The costs of immigration to taxpayers : analytical and policy issues / Georges Vernez and Kevin F. McCarthy.

Prepared from a workshop on "The Public Costs of Immigration: Why Does it Matter," held Jan. 26, 1995 at RAND, Santa Monica.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-62).

Because of recent rapid growth in the number of immigrants, their high concentration in a few states, and a lagging economy that has slowed the growth in public revenues, two questions have received considerable analytical and political attention in recent years: (1) do immigrants contribute more to public revenues than they receive in benefits from public services? and (2) do state and local governments pay a disproportionate share of the cost of services used by immigrants? This report reviews the estimates of the net fiscal costs of immigration made by several recent and well publicized studies of immigration at the national, state, and local levels. The authors find that these studies do not provide a reliable estimate of the net fiscal costs of immigration. Moreover, new data and agreement on a uniform accounting framework will be needed to reach a definitive answer to the policy questions about the costs of immigration.

Also available in electronic form via the RAND Corporation Web site.

Ford Foundation. RCN 7695

James Irvine Foundation. RCN 7695