Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Illegals Cost Big Bucks

Someone has finally fixed an approximate taxpayer cost of having between 12 million and 15 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S. A new study by the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector found a household headed by an individual without a high school education, including about two-thirds of illegal aliens, costs U.S. taxpayers more than $32,000 in federal, state and local benefits. That same family contributes an average of $9,000 a year in taxes, resulting in a net tax burden of $22,449 each year. Over the course of the household's lifetime that tax burden translates to $1.1 million. If the lower figure of 12 million illegal aliens is used for estimation purposes, the total tax burden translates to $2.2 trillion.

About half of the 17.7 million households studied are illegal aliens. About two-thirds of illegal alien households are headed by someone without a high school degree. Only 10 percent of native-born Americans fit into that category.
  • JJ Commentary: The argument that many of the illegal aliens perform productive jobs that Americans don’t want to do pales in comparison to the costs of having them do so. In addition, it is estimated that only 4% of them actually do so

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