The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: rangerrebew on April 05, 2021, 12:18:40 pm
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Amnesty Would Impose Large Costs on Social Security and Medicare
By Jason Richwine on April 5, 2021
Jason Richwine is a resident scholar at the Center for Immigration Studies.
Summary
Under current law, illegal immigrants are net contributors to Social Security and Medicare. They partially pay in to entitlement programs, but cannot legally receive benefits. By granting eligibility for benefits, however, amnesty would transform illegal immigrants from net contributors into net beneficiaries, imposing steep costs on the Social Security and Medicare trust funds:
Amnesty would impose a lifetime net cost on Social Security and Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) of about $129,000 per amnesty recipient. This cost is the present discounted value of benefits received minus new taxes paid.
If 10 million illegal immigrants receive amnesty, the total cost to Social Security and Medicare Part A would be roughly $1.3 trillion in present value, equivalent to a one-time transfer of 6 percent of GDP.
Because most of these costs would occur outside its 10-year budget window, the Congressional Budget Office is unlikely to include them when it scores amnesty legislation.
https://cis.org/Report/Amnesty-Would-Impose-Large-Costs-Social-Security-and-Medicare