/ world today news/ Germany’s welfare system is facing a debt explosion that will continue to grow, and a leading professor reveals that it would be cheaper to just close the border altogether.
Mass immigration could cost Germany up to €19.2 trillion and has already cost the country €5.8 trillion, according to leading German public finance scholar Professor Bernd Raffelhuyschen of the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg.
The research by Professor Raffelhüschen, often referred to as “retired dad”, pokes a hole in the narrative promoted by pro-immigration parties and business leaders that mass immigration will save Germany’s public finances and labor market.
“Immigration in its current form costs us 5.8 trillion euros,” the professor wrote in his new study.
However, unlike some other economists who argue that Germany is suffering financially from an unskilled labor force and needs more skilled labor, Raffelhülschen also says that importing skilled labor would actually cost the German tax and pension system more than completely closing the borders to all immigration.
Raffelhülschen’s high debt values may not be too far off the mark, at least compared to other countries.
As Remix News previously reported, several leading Dutch professors recently published a study detailing how migrants have cost the Netherlands at least €400 billion since 1995, with the Netherlands taking in far fewer migrants than Germany.
Researchers found that in Norway only half of migrants are employed, despite the fact that the state has spent 6.6 billion euros on labor integration projects over 10 years.
In his research, Professor Raffelhuyschen shows that due to the rapid aging of German society, there is a “huge gap between what businesses and workers pay into the German tax and social system”, including taxes, day care, pensions and health insurance, and what they can require in the future in terms of pensions, healthcare and social security.
According to the professor, this “sustainability gap” will grow to a whopping €19.2 trillion if Germany continues to allow 300,000 foreigners into the country each year.
As he notes in his research, for most foreigners the process of integration takes an extremely long time, and during that time they have little income – or often none – and therefore there is a significant lag in their contribution to the social system.
Even those who do find work often have a much lower income level, often to the point that they still claim (entitle) social security, resulting in a huge burden on Germany’s extensive social security system.
Fence around Germany
Raffelhülschen also explained what would happen to Germany if the country theoretically “puts a fence around Germany from now on,” which would mean zero inflow of immigrants.
Under this scenario, the future fiscal deficit would shrink from €19.2 trillion to €13.4 trillion, a decrease of €5.8 trillion.
“That’s the cost of immigration in our current system,” says a social expert.
Raffelhuyschen explains how he reaches his conclusions, writing that it takes migrants an average of six years to integrate and join the German labor market, and during that time they contribute very little to the pension system – or nothing at all.
Even after entering the labor market, if at all, they earn less and therefore contribute very little to the social system.
However, these foreigners are also included in the compulsory health insurance system, where they receive the same benefits as Germans, who have sometimes been paying into the system for decades.
The professor gives an example: “An asylum seeker comes to Germany at the age of 26, they reject him after two or three years, but he stays here with a work permit.”
“He then gradually started his first job, gained a qualification and at 35 began a career as a tax and insurance payer. As his pension entitlement is small, as a pensioner he receives a basic benefit which his contributions will never reach.”
He notes that “it’s not worth it. Everything is too expensive.”
A skilled workforce will not save Germany’s pension system
The professor goes further and calculates what would happen if Germany took in 100,000 highly skilled foreigners in addition to the current 300,000 migrants a year, costing the German welfare system €14.2 trillion a year.
However, this would still cost more than adopting a system without immigration, where the “sustainability gap” would be only €13.4 trillion.
Rafelhülschen says, “If we keep going like this, we’ll be as dumb as a rock. Although the age structure of migrants potentially contributes to demographic rejuvenation, it does not lead to a positive migration budget balance in any of the scenarios considered.
He argued that Germans should work longer and receive fewer pension benefits and that only legal residents should not have access to the welfare and pension systems [очевидно има грешка в оригиналния източник, т.к. Логично жителите трябва да имат достъп до социалната и пенсионната система – преводач] and that contributions should be increased.
Translation: SM
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