UKIP Win First Elected Westminster MP

[GTA_stu]

Why?

The old codger has a cost when it comes to services provided from government coffers such as healthcare. Pretty much all of Europe is made up of classic developed economies, even the "poor" bits. As I've already pointed out, worker displacement and wage reductions due to immigration are by and large mythical. Many EU immigrants have lower benefit entitlements and restrictions on claiming; even where they are entitled and do claim, it's statistically much lower amounts than domestic citizens.

In terms of cost-to-income ratio middle-class retired individuals come out worse than most immigrants, almost purely by virtue if their age, so would you kindly explain what apparent difference there are that you're referring to?

 

 

All of Europe is developed yes, well pretty much all of it. But only in relative terms compared to the rest of the world. There's still great differences between individual countries. Average income varies greatly and is generally 3-7 times higher in a country like the UK compared to a poorer Eastern European country like Poland or Bulgaria. So you have large amounts of people willing to work for less than the nationals of the country. And although the migrants may be earning a low amount of money in the view of the nationals, to the migrants it's a heck of a lot. How are you supposed to compete with that? Someone who's happy to work for less than you because to them it's still extremely good pay. It's not a myth at all, it's a reality in towns and cities across the UK. Wages are kept lower by large amounts of people falling head over heals at the prospect of earning (to them) lots of money. What is a myth is the idea that somehow immigrants are all entrepreneurs that create more jobs than they take up.

 

I also find it hard to believe that a person who's saved up their entire lives and then moves to another country with the intent of spending those savings usually amounting to tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds, and who still has to pay for any healthcare they receive like other citizens, somehow has more of a detrimental effect to the people of a country than the low skilled migrants who drive down wages and take away jobs.

Edited October 13, 2014 by stu

[Zook]

 

Why?

The old codger has a cost when it comes to services provided from government coffers such as healthcare. Pretty much all of Europe is made up of classic developed economies, even the "poor" bits. As I've already pointed out, worker displacement and wage reductions due to immigration are by and large mythical. Many EU immigrants have lower benefit entitlements and restrictions on claiming; even where they are entitled and do claim, it's statistically much lower amounts than domestic citizens.

 

In terms of cost-to-income ratio middle-class retired individuals come out worse than most immigrants, almost purely by virtue if their age, so would you kindly explain what apparent difference there are that you're referring to?

 

 

It's not a myth at all, it's a reality in towns and cities across the UK.

What evidence are you basing this assertion on because I've only ever seen it in the daily mail? If you cannot, then you have that basic high-school level theory that more supply equals a lower price, but it falls apart when you realise the real economy is not high school level theory, it has a multitude of variables acting upon it. So yeah, you're going to need evidence.

[sivispacem]

All of Europe is developed yes, well pretty much all of it. But only in relative terms compared to the rest of the world. There's still great differences between individual countries. Average income varies greatly and is generally 3-7 times higher in a country like the UK compared to a poorer Eastern European country like Poland or Bulgaria.

It depends on the metric used. If you use nominal GDP, yes, but if you take into account purchasing power and use PPP figures, some of the Eastern European countries do fairly well compared to Western and Southern Europe. Poland's GDP per capita rises to $23,275 when using PPP figures, Romania's is $18,635 and Bulgaria's $15,941. For the sake of comparison, the UK is $36,179, Portugal is $25,900, Hungary $22,878 and Slovenia $28,298. Nominal GDP is all well and good for the purpose of general national wealth but when discussing movement of labour, you have to take into account the value of domestic currency, inflation and comparative goods prices.

 

 

So you have large amounts of people willing to work for less than the nationals of the country. And although the migrants may be earning a low amount of money in the view of the nationals, to the migrants it's a heck of a lot. How are you supposed to compete with that? Someone who's happy to work for less than you because to them it's still extremely good pay.

This is an incorrect assumption based on flawed economic principles. Nations with high GDP per capita tend to have comparatively high living costs, which are taken into account to some extent when looking at purchasing power parity. You seem to assume that these living costs don't affect foreign nationals who come to work in, say, the UK. The assertion that citizens of nations like Poland or Romania will expect a lower wage than British domestic citizens is true, but it fails to take into account two things. One, the relatively transparency of the British labour market (of course, I'm only referring to white labour here, by which I mean legal labour- discussing of grey and black market labour is fraught with difficulty because of the difficulty in actually assessing the value of such markets), and two the comparative difference in cost-of-living between the UK and Eastern European countries. Put simply, the level of wage a Bulgarian or Polish citizen can accept in Britain and still maintain an equivalent standard of living is much closer than the nominal GDP per capita figures show.

 

Then there's the question of labour market competition. The British labour market is highly regulated, which isn't to say that underhand dealings don't take place, but they are generally an exception rather than a rule. Most permanent positions, even at the lower end of the job market, have declared salary ranges subject to qualification level. The UK is by and large a tertiary service economy; the majority of output is from semi-skilled and skilled labour. Therefore, the sector of the economy on which unskilled migration can have a direct effect is quite small. The main area in which unskilled foreign nationals operate is the temporary worker industry, which is much less stringently regulated than the permanent work industry. Circa December 2012 we had 29.7 million adults in work in the UK; however, only 1.6 million of these were in temporary positions. So we're looking at about 5% of the economy where unskilled foreign nationals can have any real displacement effect. Most white-market temporary work is still subject to the minimum wage; the average age of Polish residents in the UK is 28. Therefore the hourly wage for an average Polish casual labourer would be significantly higher than for an under-21 British citizen- and it's the 18-21 age group where unemployment is the highest. So the notion that, on average, a Polish casual worker would actually be cheaper than a British one when considering above-board jobs is false.

 

Of course, you could argue that a significant amount of grey or black market work goes to foreign citizens, who are paid below the UK minimum wage. Which is a valid contention, but the problem then comes from quantifiably measuring it, assessing just how much displacement takes place, and the suchlike. I'd be very interested to see figures for possible grey market displacement of British jobs by foreign nationals but in the case of this argument it would be a moot point anyway because basing immigration policy on the grey job market whilst ignoring the white market is utterly ridiculous.

 

 

It's not a myth at all, it's a reality in towns and cities across the UK. Wages are kept lower by large amounts of people falling head over heals at the prospect of earning (to them) lots of money. What is a myth is the idea that somehow immigrants are all entrepreneurs that create more jobs than they take up.

I'm afraid it is a myth. There is no correlation between increased employment amongst British citizens and decreased immigration. There is a strong correlation between increased immigration and reduced unemployment. Immigration, by and large, is a net wealth creator. There are numerous analysis which highlight this, both in the UK and outside of it. Until such a moment as you can provide some evidence of a direct causal link between increased immigration and increasing unemployment amongst domestic citizens, continuing to insist that foreign labour displacement is categorical fact is entirely meaningless.

 

Fun little aside emphasising my point about overseas labour having a better cost-to-benefit ratio than domestic labour:

 

 

Of three categories of citizen living in the UK: British, EEA and non-EEA, only one has consistently had a net positive economic impact: EEA citizens. For the last 10+ years, EEA citizens have contributed a minimum of 5% and a maximum of 30% more per capita than domestic British citizens when costs to the state are taken into account. Yes, that's right. EEA citizens are better for the British economy than British ones.

 

 

I also find it hard to believe that a person who's saved up their entire lives and then moves to another country with the intent of spending those savings usually amounting to tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds, and who still has to pay for any healthcare they receive like other citizens, somehow has more of a detrimental effect to the people of a country than the low skilled migrants who drive down wages and take away jobs.

Newsflash- healthcare across pretty much the entire EU is free at the point of access for EU citizens, and generally unequivocally free for domicile citizens. Your wealthy foreign expatriate wouldn't be directly paying for their healthcare expenditure. They also wouldn't have contributed directly in terms of taxation, having not earned their wage in the country they are now domicile in. They would pay property taxes, VAT on purchases and potentially wealth taxes, depending where they stayed, plus local and other direct investment taxation like motoring taxes, but their economic contributions would be much lower than a working individual. It's generally only in the case of VAT-enabled high-level expenditure where affluent individuals not paying income tax contribute to government coffers, and the current late-WWII-to-early-baby-boomer generation that comprise the majority of expatriates tend to still have a much lower expenditure rate on non-VAT-exempt goods than younger working citizens.