A recently released working paper (paywall) by the economists William Evans and Daniel Fitzgerald of the University of Notre Dame examines the financial costs of refugees to the federal government. They find that though refugees are initially quite expensive for the government, the average refugee who entered between the ages of 18-45 actually pays $21,000 more in taxes than they receive in benefits over their first 20 years in the US—including resettlement costs.
The major innovation of Evans and Fitzgerald’s research was in figuring out how to identify refugees in government data. The US Census does not include a question about refugee status in its nationwide household surveys that ask a variety of economic and demographic questions. But immigrants are asked their year of their arrival and the country they arrived from. Using this information, researchers were able to identify individuals who were highly likely to be refugees and track their progress over time.
The researchers used the data from the census and a tax-payment simulation program to estimate how much refugees pay in tax and receive in government benefits. Their data show that though the average refugee is a financial drain on the government for their first eight years in the US, by the ninth year they become net positive, and continue to be so for the next 11 years (the available data only allow the researchers to track their first 20 years).
No comments:
Post a Comment