Medicare
and Social Security would see a significant boost in payroll tax
contributions if America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants were
provided legal status and an earned pathway to citizenship, say health and
economic policy experts.
Specifically, if 85 percent of the
country’s eligible undocumented immigrants gained legal status and
earned citizenship, they would contribute a net gain of $606.4 billion
to the Social Security system over a 36-year period, a new report from the Center For American Progress Shows.
It
is estimated that undocumented workers would pay $1.2 trillion in
Social Security taxes from their earnings, yet only $580.9 billion in
benefits would be doled out to them over those 36 years, according to the
report.
The potential net gain is enough to fund the retirement
of 2.4 million Americans, said Patrick Oakford, an economic policy
research assistant at the Center for American Progress and co-author of
the report.
“That’s your parents, my parents, grandparents,
someone’s neighbor,” Oakford said. “Those retirement benefits will be
supported by the undocumented population if we allow them to travel the
earned pathway to citizenship.”
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