Thread: Illegals Bolstering SSI

At least they are making up SOME of the money they are costing us.

Boo Hoo Hoo. Please pass me a tissue.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/05/busin ... ation.html

April 5, 2005
Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions
By EDUARDO PORTER

TOCKTON, Calif. - Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ã?ngel MartÃÂ*nez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.

Not surprisingly, Mr. MartÃÂ*nez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security's long-term financial problems. But Mr. MartÃÂ*nez - who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana - contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation's public retirement system.

Last year, Mr. MartÃÂ*nez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. MartÃÂ*nez is not entitled to benefits.

He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.

Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."

It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID's to get a job.

Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.

IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.

Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.

Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.

"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.

Other researchers say illegal immigrants are the main contributors to the suspense file. "Illegal immigrants account for the vast majority of the suspense file," said Nick Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Especially its growth over the 1990's, as more and more undocumented immigrants entered the work force."

Using data from the Census Bureau's current population survey, Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy group in Washington that favors more limits on immigration, estimated that 3.8 million households headed by illegal immigrants generated $6.4 billion in Social Security taxes in 2002.

A comparative handful of former illegal immigrant workers who have obtained legal residence have been able to accredit their previous earnings to their new legal Social Security numbers. Mr. Camarota is among those opposed to granting a broad amnesty to illegal immigrants, arguing that, among other things, they might claim Social Security benefits and put further financial stress on the system.

The mismatched W-2's fit like a glove on illegal immigrants' known geographic distribution and the patchwork of jobs they typically hold. An audit found that more than half of the 100 employers filing the most earnings reports with false Social Security numbers from 1997 through 2001 came from just three states: California, Texas and Illinois. According to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, about 17 percent of the businesses with inaccurate W-2's were restaurants, 10 percent were construction companies and 7 percent were farm operations.

Most immigration helps Social Security's finances, because new immigrants tend to be of working age and contribute more than they take from the system. A simulation by Social Security's actuaries found that if net immigration ran at 1.3 million a year instead of the 900,000 in their central assumption, the system's 75-year funding gap would narrow to 1.67 percent of total payroll, from 1.92 percent - savings that come out to half a trillion dollars, valued in today's money.

Illegal immigrants help even more because they will never collect benefits. According to Mr. Goss, without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system's long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.

Yet to immigrants, the lack of retirement benefits is just part of the package of hardship they took on when they decided to make the trek north. Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico's Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for. "I haven't asked," Mr. Tapia said.

For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture.

"There will be a moment when I won't be able to continue working," Mr. MartÃÂ*nez acknowledges. "But that's many years off."

Mario Avalos, a naturalized Nicaraguan immigrant who prepares income tax returns for many workers in the area, including immigrants without legal papers, observes that many older workers return home to Mexico. "Among my clients," he said, "I can't recall anybody over 60 without papers."

No doubt most illegal immigrants would prefer to avoid Social Security altogether. As part of its efforts to properly assign the growing pile of unassigned wages, Social Security sends about 130,000 letters a year to employers with large numbers of mismatched pay statements.

Though not an intended consequence of these so-called no-match letters, in many cases employers who get them dismiss the workers affected. Or the workers - fearing that immigration authorities might be on their trail - just leave.

Last February, for instance, discrepancies in Social Security numbers put an end to the job of Minerva Ortega, 25, from Zacatecas, in northern Mexico, who worked in the cheese department at a warehouse for Mike Campbell & Associates, a distributor for Trader Joe's, a popular discount food retailer with a large operation in California.

The company asked dozens of workers to prove that they had cleared up or were in the process of clearing up the "discrepancy between the information on our payroll related to your employment and the S.S.A.'s records." Most could not.

Ms. Ortega said about 150 workers lost their jobs. In a statement, Mike Campbell said that it did not fire any of the workers, but Robert Camarena, a company official, acknowledged that many left.

Ms. Ortega is now looking for work again. She does not want to go back to the fields, so she is holding out for a better-paid factory job. Whatever work she finds, though, she intends to go on the payroll with the same Social Security number she has now, a number that will not jibe with federal records.

With this number, she will continue paying taxes. Last year she paid about $1,200 in Social Security taxes, matched by her employer, on an income of $19,000.

She will never see the money again, she realizes, but at least she will have a job in the United States.

"I don't pay much attention," Ms. Ortega said. "I know I don't get any benefit."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top

This is a BOO HOO piece

I knew that this was where they were going next...That somehow they were going to save Social Security.

What about the illegals that are paid under the table, with no taxes paid into the system.

The statistics say that they use more of the tax payer's money than they contribute, also....

Bush is trying to get a Totalization Bill through Congress that would have them being eligible for Social Security Benefits if they could prove that they worked a mere 6 quarters, that is a year and a half, and would surely bankrupt our SS system.

Darlene said:
"Bush is trying to get a Totalization Bill through Congress that would have them being eligible for Social Security Benefits if they could prove that they worked a mere 6 quarters, that is a year and a half, and would surely bankrupt our SS system."


First the SSA is totally dysfunctional and yes, Mexico and the US have signed the totalization agreement. Congress has oversight, hopefully they will use it. There are a number of congressmen who have come out against this listed below, as well as an article regarding the same. Remember you and I have to have 40 quarters of work for eligibility as opposed to illegals 6.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c ... 1084uPlbV::
COSPONSORS(29), ALPHABETICAL [followed by Cosponsors withdrawn]: (Sort: by date)

Rep Barrett, J. Gresham [SC-3] - 7/22/2004 Rep Bradley, Jeb [NH-1] - 10/6/2004
Rep Culberson, John Abney [TX-7] - 7/22/2004 Rep Davis, Jo Ann [VA-1] - 7/15/2004
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] - 7/22/2004 Rep Doolittle, John T. [CA-4] - 7/15/2004
Rep Duncan, John J., Jr. [TN-2] - 7/15/2004 Rep English, Phil [PA-3] - 7/15/2004
Rep Gallegly, Elton [CA-24] - 7/15/2004 Rep Garrett, Scott [NJ-5] - 7/22/2004
Rep Goode, Virgil H., Jr. [VA-5] - 7/15/2004 Rep Goodlatte, Bob [VA-6] - 11/17/2004
Rep Hayworth, J. D. [AZ-5] - 7/15/2004 Rep Hostettler, John N. [IN-8] - 7/15/2004
Rep Johnson, Sam [TX-3] - 7/15/2004 Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. [NC-3] - 7/15/2004
Rep King, Steve [IA-5] - 7/15/2004 Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [IL-16] - 9/15/2004
Rep McCotter, Thaddeus G. [MI-11] - 9/15/2004 Rep Miller, Gary G. [CA-42] - 10/6/2004
Rep Miller, Jeff [FL-1] - 7/15/2004 Rep Norwood, Charlie [GA-9] - 7/15/2004
Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14] - 7/22/2004 Rep Royce, Edward R. [CA-40] - 7/15/2004
Rep Sessions, Pete [TX-32] - 9/15/2004 Rep Smith, Lamar [TX-21] - 7/15/2004
Rep Sullivan, John [OK-1] - 7/15/2004 Rep Tancredo, Thomas G. [CO-6] - 7/15/2004
Rep Whitfield, Ed [KY-1] - 7/22/2004
Expressing the disapproval of the House of Representatives of the Social Security totalization agreement between the United States and Mexico. (Introduced in House)

HRES 720 IH 108th CONGRESS 2d Session


ONE ILLEGAL COULD COST U.S. TAXPAYERS ONE-HALF MILLION BUCKS

"If a 24-year-old Mexican national who has worked illegally in the U.S. for three years is able to present documents from a friendly doctor and either a W-2 or pay stubs that indicate $12,000 in annual earnings, he will be eligible for the following: nearly $8,000 per year in disability income (adjusted for inflation), until age 65, at which point he would receive the same amount as retirement pay. (If he manages to get an under-the-table job in the U.S. or Mexico, he will be able to double-dip for a second income stream.) If he is survived by his wife or dependents, his family would be able to receive up to almost $12,000 annually. If he dies at 60, and his widow lives to 85, U.S. taxpayers will be on the hook for nearly a half-million dollars. That’s for one worker brought into Social Security by the pact." Source: Joel Mowbray, National Review, 1/27/03, pp. 22, 24




http://www.townhall.com/columnists/mich ... 0107.shtml

The criminal raid on Social Security
Michelle Malkin
January 7, 2004

My 8-week-old son's Social Security card recently arrived in the mail. On the back, there's a stern warning: "Improper use of this card or number by anyone is punishable by fine, imprisonment or both."

Welcome to the world of government theft and selective enforcement, my boy.

While innocent babes who have yet to earn a penny are threatened with jail time for misusing Social Security cards, the Bush administration appears set this week to turn the ailing government pension program into an international relief fund for illegal alien workers who used counterfeit Social Security cards and stolen numbers to secure illegal jobs.

Unlike the bedtime stories I tell at night, I am not making this up.

This belated gift to the open-borders lobby and Mexican President Vicente Fox is part of a larger amnesty plan that has been in the works since before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. So, why exactly are we rewarding a country that has been obstinately opposed to the War on Terror? Go ask Mr. Brilliant, Karl Rove. This I do know: It couldn't have come at a worse time from either a fiscal or national security standpoint.

According to Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, benefits paid to retirees will exceed revenues in just 15 years. The pay-as-you-go system could go belly up as early as 2030. These projections don't take into account the economic impact of the Bush proposal, which would allow untold millions of illegal aliens from Mexico to collect full cash benefits for themselves and their families from their home country -- without having to work the required number of years that law-abiding American citizens must work to be eligible for payouts.

Reporter Joel Mowbray, who first exposed this treachery a year ago, noted that this raw deal may well cost overburdened U.S. taxpayers $345 billion over the next 20 years. Probably much more. As we know from experience, Social Security projections are notoriously off the mark.

The bureaucrats call this scheme "totalization." Try total prostration. The proposed agreement is nothing more than a transfer of wealth from those who play by the rules to those who willingly and knowingly mock our own immigration and tax laws. What are we doing promising lifetime Social Security paychecks to day laborers in Juarez when we can't even guarantee those benefits to workers here at home?

Unbelievably, the White House is trying to convince us to embrace this global ripoff because it "rewards work." No, it rewards criminal behavior. The plan will siphon off the hard-earned tax dollars of American workers who may never see a dime of their confiscated earnings and fork it over to foreigners guilty of at least four acts of federal law-breaking: crossing the border illegally, working illegally, engaging in tax fraud and using bogus documents.

Giving money to scam artists will simply result in more fraud -- not only by Mexican agricultural workers, but also by Middle Easterners such as Youssef Hmimssa, who provided fake Social Security numbers and fraudulent drivers' licenses to members of an accused terrorist cell in Detroit. "If you have the right connection, you can get anything," he testified before the Senate last fall.

The door is now open for all illegal aliens to collect retirement benefits using bogus Social Security cards. What's next: survivors' benefits for the families of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers?

Hold your ears everyone I have to let out a primal scream.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

Now I feel better.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"


Boggles the mind, doesn't it. Well, there's another one we can write our congresscritters about. sigh....

www.numbersUSA.com