Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 09/2014

The Fiscal Impact of Immigration

Alex Nowrasteh

July 2014

The Cato Institute

Abstract

The fiscal impact of immigration — how immigrants and their descendants affect government budgets — is a widely debated and contentious issue. Economists overwhelmingly accept the economic gains of immigration, but are less certain about immigrants’ impact on government budgets. Contention over this issue is fueled by the numerous methodologies and complexity of analysis that obscure the fiscal costs of immigration.