This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 21st,

2023. I'm Caleb Brown. It's a common claim that immigration

imposes significant costs on American taxpayers.

A new Cato Institute White Paper shows that immigrants have a more positive net fiscal impact

than that of Native-born Americans in most cases.

The paper is entitled the fiscal impact of Immigration in the United States.

Alex Narasta is a co-author we spoke last week. When we talk about immigration and

the wisdom of allowing more or restricting immigration.

Fiscal effects matter for the debate.

So when people say, hey, the fiscal effect is negative for immigration, what usually

undergirds that analysis?

What that means is that immigrants consume more in government benefits than they pay in taxes in the

United States.

And that is an argument used by a lot of folks to oppose immigration liberalization and it has a lot of

appeal because the US government is quite large. There's a large welfare state, there's

public education, there are myriad government services and

benefits and the perception or the the conclusion could be if immigrants

consume more in benefits than they pay in taxes

then they are increasing the deficit, increasing government debt ultimately and

are imposing a cost on other taxpayers.

So even if there is net beneficial economic outcomes from having these folks here,

it could be a loser when it comes to the effect on government budgets and that has an enormous

...