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    Almost Everything You Need To Know About How Immigrants Affect Britain's Public Finances

    An excellent new report by researchers at University College London has given us a detailed picture of how much immigrants pay in taxes, how much they cost in state services, and whether immigration scare stories are to be believed. The study looked at the years 1995-2011 to get a broad view of the impact of immigration on the UK's public finances.

    1. 31% of people who want less immigration say it's because immigrants are a drain on public resources

    2. EU immigrants were 7.8 percentage points less likely to draw benefits or tax credits than natives; non-EU immigrants were 1.3 percentage points less likely

    3. Immigrants overall are 2 percentage points more likely to live in social housing

    4. Immigrants who've arrived since 2001 are 17 percentage points less likely to draw benefits than native Brits

    5. In total, recent immigrants have paid more in taxes and cost less in services than native Britons every year since 2000

    6. All groups of recent immigrants have paid in more than they've taken out

    7. EU immigrants made a total positive contribution over 1995-2011 of more than £4 billion...

    ...but non-EU immigrants cost a staggering £118 billion in total

    But here's where it gets interesting

    8. If you exclude things that we'd have to pay for anyway, like defence, ALL groups of immigrants outperform natives

    9. That £118bn figure also comes from counting immigrants' children as immigrants until they turn 16, then as natives after that

    10. And the fact that there's a deficit means that the average individual in the UK is paying less in taxes than they're costing in spending

    11. Immigrants also brought about £49bn worth of human capital to the UK

    12. And remember that immigrants improve native productivity and wages too

    13. So next time someone tells you immigrants are a drain on the welfare state, you can tell them exactly why they're wrong