. That same household receives about $32,000 a year in government services. These include Social Security, Medicare, education, welfare, highways, police and fire protection, etc.

The US should select its immigrants, preferably from among the well-educated who pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits, Rector says. Neither he nor Krikorian says it's necessary to expand guest-worker programs to provide employers with more employees.

Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center struck a blow at existing guest-worker programs, and perhaps Mr. Bush's proposal, with a detailed report concluding that guest workers are "close to slavery." They are paid little, routinely cheated out of wages, forced to live in squalid conditions, and held virtually captive by employers who seize their documents. It's an "untenable situation ... not morally acceptable," says Mary Bauer, author of the report.

1 | Page 2