Immigration has been back in the news since the "Minuteman Project" got underway on April 1, 2005 outside Tombstone, Arizona--no, unfortunately the volunteer protest over immigration at the Mexican border is no joking matter. The idea is to have volunteers, many armed, stationed along a 23-mile stretch of Cochise County and stop anyone trying to cross into the U. S.
Presidents Fox and Bush found something to agree on here. Both think the idea is terrible.
Then comes a very interesting report from The New York Times ("Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security with Billions," April 5, 2005).
The common yap on the street characterizes Mexican immigrants as people who take advantage of the system here and return nothing in the process. Leaving aside for now the matter of billions paid in sales taxes across the nation, the article filed by Eduardo Porter dismantles common "American wisdom" about working "illegal" immigrants (Can a person really be "illegal"?)
Consider the facts:
*Seven million undocumented workers in the U. S. pay $7 billion annually into Social Security.
*The money paid into the Social Security system by this special class of labor amounts to about 10% of the system's current surplus. You know, the surplus Al Gore wanted to lock up in a box. The same surplus the President says is going away for good and real soon.
*The Social Security Administration factors these dollars into their projections about the future of the program.
*The majority of undocumented workers pay taxes.
*Since the late 1980s when the system began receiving millions of obviously bogus W-2 earnings statements, complete with fake SS numbers, it began holding them in what is called a "earnings suspense file." During the 1990s, $189 billion in wages ended up in this file. In our current decade the file is growing at a rate of over $50 billion annually. In 2002, nine million W-2s with incorrect numbers were filed away accounting for 1.5% of total reported earnings for the entire nation.
*Social Security Administration officials estimate that approximately 75% of undocumented workers pay payroll taxes.
*According to the Government Accountability Office (GOA), of the bogus W-2s, 17% arrived from restaurants, 10% from construction companies and 7% from farm operations.
*Actuaries at Social Security report that if immigration rose to 1.3 million persons annually instead of the current 900,000, the benefit to the system would be half a trillion dollars over the next 75 years.
One last note. Undocumented workers who pay into the Social Security System will never receive any financial benefit from Social Security. Unlike the funds I contribute, their contributions are "free" to the system.
Reality is often far from what it appears.
15 comments:
Is the President the ONLY person that says the surplus is going away? I don't recall him saying it is going away "real soon". Of course, I guess that is all relative. What is soon to me may not be soon to you.
I'm not sure I would mention "The New York Times" and "reality" in the same blog post. But you are correct......reality is often far from what it appears.
David, I have lots of buddies who sound like you! So, let me begin by saying I do love Republicans! Yes, the President and all of his political allies agree that the system is in a "crisis" of "grave proportions." Even The Dallas Morning News reports that--a paper much more to his and your liking, I expect. Of course, he never mentions the real crisis--Medicare, which will one day be your and my choice in healthcare, unless it is left to die. But, this has nothing to do with my blog--immigration and how "illegals" are helping save part of my retirement by their hard work. My point was to simply raise the question regarding how disingenuious we are about this issue, especially in view of how much we all benefit from the presence of millions of Mexicans here in our country. And for the record, the stats and analysis quoted from the Times come right out of Bush Administration offices. Thanks for tolerating me, or almost tolerating me! Larry
I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Fernando Segovia from Vanderbilt Universtiy speak a couple weeks ago about his experience as a Cuban immigrant who actually had a chance to return to his homeland 40 years after leaving. His thoughts on immigration were perspective altering. He talked about how these people will do anything to try to create a better life for their families, including coming to the place that can make that dream a reality. I used to live in a border town (Yuma, AZ), so I know what it's like to live amongst this population that we have somehow demonized in our society. They are not unlike any of us rich folks (and I assume that the majority of us are all rich, whether we think in those terms or not) who truly want to create a successful life for themselves across the border. Why do we plug our ears to the scripture that talks about how we should never forget our status as strangers and how we should welcome the stranger as a result of that identification and empathy?
How do our economic practices and policies sustain a poor economic outlook for countries like Mexico, thus leading to a level of increasing occurrences of border crossing. TCU's Brite Divinity School has a wonderful program on the Borderlands that puts on a great lecture series addressing these very topics each semester. Dr. Segovia was a part of that series.
One of the interesting things he brought up was the U.S. policy that allows Cuban immgrants to stay here if they can make it to the states but puts up fences and armed guards to keep Mexicans out. This sort of duplicity sends a confusing message to Latinas and Latinos trying to navigate life in this new culture.
Krister, thanks for your thoughtful words. American immigration policy has always been tied to our political objectives. I think of the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s. We were on the wrong side and as a result, immigrants from those places were not welcome, though Cubans were.
Larry, "tolerating" you is the farthest thing from my mind....you are a BLESSING to me, and so many others! That is what you will ALWAYS be to me, brother!
I am not concerned with how I am benefiting from immigrants. I AM concerned about how we can benefit them. Our country has immigration laws, and I think we should enforce those laws for EVERYONE...no matter if you are from Cuba, Mexico, Mars, or Oz. All of us trace our heritage back to immigrants, so I have NOTHING against ANYBODY coming to the United States. I don't think we ought to have quotas. But, I do believe in people coming legally.
Do I want to send the ones back who are here illegally? No way!
So, I am for EVERYONE who wants to come....let em ALL come. Just come legally.
As for Medicare...yeah, that scares me too! :)
Thanks brother!
DU
We are supposed to have a left brain and a right brain. Well, on this issue, I have a Republican brain and one that's Christian.
The full-blooded, card-carrying Republican in me lashes out at the illegals. They have to be schooled and they have to have medical care they can't afford, or so says Mr. GOP.
The Christian in me tells me that I shouldn't hoard when those in need want what I have. Imagine being desperate enough to risk everything for a chance at a low-paying job in this country.
That's it, the Christian wins. (It should always win.)t
I'm with JDrake in that I need some schooling, so forgive a neophyte's question-- how can an undocumented worker pay into social security? Doesn't the lack of documentation keep a worker from having payroll taxes withdrawn and subsequently reported by the employer?
Thanks always for the crash course, Larry.
Anonymous,
The illegal workers are making up a social security number on their employers' paperwork. Basically, they have to fill something out on the SS# line to get a job, so they put a number in there, get the job, and go about their business. The employer doesn't really know if the number is legit or not; they are only required to take out the appropriate SS payments and report it towards the provided SS#.
As Larry described, this money then goes to the SS office, which puts it in that mystery fund. So, the money is never going to get paid out to the workers, but it's there to bolster the fund.
Why do illegals do this? Because they have to in order to get a job. And even after all that tax for benefits they don't have a chance of receiving, they stay because the pay is better than their alternative.
Interesting that Mr. Bush, who was unaware of the dramatic increase of HIV in black women during the debates, doesn't focus on why African-Americans are experiencing shorter lives than whites. This, to me, is a much more pressing issue.
However, regarding Mr. Bush's proposal . . . if we truly are supporting current recipients with 100% of our contributions, what will happen when a portion of our contributions is restricted to our personal account? This will decrease the cash available to pay for current recipients. How can this result in anything but decreased benefits?
Regarding the tax issue, I slightly disagree. Although we all work hard on our tax filing to increase our return, I think that many of us would be willing to accept higher taxes if we knew that everyone else was paying higher taxes (few individuals will voluntarily give more money to the government). At CDM's Prayer Breakfast, the keynote speaker (David Shipler) asked the crowd who would be willing to pay more taxes in order to support the most pressing needs facing the working poor. The vast majority raised their hand.
I think that the over-emphasis on decreased taxes is the primary culprit for the government's inability to create a safe, supportive, equitable society for everyone in our country. Our refusal to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" has bound up wealth into the hands of the few, and prevented us from helping Christ to bring His kingdom into this world. If we were less concerned about our personal wealth and more concerned about the lives of our neighbors, we would be closer to doing the work of God.
Personally, I find it discomforting that our politicians are considering revoking the estate tax, a move that will almost exclusively benefit the wealthy and increase the disparity between the rich and the poor (who have few assets to pass on to their heirs). As recently studied at CDM's Urban Engagement Book Club on "Being Black, Living in the Red," the primary difference between creating the economic disparity between whites and blacks is that the former has a greater capacity for intergenerational wealth transfer.
I agree that illegal immigrants place burden on systems like health care, since our system is so costly that it does not effectively solve health problems.
(check out Paul Krugman's Op-Ed in the NYTimes today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/opinion/15krugman.html
However, I think that these immigrants are keeping our economic engine running. Think about the impact on employers if this source of labor went away. How do you think, for example, the hotel & restaurants industries would fare if this population went away?
It is a complicated issue. However, I do not think that selfish economics can solve it.
I like your thoughts about CDM -- I have half-jokingly thought about sending out invoices instead of appeal letters. :)
However, I think it's unrealistic to think that a reduction in taxes would be off-set by an increase in donations. I think it would just result in people becoming more tied to this earth through the acquisition of material goods. The reality is that only government can require contributions (taxes). However, I would not expect them to do all of the work: I would prefer that they redistribute this money to NPOs in the form of grants and contracts.
The sad reality is that the government is proposing changes to tax law that will reduce the incentives for people to donate (particularly with in-kind goods, which are precious to most charities). Decreasing taxes reduces the amount of money available for charities. Decreasing incentives to donate reduces the amount of money available for charities. Reducing government programs for the needy, a major priority of the current administration, increases the need for non-profits.
This is a bad trend. Let's hope that Christians can see it, and compensate by adopting the system that you describe.
For those who want to get started today, here is the link to Central Dallas Ministries:
www.centraldallasministries.org
Oh, and on the matter of estate tax, I was listening to a radio show the other day with a Republican talking head who made the same claim that estate taxes hurt family farms and Small Businesses. Yet, when asked, he couldn't cite a single example of a family farm or business that had been closed because of the estate tax. I think that it makes some sense from a purely intellectual point, but I have yet to find any evidence of it.
They pan *NO* taxes. They are *UNDOCUMENTED* They are paid in cash. Theat is the problem. Theat is why they get hired. A legal resident manikn $10/ hr cost a company mor than an illegal making $13.65 because the legal pays taxes and the illegal pays *NONE* he has no documents.
Rod Stanton
Rod, you miss my point completely. The fact is undocumented workers often use fake social security cards and numbers and they DO pay these taxes! They pay SO MUCH in taxes that even the IRS doesn't turn the money back or pursue with INS (now Homeland Security)the fact that the workers are using bogus numbers and id. The fact is "undocumented workers" are helping support what the President is now arguing is a failing system. The point here to be understood is that millions of undocumented workers do pay Social Security taxes because employers know that to hire and not pay could mean all sorts of problems with the IRS.
Larry you do not understand They are *UNDOCUMENTED* because they have *NO DOCUMENTS*. I know several businesses that hire these people and pay them *CASH* again *no documents* No taxes of any kind are collected. The do not exist on the company's records.
*undocumented* They are phantom employees who net at $5 an hour more than a legal does at $7 because no taxes and no other payroll related benefits are taken.
Go to Culver City or Santa Monica and visit the plant floors of some of the biger companies. Count heads, then check the payroll- not only is no one out sick, vacation or personal day but some are there twice. They tend to have ~120% of their employees on the floor.
Rod Stanton
Unfortunately, Rod, you don't understand. Re-read what is written. Then check out the documented fact that many, many "illegal aliens" use fake SS cards, the IRS knows it, but takes no action because these workers are paying so much into the SS and tax system--money they will never, ever recover. Money that will pay your retirement. The hard to believe reality is that the IRS takes no action becasue to do so would cut off this flood of money. The problem you describe is different. If these workers have no SS number (fake or legit), then why doesn't INS (or whatever it is called these days) take action? I suspect it has something to do with the government's bias in favor of business interests and against American labor in general. Check the facts. You will be surprised.
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