So who are you going to believe? Cato or Heritage? The results seem mixed.
This doesnt even take into account how illegals can be paid below minimum wage and save us money on things we buy.
See other thread for my reasoning and analysis of how much illegals cost each household (based on Heritage) and how much they might save us. Illegals might actually be better than low skilled legals because they probably dont get as many benefits yet work for almost nothing.
Summation of post in other thread:
Illegals cost us at the most 900 dollars per household, more like 500 dollars or even less. You just have to decide for yourself if you save 500 dollars per year due to cheap illegal sub minimum wage labor. I think I do.
Note: I'm not sure if they work for less than minimum wage, but I think they must otherwise there is no real advantage to hiring them. Obviously there is some advantage to hiring them, which I assume is passed along to us.
You failed to consider that with the amnesty, their benefits and taxes both increase. With amnesty, the benefits they receive increase 117%, and with the addition of income taxes, taxes go up 77%. So, the per household is way off in direct benefits. Then, you need to consider indirect benefits, the deficit, the impact on the US$, the resulting inflation, the impact on legal residents of the inflation on their declining purchasing power, etc. just to get a more true picture on the current year cash flow drain on the economy. You've looked at a very small part of the overall picture.
One year ago today, the US$/Euro was 1.2777. Today it is 1.3452 - a 5.3% devaluation. About 20% of that devaluation is directly due to the deficit caused by illegals. That is 1.06%, which equates to about 6/10 of 1% annual inflation. But that is .6% per year, which adds up. Over each legal US Citizens lifespan, the illegals (amnestees?) alone will cause 59% increase in the cost of living above and beyond the inflation we would experience without them. Then, when you look at just the deficit, and how it alone is responsible for about 2 million Americans being out of work, or about 400,000 well-paying jobs being lost due to illegals, the annual cash flow cost, before social security, the average goes way up to nearly $2000 per household annually. Then, consider that the average remaining live expectancy is for the illegals is 60 years, and the cost per household, in current dollars is $120,000 over the lifespan of the illegals. Then, you add in the 59% increase in the cost of living directly attributable to the illegals, that comes out to $191,000 which is still in current dollars as this is due to the increased cost of living above and beyond the natural inflation that would be experience without the illegals. I think very few households will be pleased to be informed that over their lives, $191,000, in 2007 dollars, will be taken away to support these illegals.
The bottom line, every unskilled worker, where legal or not, whether immigrant or not, is a huge drain on the economy.
