Immigrants Make Net Contribution Apparently !

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24813467

45% less likely to be on the Dole than our own dear natives. So most of them are not claiming the Dole , and they are paying taxes !

[factor-fiction]

http://www.migrationwatchuk.co.uk/briefingPaper/document/235
This shows that different reports (admittedly a few years old) have come up with different figures, ranging from -5 billion to +2.5. I think it would be very difficult for anyone to go through all the assumptions and calculations in enough detail and assess any factors that have been omitted.

Another factor is that research is more likely to be published when it yields the results the researchers/sponsors want. I am sure a lot of research is left gathering dust or mislaid when the figures don't give the hoped for result

[jno]

migrationwatch has its own agenda too, of course

[tamborine]

"……He added: "So the verdict for non-EU is that the benefit to the exchequer is minimal or negative.……"

Blimey, thats indian docs & afro nurses ?

[factor-fiction]

It does indeed.
The problem with any analysis of an economy's GDP of around £2 trillion to assess the net contributions/costs of immigration is that tiny changes in assumptions and percentages can lead to variations from. say. -£2 billion to + £2 billion.

Maybe the range of results from all the past surveys shows that the costs are possibly neutral. But even if the latest results are accurate I'm not sure it changes anything. We clearly need, and benefit from, some immigration (doctors, skilled workers) and would be better off without some of those who can't support themselves. And of course we can't do anything about EU immigration.

I think very few people's perceptions of the financial impacts of immigration will be changed by this or any other report.

[jim360]

I think it is generally true that statistics are only untrustworthy if they don't support your view. I think we're all guilty of that. This particular result doesn't surprise me too much -- and indeed because of that I doubt I'll pay nearly as much effort scrutinising it as I would a result saying the exact opposite. Oh well.

In the end immigration, like anything else, has its good and bad points. I tend to believe that there are far more good points than bad ones, of course, but certainly I do not think that there are no bad points at all. That's a subtlety I think some people seem to overlook, who are all very black-and-white about it!

[Kromovaracun]

"I think it's a complex area and I'm sure researchers could come up with figures to support whatever result they want"

And on what basis do you come to this conclusion, factor?

I'm an early-career researcher, and I'm familiar with the incredibly intensive process of peer review that University of London institutions put on their research. I hang around with people who do this kind of work (and the people who scrutinise it) all the time, and in my experience they care considerably more about finding out what is actually true than your average journalist or your average member of the public does.

[factor-fiction]

Hi Krom- I am commenting on such research generally. I am aware that it is human nature sometimes to be selective (consciously or unconsciously) when making assumptions of deciding which of two pieces of data to use. I am also aware that it is not unknown for research studies have been found to be flawed, even though there has been a peer review process. here is just one article.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-bad-science-scandal-how-factfabrication-is-damaging-uks-global-name-for-research-8660929.html.

In this field of immigration research different studies have come to different conclusions. They can't all be right.

[factor-fiction]

I'll try the link again but maybe as it's the Independent there may be restrictions
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-bad-science-scandal-how-factfabrication-is-damaging-uks-global-name-for-research-8660929.html

[trt]

You might not like Nigel Farage personally or his politics, but he makes a lot of sense in today's Express.

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/441195/Allowing-this-new-flood-of-migrants-is-economic-lunacy

[trt]

Forgot to say. Have a look at the photo of the 2 ladies, is this what we want to see in 2014?

[jno]

people sitting on a park bench wrapped up against the cold? You'd have seen it in 1914, and 914 (if they had park benches then).

[jake-the-peg]

By 'makes a lot of sense' I presume you mean that you agree with him and are incapable of accepting a different point of view as having any merit whatsoever?

[redvanman]

A load of spin thy will be on all the other benifits

[trt]

And the 3rd photo down in this link.
Can you imagine this in your high st or a country lane near you? :-)

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/440456/Romanians-rush-for-Come-to-UK-jobs

[boxtops]

Back in the 19th century, it was said you have three sets of data

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

You can make of any survey what you will.

[trt]

'' You'd have seen it in 1914, and 914 (if they had park benches then).''

jno, but we are in 2013 not 1914, times are supposed to change for the better, not worse!

[jake-the-peg]

What a pile of nonsense

Two of the best nurses that looked after my father before he died in the nursing home were Romanian and I think this stereotyping of Romanians in this way is incredibly insulting and ill informed.

But that's the sort of xenophobic stupidity one comes to expect from the Express

I guess when you let the man behind Asian Babes and Readers wives run a newspaper that's what you're going to get

[naomi24]

Mikey, you forgot this bit.

//Despite the positive figures in the decade since the millennium, the study found that between 1995 and 2011, immigrants from non-EEA countries claimed more in benefits than they paid in taxes, mainly because they tended to have more children than native Britons.//

[jomifl]

At least there is a chance that the native unemployed may have made some contributions to the exchequer when they were working whereas unemployed immigrants almost certainly haven't.

[naomi24]

The discussion on Radio 4 today put it rather more into perspective than the OP has.