Contrary to what David Cameron would have you believe, benefit tourism just isn't a significant problem.
In a sop to UKIP, David Cameron has pledged to bar migrants from claiming out-of-work benefits for three months after their arrival to the UK.
The measure is supposed to put off ‘would-be benefit tourists’ from coming to Britain.
What David Cameron probably won’t tell you, however, is that migrants from Eastern Europe are less likely to claim benefits than indiginous Britons.
Most migrants from the EU do not come to Britain to sign on, but to work. Migrants who came to the UK after the year 2000 have made a ‘substantial’ contribution to public finances, according to a recent study by University College London.
Those from the European Economic Area (EEA – the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) made a particularly strong contribution in the decade up to 2011, contributing 34 per cent more in taxes than they received in benefits, the study found.
Other data backs this up.
In 2008-09, at the height of Labour’s policy of so-called ‘uncontrolled immigration’, A8 immigrants paid 37 per cent more in direct or indirect taxes than they received in public goods and services.
A8 immigrants contributed 0.96 per cent of total tax receipts and accounted for only 0.6 per cent of total expenditures (see table).
And before someone makes a boring argument about Britain’s benefit system being ‘the most generous in Europe’, that isn’t true either. A study by the Economic and Social Research Council’s Centre for Population Change (CPC) carried out last year found that the UK had below average levels of welfare spending among developed nations. (See graph).
There is no reason to view Britain as any more attractive to benefit tourists than other EU countries, and no reason to view the latest ‘crackdown’ on ‘welfare tourism’ as anything other than an attempt to shore up the right-wing vote.
Benefit tourism just isn’t a significant problem.
45 Responses to “We repeat, migrants are *less* likely to claim benefits than indigenous Britons”
Boston_scoundrel
The same way a UK native on benefits makes a net contribution. They don’t. But migrants are much less likely to be on benefits than U K natives and there are far fewer of them.
I’ve said nothing about Hamza, he’s irrelevant to the argument
Boston_scoundrel
We don’t need anyone on benefits. But we have a welfare state which pays benefits to people judged to need them, wherever they were born.
LB
Notice the generalisation.
e.g. Because one migrant is good, all migrants must be good.
Imaging Boston’s reaction if someone claimed that a black man had committed a crime, and all black men must be criminals. He would rightly go apoplectic, but he’s prepared to use the logic of the BNP in arguing his case.
LB
I’ve asked you to comment because he’s entirely relevant.
You are using BNP logic. e.g If one black man commits a crime, then all black men must be criminals is their way of thinking and logic.
You’re applying that to migration. You’re saying because some migrants make a net contribution that all migrants must make a net contribution. They don’t.
Hence the question about Hamzah. By your logic he must make a net contribution and so must be good for the UK. I’m asking you to back that up.
Now you know that’s not the case, so you’re dodging the question.
The reason why its relevant is that migration is a choice. The UK can say no and it can say yes on an individual basis. It should do that.
It should reject all migrants on welfare because the migrant on welfare is not making a net contribution. Are you going to deny that? [My prediction is you’ll make another BNP like statement about all migrants being good for the UK]
LB
Yes. And we have a migration system that could say, we don’t want migrants on welfare. We can refuse to accept them into the UK.