So basically wages for low paid workers are SO low that each low paid worker, whether a migrant or not, is a burden on the taxpayer, but it’s migrants that are the problem. It’s got jack shit all to do with the fact that companies are getting away with paying a minimum wage that is significantly too low.
The headline says “low-skilled”, but the paper says “low-wage”, meaning half the average wage. They are related but not at all the same thing. This reported cost of £150,000 is over 40 years, which means it assumes that the worker earns half the average wage _for their entire working life_. The same chart also shows that the _average-wage_ migrant worker brings in £250,000 more than the UK resident equivalent until state pension age.
Even in the scenario where half the migrants are “low-wage” and the other half gets paid the average wage, on average, each migrant still brings in £190,000 to the Treasury over their working life.
> The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the average low-earner who came to Britain aged 25 cost the Government more overall than they paid in from the moment they arrived.
Ok, and what is the figure for an average low-skilled British citizen from the moment they were born?
> By contrast, the average British-born worker boosts the public finances by £280,000 by the time they reach 66, even adjusting for education and health spending before they start work.
OK, and the equivalent migrant with the same education arriving here at 25 please?
And bankers and off shore accounts cost the tax payer how much?
No no no! Without migrants the country would be on its knees!! We would all be fuelling our housing using our own shit because of the levels of poverty that the country would experience. Migrants are high skilled net contributors and without them being a pensioner would be like being in the hunger games and anyone saying anything different is a right wing Tommy Robinson loving nazi.
This is such a bizarre article, it almost seems ai written but is obviously not, perhaps simply been edited to seem more human?
Obviously the headline is ragebait but the way the article is written is just full of qoutes that imply contradictions to the anti migrant rhetoric of the headline.
Here are some examples
“This is because low-paid migrants – who the OBR assumes earn half the average wage – put more demand on public services such as the NHS compared to their relatively low-tax payments”
Why do they only make the assumptions that they do? The statistics are available.
“While low-paid migrants are a drain on public finances, the OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers. This is mainly because they are not educated in the UK.”
And why does this contradict the previous point? Isn’t this more an article about how UK wages are so low that unless you’re above the average wage by a LOT that you’re literally a financial drain?
So ultimately the point about migrants in the headline is irrelevant and could’ve easily been titled that anyone in the bottom half of the tax bracket is a financial drain on the UK, and that bizarrely a migrant is less of a burden simply because they got some or all of their education abroad?
I’m not really here for the politics of the article and more about the pointless ragebait headline in complete contrast to the contents of the report.
It’s fine, we will work till 70 and then 75 then die.
It’s weird to quantify someone’s contribution to society in terms of whether they pay more tax or not
If someone works as a hospital cleaner or health care assistant, their work has value beyond their tax contributions
Meanwhile there are high earning individuals who’s jobs are parasitic or a detriment to society
Since Blair governments have told us that migrants are a huge boost for us. They told us that we were all better off. In reality cut throat capitalists have used low skilled labour as an excuse to keep wages low, avoid investment in productivity boosting tools etc.
That Blair and the rest have the cheek to still parrot their lies is amazing.
Ultimately, this isn’t about blaming legal migrants. They come and work and I can’t blame them. I blame those that lie about them and have allowed wages to be suppressed.
Either Szu Ping Chan or Tim Wallace need to be fired. This is so poorly written. Who chose that headline?
a: We control immigration 100%.
b: We control immigration 100%.
What a misleading title, typical disgusting Telegraph story headline trying to stir up hatred.
It isn’t the fact that they are migrants that they cost more to support than they contribute, but the fact that they are low paid. If you a low paid British person you are more of a drain on the economy than a migrant because you were supported during your childhood.
The OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers.
No wonder so many get over when there is 150k profit per asylum seeker. Stopping making it profitable situation for the contractor services would be the starting point.
Less worried about the economic cost and more the social cost. We’re bringing losers, rapists and violent animals into the country.
The Millionaires are becoming billionaires, the corporations are absorbing more and more of the assets and wealth.. but we should all have a problem with somebody with slightly less well off than the rest of us that are struggling to get by?
And who’s telling us all this to make us angry? The press owned by and for the billionaires.
Now guess who’s idea it was to ger out of the economic trade bloc that supplied migrants who were a financial net benefit and what kind of news outlets peddled that decision, who are also now crying about “hurr durr migrants”. You cooked your soup with your high and mighty attitude, now grab the spoon and eat it!
Also important is the comment by u/LazarusOwenhart :
“So basically wages for low paid workers are SO low that each low paid worker, whether a migrant or not, is a burden on the taxpayer, but it’s migrants that are the problem. It’s got jack shit all to do with the fact that companies are getting away with paying a minimum wage that is significantly too low.”
The vast majority of migrants that come via legal routes have salary requirements, and they have financial requirements to bring their family. The majority of the migrant partners find work and pay taxes.
But there are certain demographics who don’t contribute enough and bring partners and become tax burdens. It is right to call them out, but if you do you get called alot of things. There was a recent post here about a migrant bringing his 10+ kids.
Illegal migrants (or asylum seekers) are another story. Shouldn’t mix legal migrants with illegal ones for stats.
This provides some insight into migrants impact on the workforce
>the OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers.
Oh dear, that is awkward.
Rule of thumb, nothing the Torygraph says is true, and everything they say is a lie.
My brain is exploding ….
I mean, this is the first time in years I am reading serious policy analysis in American (read DUMB) dominated English language media …..
Gotta take a break ….
Well done Labour!!
God save the King!!
Damn, this sub is getting soaked with right wing newspapers these days
I love the smell of disengenous Telegraph articles on this sub in the morning! 🗣️
Why does no one ever talk about the people leaving the uk, the highly skilled talent I’ve seen leave the country over the last couple years is really high
Biggest lie I’ve ever heard. They don’t count how much they spend or produce or what
A lot of commenters have already pointed out how flawed this telegraph article is (shock horror), but I’m just going to add that “tax payed” is a really poor approximation of the total net fiscal transfer of a migrant worker, as it completely ignores the tax that businesses pay on the profits generated by value added by the worker, which typically equal around half of the total tax take generated.
I’d take any of the many wonderful economic migrants I’ve worked with in my life over a single tax dodging neo-liberal bloodsucker.
This was obvious to me even over a decade ago. We were getting a lot of minimum wage EU migrants essentially paying no tax, but bringing/’having kids, getting NHS, schooling, child benefits etc. Also things like translation services, extra help for English at school. Also a lot of them were getting in trouble with the criminal justice system, from petty crimes to murder.
the only way low skill/pay migrants can ‘pay their way’ is if they’re single, unburdened, dont’ use the healthcare system beyond occasional emergencies. A small minority were like this but most weren’t. So a migrant scheme that only allows physically healthy single/childless couples would be a start, and no inherent right to reside in the UK, aka temporary workers visas, kinda like the Australian scheme. Obviously this would be a separate category to long term/permanent migrants.
“It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” Milton Friedman
30 comments
So basically wages for low paid workers are SO low that each low paid worker, whether a migrant or not, is a burden on the taxpayer, but it’s migrants that are the problem. It’s got jack shit all to do with the fact that companies are getting away with paying a minimum wage that is significantly too low.
The headline says “low-skilled”, but the paper says “low-wage”, meaning half the average wage. They are related but not at all the same thing. This reported cost of £150,000 is over 40 years, which means it assumes that the worker earns half the average wage _for their entire working life_. The same chart also shows that the _average-wage_ migrant worker brings in £250,000 more than the UK resident equivalent until state pension age.
Even in the scenario where half the migrants are “low-wage” and the other half gets paid the average wage, on average, each migrant still brings in £190,000 to the Treasury over their working life.
> The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the average low-earner who came to Britain aged 25 cost the Government more overall than they paid in from the moment they arrived.
Ok, and what is the figure for an average low-skilled British citizen from the moment they were born?
> By contrast, the average British-born worker boosts the public finances by £280,000 by the time they reach 66, even adjusting for education and health spending before they start work.
OK, and the equivalent migrant with the same education arriving here at 25 please?
And bankers and off shore accounts cost the tax payer how much?
No no no! Without migrants the country would be on its knees!! We would all be fuelling our housing using our own shit because of the levels of poverty that the country would experience. Migrants are high skilled net contributors and without them being a pensioner would be like being in the hunger games and anyone saying anything different is a right wing Tommy Robinson loving nazi.
This is such a bizarre article, it almost seems ai written but is obviously not, perhaps simply been edited to seem more human?
Obviously the headline is ragebait but the way the article is written is just full of qoutes that imply contradictions to the anti migrant rhetoric of the headline.
Here are some examples
“This is because low-paid migrants – who the OBR assumes earn half the average wage – put more demand on public services such as the NHS compared to their relatively low-tax payments”
Why do they only make the assumptions that they do? The statistics are available.
“While low-paid migrants are a drain on public finances, the OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers. This is mainly because they are not educated in the UK.”
And why does this contradict the previous point? Isn’t this more an article about how UK wages are so low that unless you’re above the average wage by a LOT that you’re literally a financial drain?
So ultimately the point about migrants in the headline is irrelevant and could’ve easily been titled that anyone in the bottom half of the tax bracket is a financial drain on the UK, and that bizarrely a migrant is less of a burden simply because they got some or all of their education abroad?
I’m not really here for the politics of the article and more about the pointless ragebait headline in complete contrast to the contents of the report.
It’s fine, we will work till 70 and then 75 then die.
It’s weird to quantify someone’s contribution to society in terms of whether they pay more tax or not
If someone works as a hospital cleaner or health care assistant, their work has value beyond their tax contributions
Meanwhile there are high earning individuals who’s jobs are parasitic or a detriment to society
Since Blair governments have told us that migrants are a huge boost for us. They told us that we were all better off. In reality cut throat capitalists have used low skilled labour as an excuse to keep wages low, avoid investment in productivity boosting tools etc.
That Blair and the rest have the cheek to still parrot their lies is amazing.
Ultimately, this isn’t about blaming legal migrants. They come and work and I can’t blame them. I blame those that lie about them and have allowed wages to be suppressed.
Either Szu Ping Chan or Tim Wallace need to be fired. This is so poorly written. Who chose that headline?
a: We control immigration 100%.
b: We control immigration 100%.
What a misleading title, typical disgusting Telegraph story headline trying to stir up hatred.
It isn’t the fact that they are migrants that they cost more to support than they contribute, but the fact that they are low paid. If you a low paid British person you are more of a drain on the economy than a migrant because you were supported during your childhood.
The OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers.
No wonder so many get over when there is 150k profit per asylum seeker. Stopping making it profitable situation for the contractor services would be the starting point.
Less worried about the economic cost and more the social cost. We’re bringing losers, rapists and violent animals into the country.
The Millionaires are becoming billionaires, the corporations are absorbing more and more of the assets and wealth.. but we should all have a problem with somebody with slightly less well off than the rest of us that are struggling to get by?
And who’s telling us all this to make us angry? The press owned by and for the billionaires.
No they don’t 😂 white brits don’t want to work at McDonald’s so what’s the solution? Pay people livable wages or get poor desperate people to work for nothing. Immigrants actually grow the economy as poor people spend money and the rich hoard it! https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2023/02/23/immigrants-make-economies-more-dynamic-increase-employment-growth/
Now guess who’s idea it was to ger out of the economic trade bloc that supplied migrants who were a financial net benefit and what kind of news outlets peddled that decision, who are also now crying about “hurr durr migrants”. You cooked your soup with your high and mighty attitude, now grab the spoon and eat it!
Also important is the comment by u/LazarusOwenhart :
“So basically wages for low paid workers are SO low that each low paid worker, whether a migrant or not, is a burden on the taxpayer, but it’s migrants that are the problem. It’s got jack shit all to do with the fact that companies are getting away with paying a minimum wage that is significantly too low.”
The vast majority of migrants that come via legal routes have salary requirements, and they have financial requirements to bring their family. The majority of the migrant partners find work and pay taxes.
But there are certain demographics who don’t contribute enough and bring partners and become tax burdens. It is right to call them out, but if you do you get called alot of things. There was a recent post here about a migrant bringing his 10+ kids.
Illegal migrants (or asylum seekers) are another story. Shouldn’t mix legal migrants with illegal ones for stats.
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/
This provides some insight into migrants impact on the workforce
>the OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers.
Oh dear, that is awkward.
Rule of thumb, nothing the Torygraph says is true, and everything they say is a lie.
My brain is exploding ….
I mean, this is the first time in years I am reading serious policy analysis in American (read DUMB) dominated English language media …..
Gotta take a break ….
Well done Labour!!
God save the King!!
Damn, this sub is getting soaked with right wing newspapers these days
I love the smell of disengenous Telegraph articles on this sub in the morning! 🗣️
Why does no one ever talk about the people leaving the uk, the highly skilled talent I’ve seen leave the country over the last couple years is really high
Biggest lie I’ve ever heard. They don’t count how much they spend or produce or what
A lot of commenters have already pointed out how flawed this telegraph article is (shock horror), but I’m just going to add that “tax payed” is a really poor approximation of the total net fiscal transfer of a migrant worker, as it completely ignores the tax that businesses pay on the profits generated by value added by the worker, which typically equal around half of the total tax take generated.
I’d take any of the many wonderful economic migrants I’ve worked with in my life over a single tax dodging neo-liberal bloodsucker.
This was obvious to me even over a decade ago. We were getting a lot of minimum wage EU migrants essentially paying no tax, but bringing/’having kids, getting NHS, schooling, child benefits etc. Also things like translation services, extra help for English at school. Also a lot of them were getting in trouble with the criminal justice system, from petty crimes to murder.
the only way low skill/pay migrants can ‘pay their way’ is if they’re single, unburdened, dont’ use the healthcare system beyond occasional emergencies. A small minority were like this but most weren’t. So a migrant scheme that only allows physically healthy single/childless couples would be a start, and no inherent right to reside in the UK, aka temporary workers visas, kinda like the Australian scheme. Obviously this would be a separate category to long term/permanent migrants.
“It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” Milton Friedman