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”
TM
ps I never said your views were extreme either!!! Even Sparky makes the odd valid point here and there. That my Boston scoundrel is what we call participatory democracy, opinions you or I may not agree with but should be heard all the same, not stifled for some political or other agenda. If someone then says something provocative or racist or whatever, they can then be argued down effectively. That is democracy. It is not all agreeing for politeness’ sake. We can in the end agree to disagree.
Boston_scoundrel
No one would ever accuse me of being trendy, but I am absolutely sure that multiculturalism is to be applauded and encouraged. The alternative, in which we all look and sound the same, is too awful to contemplate
TM
Perhaps I overegged the trendy bit! I tend to see the trendy Lefties as very Middle class too, which is something I am most certainly not. It can be a stance after all. What you say I agree with, and I love many cultures, and many different foods, and love to learn about many places. The problem may be that what happens when the people who are supposed to integrate, on all sides, don’t particularly want to? It seems almost enforced to me and it is obvious in many towns in the UK and the West in general that often people stick to their own communities. Middle class people eulogise community and multiculturalism because it is something alien them, often growing up in all white affluent and perhaps rather bland suburbs filled with respectable suburban folk with similar mentalities and a clipped accent. Don’t many Middle class people all look and sound the same, certainly where accents are concerned? I have a regional accent myself, the type of accent that is looked down and sneered at by white Middle class people, strangely enough the same no doubt who would be promoting equality and diversity!!! I do agree with difference, in fact being a cook I love variety and difference, I just find that there is an agenda behind some of it which is or can be disingenuous. Why isn’t white Working class culture celebrated in England, or Irish culture? Thirty years ago the Irish were being demonised, now it’s the Muslims. Nothing changes.
Lance
If there were no jobs for taking, why would they come here?
leilamarie
It’s because the Tory’s are in Government – they are an elitist party with no interest in helping the working class. They have grossly exaggerated the whole issue with immigration, as a ways of closeting more problematic issues occurring.