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by mamonster 133 days ago
Horrible fiscal ticking time bomb that ignores the fact that regularization means naturalization over the next 10-15 years and so access to EU healthcare system.

The biggest drag on government budgets in EU are socialized healthcare and retirement costs. At this point we know healthcare costs are severely backloaded, with most spending coming out of the last 10 years of someone's life. Regularizing now allows them to show a fiscal boost now and for next 4-5 years(edit: maybe even like 10-15 years) and accumulate a massive liability as they age.

Think about it this way: If you regularize a 30 year old illegal migrant right now with a path to citizenship over next 10-15 years, the government NPV is positive over a 15 year horizon(whilst he works) and then will go flat to negative as he starts using the healthcare system whilst retired.

2 comments

How much do 0-15 year olds contribute to the economy?
They contribute to GDP spend, but from the fiscal point of view they are a drag. As for actual percentages per country, I think it heavily varies. In EU i think family spending is like 3% of GDP.

The hope is that this drag will either generate higher cash flows later (i.e money spent on education now will allow them to create value for economy later) or reduce outflows later (i.e a child that gets braces and dental health care now won't spend their whole adult life dealing with teeth issues on taxpayer's dime).

The latter half of careers, and certainly 30-55 is generally the period of highest productivity of working careers. Its even higher value for the economy when wages do a catch up slowly over their time. I think it is politiczed fear mongering to suggest that the economic balance is negative in that kind of exchange.
>The latter half of careers, and certainly 30-55 is generally the period of highest productivity of working careers.

For illegal immigrants though? They are not regularized to the C-suite but to Uber Eats and construction work.

Legal immigrants if this change goes through - and if the minimum wage of these nations doesn't support any citizen living through their life perhaps the minimum wage should be increased and non performant businesses that can't support it will be shed
A good construction worker can make more money than a bad web developer and certainly more money than an e-mailer that can barely use excel.