Social Security and Illegal Immigration

Well, this item is starting to make its way around the rightward blogs. From what I can tell the gist of it is this:

In calculating the Social Security benefits for people who are currently illegal aliens, but become citizens under one of these various immigration reform bills, their income and contributions to Social Security while illegal would still be counted when determining the benefits for these people.

Now, that is just my reading of this and I could be wrong. But if this is the case, there sure seems to be alot of outrage over what will likely amount to a small amount of money…maybe several billion paid out a couple of decades down the road.

The idea that this is really bad or outrageous in terms of Social Security and its insolvency is mostly a silly outrage given the amount of money that Social Security is estimated to be short (while billions might sound like lots of money, think trillions when talking about the short fall). And compared to President Bush’s Medicare Drug Program it is an even smaller amount of money relatively speaking. And if we were to drag in the short fall in Medicare, well, how does tens of trillions grab ya?

Basically this is not a big deal. And it certainly isn’t extending Social Security to include Mexico. And on the bright side Medicare will probably break us before we even get to the point of paying Social Security to former illegal immigrants who may become citizens.

FILED UNDER: Blogosphere, Borders and Immigration, Economics and Business, US Politics, , , , , ,
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. wovoka says:

    I believe the bill was passed in the Senate and 13 of those meatheads voted to allow benefits to felons with no more than three convictions.
    What has happened to reason and ratonal thinking in our government?

  2. Bithead says:

    Now, that is just my reading of this and I could be wrong. But if this is the case, there sure seems to be alot of outrage over what will likely amount to a small amount of money�maybe several billion paid out a couple of decades down the road.

    So, by what moral right Do you steel from my pocket to put it into somebody else’s, particularly when they haven’t been paying into the system, and I already am not going to get nearly what I put into it?

    The very idea of “Social Security” is bad enough. Adding this to the mix makes it even worse precisely when we don’t need the help given the boomer crunch.

  3. Steve Verdon says:

    Bithead,

    That is just it, they have been paying into the system. So we could flip your complaint around and ask, “Why shouldn’t they benefit from the system they have been paying into?”

    As for the “robing Peter to pay Paul” complaint that applies to everybody and all of Social Security which is nothing more than a gigantic welfare program…for one of the richest demographics out there. Go figure.

  4. anjin-san says:

    So if the right shrieks loudly enough about illegals we will forget about Bush’s disaster in Iraq, spying on Americans, bottomless budget deficit, katrina relief fiasco, etc. etc?

    Don’t think so.

    Maybe Bush should have funded the border patrol properly years ago if he cared about this issue.

  5. Steve Verdon says:

    Uhhhmmm…Anjin-san where did I write or imply that? Seems to me the only rational answer is: nowhere. Of course, you’ve shown that you’ve been backing away from your rationality for quite awhile now.

  6. floyd says:

    a word about governmental promises and the teaching of history. to quote paul simon; it’s ” all lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest…lie la lie, lie la lie lie lie la lie, la la la lie.” what used to be cyicism is now only realism.

  7. floyd says:

    bithead; the “boomer crunch” is a lie,check it out.