Depending on the Kindness of Illegals
Notes from Mike Geraci on who the real freeloaders are in the illegal immigrant equation.
I’ve heard estimates of from 10 million to 30 million illegal immigrants in the country. To be conservative, let’s use 12 million. If one half of them work and earn the minimum wage (of $8.00/hr in Calif.), that’s 6 million earning an average of $320 per week each. (Some earn much more and some states have a lower minimum wage).
The current Social Security and Medicare cost is 7.65% times two (employee and employer) or 15.3%. With a wage of $320 X 15.3%, that comes to $48.96 per week per illegal going to the Feds. Multiply that times 6 million working and the total is $293,760,000 per week to the federal government.
Multiply that times 52 weeks and it comes to over $15 billion.
From the perspective of our duly elected representatives in Washington, since these are illegals, and therefore probably working under fake SS numbers, they don’t receive benefits. So this is free money for Congress to spend on special interest groups to buy votes. Since Congress has made so many irresponsible commitments, it’s impossible to pass up this newfound source of revenue.
Fence? What fence? Secure borders? Si. Bueno.
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So that’s why they made us study arithmetic!
On top of the $15 billion in SS and Medicare, there must be quite a bit in income tax withholdings — at least in a percentage of cases — and withholdings and sales taxes that go to local and state governments. Offsetting that part, though, is the cost of schooling, some medical care, some public safety costs. I’d love to see a comparison between the percentage of incomes going to U.S. taxes of illegal immigrants vs. corporate CEOs — who, incidentally, refuse to mow my lawn or to pick lettuce in the sun when it’s 100 degrees in the shade.
Comment by Al — February 22, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Wow! $15 billion with a “b”. That’s about one week in Irag.
Comment by Steve Alber — February 23, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
You’re right. And since you’ve connected those two issues. is there an incipient solution here to two problems at once? What if the path to a green card or citizenship could be a year of service in the armed forces? We’re desperately short of soldiers (same as lettuce-pickers), and we need the immigrant workers — and the fence-building uber-hawks foaming at the mouth over immigration are also lovers of the idea of building up the armed forces, so maybe this is the condition that would re-balance their brains.
Comment by Al — February 23, 2008 @ 9:18 pm