The real contribution of immigrants

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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found this article:

California’s undocumented residents contribute nearly $8.5 billion in taxes, playing a crucial role in supporting public services while remaining excluded from essential programs.

All Californians should be able to live thriving lives and participate in their communities, regardless of their race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, or immigration status.

California is home to a sizable population of immigrants — with and without legal status — who are students, teachers, artists, chefs, business owners, religious leaders, colleagues, neighbors, family members, and more. Undocumented Californians pay billions of dollars in taxes and play a vital role in stimulating California’s economy. They help keep businesses running, put food on tables, care for children and loved ones, enrich communities through art and music, and much more.

Tax Contributions by Undocumented Californians

One contribution that is often overlooked or underestimated is the amount of taxes that individuals who are undocumented are paying into publicly-funded systems to support public services, even as they are excluded from benefiting from many of those same services.

Undocumented Californians paid nearly $8.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, according to estimates from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). This includes the sales and excise taxes paid on purchases, the property taxes paid on homes or indirectly through rents, individual and business income taxes, unemployment taxes, and other types of taxes.

These tax contributions support the public services and infrastructure that benefit all Californians, such as education, roads and transit, emergency response, and the social safety net. However, despite recent progress in making some public supports more inclusive of Californians regardless of their immigration status, many programs continue to unjustly exclude undocumented individuals and families who pay into these systems and seek support in times of need.

Portrait of child girl eating on snack time at school

H.R. 1 and the Federal Budget

H.R. 1, the harmful Republican mega bill passed in July 2025, will deeply harm Californians by cutting funding for essential programs like health care, food assistance, and education.

See how California leaders can respond and protect vital supports.

Learn More

California has taken steps in recent years that recognize the importance of supporting everyone regardless of status, including:

  • Expanding full-scope Medi-Cal health coverage to all eligible Californians regardless of immigration status. We are already seeing signs of benefits from making Medi-Cal more inclusive: After full-scope Medi-Cal was expanded to undocumented children, the share of non-citizen children reporting excellent health status increased by 10 percentage points while no changes were seen for citizen children not impacted by the expansion.
  • Ending the exclusion of tax filers with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) from the benefits of the state’s refundable tax credits — the CalEITC and the Young Child Tax Credit.
  • Taking the first steps to provide access to nutrition benefits through the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) for undocumented adults age 55 and older, who are excluded from receiving federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (CalFresh in California) benefits. However, the 2024-25 state budget delayed the implementation of this expansion until 2027.

Despite this progress, Californians without documentation remain excluded from many critical supports, jeopardizing their health and economic security. While many of these exclusions stem from federal law, state leaders can further support these Californians by using state resources to end the exclusions. State policymakers should:

  • Ensure undocumented workers have access to unemployment support when they lose a job by funding cash assistance for workers excluded from traditional unemployment insurance benefits. The Legislature recently passed a bill to require the Employment Development Department to develop a plan to establish an Excluded Workers Program, but the governor vetoed the bill citing concerns about the cost and the deadline set in the bill.
  • Address food insecurity in undocumented communities by expanding CFAP nutrition benefits to undocumented Californians of all ages.
  • Build on the success of ending Medi-Cal exclusions by expanding access to health coverage through Covered California to undocumented families whose income make them ineligible for Medi-Cal.
  • Expand the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI) to undocumented older adults and people with disabilities whose immigration status disqualifies them from receiving Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP).
  • Increase funding for free tax preparation services to enable more undocumented Californians to apply for and renew ITINs and file income returns — allowing them to pay the taxes they owe and receive the tax credits they are eligible for.

Exclusions from these vital services are one contributor to the higher rate of poverty among undocumented Californians. This results in unnecessary human suffering and additional strains on community services that people use as a last resort, such as emergency rooms.

Federal action is also needed, including ending unjust exclusions from federal safety net and financial assistance programs and providing an accessible path to citizenship for those who have been living, working, and contributing to their communities. Granting legal status to these individuals would provide them with greater economic security and stability, and allow them to make even more meaningful contributions to the state.

Furthermore, by allowing all workers to pursue legal employment, granting legal status could increase the state and local tax contributions of Californians currently lacking documentation from $8.5 billion to $10.3 billion, according to ITEP estimates. This would deepen their already significant contributions to California’s economy and public support programs.

Regardless of the prospects for federal action, California leaders have the tools to continue making the state’s services inclusive of all its residents and ensuring that no one is left out of critical safety net programs.

The California Budget & Policy Center is a nonpartisan research and analysis nonprofit that examines budget and policy choices to advance public policies that expand opportunity and promote well-being for all Californians.

The Budget Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions and grants are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. EIN: 68-0346784

©2026 California Budget & Policy Center.
(Privacy Policy - California Budget & Policy Center).

K: found this online… at your convenience let me know your
thoughts…

Kropotkin

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How do undocumented residents pay tax if they are undocumented?

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I can’t speak for the UK, but here, California, we have
taxes on items in stores, we have taxes on fast food,
we have taxes on virtually everything you buy…
In my specific county, San Mateo county, we have
a 9.8% tax on most items one buys…there is no escape
from paying these taxes… if you buy an item, it is taxed…
regardless of your legal status… but being illegal prevents
one from getting many things, as the article says, plus there
are taxes on income, for example when I worked, I paid roughly
10% of my income to the state of California… it was taken out
regardless of my legal status…income is taxed… and there is
no way to avoid it other than getting paid under the table…
and that is hard to do these days… at one time, I was paid
under the table, in the 1980’s and it was easy to do, but not
today… so immigrants, they pay taxes on income, but they don’t
receive many benefits from that…as the article tells us…

there are many, many ways to pay taxes, the government
sees to that…

Kropotkin

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@MagsJ
@ProfessorX
@Peter_Kropotkin
@Bob

It’s true legal and illegal immigrants do pay taxes inside of the United States.

The United States federal government is very aggressive concerning taxation that it even aggressively taxes Americans overseas who have renounced their citizenship entirely. That’s the thing about Uncle Scam, he loves taxing everyone across the board equally.

What Peter fails to mention here is that while foreign immigrants are taxed like everybody else they’re a financial net drain because ultimately they’re utilized by domestic or international corporations as a way of suppressing working class wages. Overtime the living standards drop for everyone dramatically because of this. Wages is the more important thing foreign immigration negatively impacts, not taxes.

By having unlimited foreign immigration into western nations you create conditions for unlimited surplus labor and with those conditions wages are then suppressed from ever rising in any significant manner for the working class.

The failure of political liberalism is that it views everybody as financial economic labor units under market conditions because in the end political liberalism revolves around economic capitalism. With foreign immigrants in the west it views entire national populations as being interchangeable parts. Fundamental flaw of political liberalism.

I do not hate foreign immigrants or workers, as a Marxist and communist I can sympathize with their plight because ultimately they’re equally exploited by the international capitalist class. The foreign worker is exploited equally as the native domestic worker also is.

I do however view it as a mistake to believe whole entire national populations are interchangeable in this devious quest of globalism and global economic capitalism.

By viewing entire national populations from around the world as being interchangeable completely ignoring nationalist sentiments you set the tone of creating a bunch problems or conflicts worldwide overtime. You can ignore and hate those national sentiments all you want, but ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.

:clown_face:

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I prefer to punt back to “Who is the neighbor?” in this scenario. Are we allowing/expecting from the citizenry what we would never allow/expect from visitors, and vice versa? That’s bassackwards & dupsideown.

First of all, EFF diplomatic immunity and not being able to prosecute a sitting president. WTF is that?

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peace, love, and crunchy granola bars, Mr. authoritarian

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Definitely false advertising, considering the immunity ‘nd all:

IMG_2830
IMG_2830750×629 91.9 KB

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Also it doesn’t really matter if immigrants are taxed or not, or if they are working good jobs here or not, or taking jobs from Americans or not. All of that is a secondary concern. The main issue is simply the fact of immigration law being a real thing. Without reasonable limits on immigration no nation or society can survive for long, at least that is assuming lots and lots of people are immigrating there.

We can have a debate about getting rid of immigration restrictions and becoming a truly “melting pot” “multi-cultural” society if that is what people want to do. If the majority votes for it, ok then, fine, let’s give it a shot. But until that happens the open borders are blatantly illegal. Change the law, or follow the law. Liberals can pick one or the other.

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So, the real culprits are the corporations, and as I have said, the people are just trying to get through life. All of the aggression against them is therefore misplaced. You are living in a corporate hellhole, but continually hitting out against the people who are just as victims as you are.

A growing number of Western countries are struggling to fill essential jobs, those that keep societies running but are often undervalued or poorly paid. In that context, a policy of carefully regulated immigration is entirely understandable. I have never supported uncontrolled immigration, and I was openly critical of Angela Merkel’s famous statement, “Wir schaffen das!”, which ignored the social and logistical complexities of large-scale migration.

The deeper problem, however, lies not just in immigration policy but in the economic philosophy that has dominated since the Reagan and Thatcher era. Western governments began equating rising stock prices and billionaire wealth with national prosperity, promoting the myth of “trickle-down economics” - an idea now widely discredited. The reality is that this approach has primarily benefited corporate elites and financial institutions, while ordinary citizens shoulder stagnant wages, rising living costs, and decreasing job security. The financial crisis of 2008 revealed this imbalance vividly: the banks that caused the collapse were rescued, while millions of ordinary people suffered the consequences.

Margaret Thatcher once declared, “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” That notion, too, is profoundly misleading. Human history is defined by cooperation, solidarity, and mutual support and not ruthless individualism. Communities thrive when people recognise their interdependence, when they act not only for personal gain but for the collective well-being. Ignoring that truth has led to the social fragmentation and economic inequality we see today.

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Here you combine two things that have nothing to do with each other. The “melting pot” idea is against xenophobia and racism, with the intention of building a more culturally tolerant society.

It has nothing to do with “getting rid” of immigration restrictions. That is the mistake that you continually make.

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Bro, that is what you want to focus on, really, when you continue to refuse to answer the question I already asked you in the other thread? :joy:

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@Bob
@ProfessorX

The melting pot dogma as an ideology in America was created by a follower of Judaism that then later became imposed on the United States through massive coordinated force overtime.

But even worse the ideological dogma has migrated to other nations around the world including inside of Europe where the native inhabitants there are told they’re not allowed to have their own national sovereignty to themselves.

No matter how you try to run away from these issues or walk around them they always remain the same. No level of mental gymnastics will change anything, your tiresome failed liberal theatrics of weaponized altruism no longer works.

Either debate directly or don’t be taken seriously, your choice.

:clown_face:

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@Bob

Even in the game of chess pawns are utilized as weapons against others and yes, even innocent people who have done nothing wrong can be utilized as weapons against others in the struggle or domain for power and control by very mentally devious amoral people.

I wonder if you even understand all the complexities or nuances of this world where everything is not always so black and white concerning simple binary appearances.

Do you understand realism of our very real world, or are you too much of an idealist unable to see past conceptual idealism? I find this overly idealistic world of ours very problematic and conflicting because people have a hard time separating idealistic theory from actual reality.

:clown_face:

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@ProfessorX

In nations like the United States the damage of several generations concerning illegal immigration has already been done. I would seek to halt all immigration and stabilize the population or the national economy if I could, but ultimately political liberals are the greatest obstacle of trying to heal the effects of unlimited foreign immigration within many multitudes of several decades.

The fascists dream of conflicting ethnic balkanization and civil war as a result of all this ethnic cultural conflict but I disagree with that sentiment entirely. I believe peaceful cooperative compromise should be pursued that perhaps maybe all parties of the argument can agree upon.

So I choose peace that is if cooperative peace is even possible because the only alternative to that is constant war of attrition where ultimately in that nobody wins anything other than the global internationalists further entrenching themselves with the loss of life everywhere.

Fascists would say we have already compromised too much where the time of diplomacy or political negotiation is all but over but if that is the case then we have already lost.

Peace should always be pursued. War or violence should never be embraced first so carelessly. The suffering or misery of human beings through such activities is not necessary and shouldn’t be encouraged.

We should always first pursue peace above all else if and when we can. For now at the moment I choose negotiated compromise hoping that all different parties of the political spectrum can agree upon something. I hope for that going forth into the future.

:clown_face:

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Nope. Billionaires don’t pay taxes, some of them probably don’t even pay sales tax.

Much of taxes go to billionaires, in the form of bailouts and subsidies.

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@futureone

Yes, you’re definitely correct on that.

:clown_face:

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But the immigrants don’t pay income tax on top of that, it seems..

Meanwhile..

Europe generally has the highest individual income taxes and tax burdens in the world, particularly in Nordic countries like Denmark, Finland, and Belgium. However, for corporate tax, South America has the highest average statutory rates.

  • Highest Individual Rates (2025/2026): Finland (57.65%), Japan (55.95%), and Denmark (55.9%) top the list for personal income tax rates.
  • Corporate Tax Rates: When weighted by GDP, South America has the highest average corporate tax rate at roughly 32.65%, followed by Africa.
  • Individual Tax Burden: When considering the total tax wedge (income tax + social security contributions) for a single worker, Belgium, Germany, and Austria are among the highest in the OECD.

In summary, Europe imposes the highest overall tax burden, while South America has the highest corporate tax, and Africa houses the highest individual marginal tax rate, based on 2025/2026 data and 2024 reports.

Western citizens are getting financially-butchered on the ‘income tax’ side of things, so immigrants are financially better off than the native populations and the Corporations get richer off both.

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..it’s all being done by design anyway, so who gives an f!

The government overreach on our lives is intruding on our lives.. turning us all into criminals is their game.. robbing us blind in the name of taxes is their claim.

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Because of course money is everything. What’s the point in all that ‘tax money’ in the US anyway? It’s full of homeless people and it doesn’t even have accessible health care for everyone. The whole point of paying taxes is supposed to be that it’s distributed fairly amongst the population. More tax dollars only means more money to spend on the military :roll_eyes:

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