I know that Cato often gets cited to show how nice migrants are for the economy. The way they measure fiscal impact is interesting. Normally, what people think of when they think of "welfare" is just means-tested welfare. Cato adds Social Security and Medicare in as their list of welfare (which migrants use less for very obvious reasons). Their justification for this is that those technically are part of government spending and you can't just cherrypick what to include and what to exclude. So, fine, as you can tell from my analysis, government usage also includes Social Security and Medicare, but it also includes other things such as stuff related to law enforcement and public transit, because hey, if we're going to use that logic, might as well go all the way, right? Another thing: Cato uses the ASEC from the Current Population Survey, which isn't bad, it's generally recognized by economists, but it does have a tendency to underestimate welfare use disproportionately for migrants and that's why CIS uses the SIPP instead (see: https://cis.org/Report/Cost-Welfare-Use-Immigrant-and-Native-Households). The reason why the AESC gets used is because it’s got a much larger sample size and allows you to run state and local analyses. Oh also, they count the children of immigrants as natives, so all their burden gets assigned to natives as well. Again, they have justifications for it, just not very good ones, especially since people who actually understand this care about race and not the legal status, the legal status isn't some magical wand that suddenly turns poor dumb people from failed states into elite human capital.
Aside from Cato, there are studies that use the general equilibrium model rather than generational accounting in order to factor in indirect benefits/costs. It's a noble effort but those papers are usually not great because they are laden with so many assumptions, some of which are certainly not safe ones at all, so their estimates usually all end up being hard to take seriously. Mainstream economists can't even get the basics right. Here's one: immigration and wages. Is there an effect? Lots of economists say no, but that's just because shift-share instruments, a commonly employed method, captures both the immediate shock from the new wave of migrants and the catch-up effect from previous waves of migrants, so they always understate the negative effect (see: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24285). Or, another problem: natives hurt by migration relocate elsewhere, of course you can just pretend there's no effect if the people who were hurt left (see: https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/713148 and https://drive.google.com/file/d/19r6QhTIkSaF4tQIvlkEndlexWHKz3ARb/view). Okay, so the average economist can’t even measure the effect on wages correctly. Moreover, if we’re going to try to model the indirect side of things, we’re going to have to zoom out a lot more because there’s a whole lot of externalities to be accounted for from National IQ on well-being beyond the individuals themselves (see: https://openpsych.net/files/papers/Kirkegaard_2014e.pdf). Anyways, I just wouldn't take those seriously. You can also read this piece, might be of interest: https://www.sebjenseb.net/p/the-case-for-border-control
It's embarrassing that my compatriots who cross the border illegally, receive welfare benefits while our Veterans are homeless.
All illegal aliens with children are set up on a trajectory of food stamps, free housing and many of them have their kids classified as "special needs" - the kid gets extra cash monthly, their schools get more money and the doctors are financially compensated. It's rampant in Miami. Everyone knows about it, politicians like Maria Elvira Salazar are paid to remain silent.
Pet peeve for me. They're all parasites. We weren't allowed to be on welfare when we arrived in Miami from Cuba, our sponsors were responsible for our expenses, as it should be.
It's possible to adjust for age distribution by figuring out the net contribution for each age span x race combination, then multiplying the cells for the non-whites by the white age proportions, and taking the sum. This method can also be used to adjust other summary statistics for age and sex composition, e.g. crime rates.
>by figuring out the net contribution for each age span x race combination
Yeah that's the big problem. I'm not sure where to find the data to do this. I would have done the generational accounting method if I could have found a way to. If you got any insights, by all means
Great breakdown, have read the older version done, but the change of whites positioned is quite stark. My finger is on that the aging and disabled population increased, since whites are more top-heavy age wise in the US (well, everywhere).
Thank you for redoing this for 2022.
It was a good learning experience for teaching myself how to use Excel 😅
Do you have anything on the fiscal impact of immigrants? Some studies I've seen show a positive fiscal impact from them, especially from illegals
I know that Cato often gets cited to show how nice migrants are for the economy. The way they measure fiscal impact is interesting. Normally, what people think of when they think of "welfare" is just means-tested welfare. Cato adds Social Security and Medicare in as their list of welfare (which migrants use less for very obvious reasons). Their justification for this is that those technically are part of government spending and you can't just cherrypick what to include and what to exclude. So, fine, as you can tell from my analysis, government usage also includes Social Security and Medicare, but it also includes other things such as stuff related to law enforcement and public transit, because hey, if we're going to use that logic, might as well go all the way, right? Another thing: Cato uses the ASEC from the Current Population Survey, which isn't bad, it's generally recognized by economists, but it does have a tendency to underestimate welfare use disproportionately for migrants and that's why CIS uses the SIPP instead (see: https://cis.org/Report/Cost-Welfare-Use-Immigrant-and-Native-Households). The reason why the AESC gets used is because it’s got a much larger sample size and allows you to run state and local analyses. Oh also, they count the children of immigrants as natives, so all their burden gets assigned to natives as well. Again, they have justifications for it, just not very good ones, especially since people who actually understand this care about race and not the legal status, the legal status isn't some magical wand that suddenly turns poor dumb people from failed states into elite human capital.
Aside from Cato, there are studies that use the general equilibrium model rather than generational accounting in order to factor in indirect benefits/costs. It's a noble effort but those papers are usually not great because they are laden with so many assumptions, some of which are certainly not safe ones at all, so their estimates usually all end up being hard to take seriously. Mainstream economists can't even get the basics right. Here's one: immigration and wages. Is there an effect? Lots of economists say no, but that's just because shift-share instruments, a commonly employed method, captures both the immediate shock from the new wave of migrants and the catch-up effect from previous waves of migrants, so they always understate the negative effect (see: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24285). Or, another problem: natives hurt by migration relocate elsewhere, of course you can just pretend there's no effect if the people who were hurt left (see: https://sci-hub.se/10.1086/713148 and https://drive.google.com/file/d/19r6QhTIkSaF4tQIvlkEndlexWHKz3ARb/view). Okay, so the average economist can’t even measure the effect on wages correctly. Moreover, if we’re going to try to model the indirect side of things, we’re going to have to zoom out a lot more because there’s a whole lot of externalities to be accounted for from National IQ on well-being beyond the individuals themselves (see: https://openpsych.net/files/papers/Kirkegaard_2014e.pdf). Anyways, I just wouldn't take those seriously. You can also read this piece, might be of interest: https://www.sebjenseb.net/p/the-case-for-border-control
It's embarrassing that my compatriots who cross the border illegally, receive welfare benefits while our Veterans are homeless.
All illegal aliens with children are set up on a trajectory of food stamps, free housing and many of them have their kids classified as "special needs" - the kid gets extra cash monthly, their schools get more money and the doctors are financially compensated. It's rampant in Miami. Everyone knows about it, politicians like Maria Elvira Salazar are paid to remain silent.
Pet peeve for me. They're all parasites. We weren't allowed to be on welfare when we arrived in Miami from Cuba, our sponsors were responsible for our expenses, as it should be.
It's possible to adjust for age distribution by figuring out the net contribution for each age span x race combination, then multiplying the cells for the non-whites by the white age proportions, and taking the sum. This method can also be used to adjust other summary statistics for age and sex composition, e.g. crime rates.
>by figuring out the net contribution for each age span x race combination
Yeah that's the big problem. I'm not sure where to find the data to do this. I would have done the generational accounting method if I could have found a way to. If you got any insights, by all means
Great breakdown, have read the older version done, but the change of whites positioned is quite stark. My finger is on that the aging and disabled population increased, since whites are more top-heavy age wise in the US (well, everywhere).
Also nicely done on the topic of yellow fever.