To be fair Tarian if immigrants are considering mortgages and buying houses that sounds like they are in employment and contributing to the UK through the NI/Tax system.
Sounds like they are net contributors to the UK rather than the spongers Farage and his like portray them as.
Oh dear.... you shouldn't have brought up that old theme ....
[
And given the unnecessary personal aside....
Please provide an example of Farage portraying immigrants generally as "spongers". Thank you. ]
1) How does "
immigrants considering mortgages and buying houses" affect the price of housing ?
Surely, absent the building of new houses (as fast as the immigrants arrive) the extra demand pushes up house prices ?
Fact : From 1993 to 2018
- RPI doubled. (see ONS)
- House prices (Outer London) up 5 times
(Obviously other regions rose more or less)
So House prices rose roughly 2 1/2 times the rate of inflation.
If that wasn't from the extra demand from more people -
what was it ?
2) "
net contributors"
Those claiming a "net benefit" from immigration never show their workings...
...or at least commentators never explore them.
They never show the hugely uneven income distribution between the "richest" immigrants and the poorest.
The top decile (10%) of immigrant earners pay around 1/3rd of tax and N.I.
Extend that to the top 20% - and they pay more more than 1/2. (
of what all immigrants pay).
The bottom 30% pay no tax at all - quite legally - because they are on minimum wage (
working in fields and hospitality).
So it is entirely possible (probable) that the total Tax and N.I.
(paid by all immigrants) might be (say)
£ 2 billion.
- and benefits received (
by all immigrants) are £1.9 billion.
But what is the impact (cost) of the extra
people ?
On house prices (
the biggest cost for the poorest) ?
On public services (
used more by the poorest) ?
On transport, on the environment etc, etc ?
So if
everything is taken into account it seems likely that mass immigration is net
cost to the UK.
(
But if immigration had been limited to fewer high earners......)
p.s. a House of Lords report concluded that immigration may have added (IIRC) 0.6% p.a. to GDP - with a margin for error of 0.5%.
But that is not GDP per head - i.e. the benefit to individuals