Immigrants Contributed An Estimated $115.2 Billion More To The Medicare Trust Fund Than They Took Out In 2002–09
- Date
2013-06-01
- Authors
Leah Zallman, Steffie Woolhandler, David Himmelstein, David Bor, and Danny McCormick
- Abstract
Many immigrants in the United States are working-age taxpayers; few are elderly beneficiaries of Medicare. This demographic profile suggests that immigrants may be disproportionately subsidizing the Medicare Trust Fund, which supports payments to hospitals and institutions under Medicare Part A. For immigrants and others, we tabulated Trust Fund contributions and withdrawals (that is, Trust Fund expenditures on their behalf) using multiple years of data from the Current Population Survey and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. In 2009 immigrants made 14.7 percent of Trust Fund contributions but accounted for only 7.9 percent of its expenditures—a net surplus of $13.8 billion. In contrast, US-born people generated a $30.9 billion deficit. Immigrants generated surpluses of $11.1–$17.2 billion per year between 2002 and 2009, resulting in a cumulative surplus of $115.2 billion. Most of the surplus from immigrants was contributed by noncitizens and was a result of the high proportion of working-age taxpayers in this group. Policies that restrict immigration may deplete Medicare’s financial resources.
- Journal title
Health Affairs
- Volume
32
- Issue
6
- Page numbers
1153-1160
- Links
- Economic sectors
General relevance - all sectors
- Content types
Statistics on work and life conditions
- Target groups
Public awareness, Researchers, Unions, and NGOs/community groups/solidarity networks
- Geographical focuses
United States and Regional relevance
- Spheres of activity
Health sciences, Political science, and Demography
- Languages
English