• SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    Brexit was the best experiment for that. They kick immigrants out so all jobs went to the local population. People didn’t want them, produce was left in the fields, deliveries were not made, tables were not waited on and some companies folded. Anyway, immigration is now back and higher than it used to be, but from other countries.

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    Illegal immigrants actually pay into state and local taxes way more than legal citizens and green-card holders do.

    And since they’re here undocumented, they can’t get anything in return for paying those taxes.

  • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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    11 months ago

    This one also surprises a lot of people: They pay taxes. Undocumented Immigrants in the USA paid about 11.6Bn USD in taxes in 2019 according to ITEP.

      • lanolinoil@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Their employers pay taxes on their wages through their fake ss numbers. They pay sales tax when they buy things from the store

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        https://www.irs.gov/individuals/individual-taxpayer-identification-number

        An Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is a tax processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS issues ITINs to individuals who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification number but who do not have, and are not eligible to obtain, a Social Security number (SSN) from the Social Security Administration (SSA).

      • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Perhaps not income taxes, but maybe taxes on goods and services, property taxes, etc? Can’t say for certain though.

        • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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          11 months ago

          If you don’t have an SSN then you still need to pay income taxes via ITIN. You don’t want to be caught for Tax Fraud as an immigrant.

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        In my opinion the costs are much higher to not integrate new peoples. Undocumented Immigrants provide a lot of the ingredients but take none of the pie. I’m not going to sit here and say cheap labor is acceptable, but there is a point where you have to admit we wouldn’t have nearly as many workers in less desirable employment fields if not for immigrants, even if wages were higher. They are also on average younger than an aging local population.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    I have SSI it pays peanuts, if I didn’t have a job ontop of it, I’d have nothing.

    The rules are overly strict and an absolute poverty trap. I cannot legally have 2000 dollars to my name and anything I earn through ANY means must be reported meaning I CAN’T have a side hustle.

    I need to stay on the program because my health insurance is tied to it, if I ever lost it I would be physically and mentally near death within a month.

    I’m one of the people they’re talking about when they mention Welfare Queens

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      These are the situations I think it’s fine to fuck the government on. Do an all cash side hustle, keep the cash in a safe deposit box/in your mattress.

      Though I suppose there’s the risk you get caught and fucked over by the legal system.

      It’s a fucked up situation, and I feel for you. Hopefully things improve.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Only hope is for legislation to ease the rules a bit so that peopel on SSI can actually escape poverty, until then, it’s legally mandated that I live below the poverty line. It’s fucked

    • Facebones@reddthat.com
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      11 months ago

      Whenever I see people talk about “If I could sit on my ass and get paid I would too!” I tell them the same thing -

      Do it.

      If you can scam your way into it, more power to you. First you’ll have to spend your savings down under $2k. If you have two cars, gotta sell one. If you take so much as a few hours of work a week your check is nixed like 75%. All for, even in 2023, like $800/mo.

      If you think you can live your best life on $800/mo as the type of person who thinks someone getting 800/mo is the reason you can’t get ahead, I support you. 🤷

  • masquenox@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Right-wing ideology doesn’t have to be consistent - it merely has to shift the blame for society’s ills away from those who caused them.

  • HooPhuckenKarez@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Mass shootings in the news came up a couple o’ days ago at work. It quickly devolved into it’s all n-words shooting eachother, because that’s what n-words do.

    Did you know trump is gonna eliminate the income tax once he’s elected?

    I hate being in a red corner of a blue state.

    • Waldowal@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      People at your work just drop n-bombs in casual conversation? I’m in Georgia, and even the most inbred rednecks here aren’t bold enough to do that at work.

    • Rediphile@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      And yet the mass shooting record holder is a white guy who was shooting at a country music festival ffs…

      “Damn whites always shooting each other, because that’s what white people do”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    As such lovers of free market capitalism, shouldn’t Republicans want immigrants to come here and compete for work so that corporations can get employees for the lowest wages possible?

    • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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      11 months ago

      Which is ironically the classic leftist argument against free migration until the one world economy is realized. Constant immigration of low skilled labor serves the capitalist class by suppressing wages and stirring up resentment amongst the rabble so they turn on each other instead of their oppressor.

    • masquenox@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      shouldn’t Republicans want immigrants to come here and compete for work

      Yes, they do - which is why they do everything in their power to keep that disempowered labor disempowered by hysterically painting them as an “other” that must be repressed through every means available.

      It’s just how right-wing ideology has always worked.

    • Kool_Newt@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      They do, immigration is a often a talking point for manipulating the hateful.

  • syd@lemy.lol
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    11 months ago

    I’m from a country that people wants to immigrate away. Even I do sometimes.

    But at the same time I am disturbed by some actions of the minority of the immigrants who come to my country. I am leaning to be an anti-immigrant and because of that I feel hypocritical and xenophobic.

    Sometimes I think it is cruel to be against immigrants because people do not choose their place of birth and their family, just like me.

    I’m just not sure what is right, and this loop bothers me.

    • Striker@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      There’s good and bad in every group and race. Just out of curiosity what country are you from. In some countries the news media and people in general will just latch onto anything bad done by migrants. Like in my country, Ireland, there’s been much ado about a couple of cases where immigrants have committed heinous crimes but there’s been very little coverage of the groups that are going around Dublin basically terrorising immigrants.

      • syd@lemy.lol
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        11 months ago

        I guess you are right. I am from Turkiye and our leader, Erdogan is a pro-immigration. It bothers me to agree with him on something :)

        Normally I believe in human rights but he accepts undocumented refugees from ME in order to bring the Sharia. So his purpose is not to save those people but change average society habits. I think we are different from European countries in this regard. I think Europe accepts immigrants in a more refined way.

        • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          There are absolutely other European countries that handle immigration in one way or another depending of the ruling party’s political goals. There was a relatively recent period of time in Spain where the right wing immediately stopped to casually drop racist remarks against Latin Americans because they realized that Latinos, usually being Christians, were more likely to vote for them, but they still paid lip service to Anti-Arab xenophobia.

    • spookex@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      For me everything is based on how they get there and how they conduct themselves.

      I have been an immigrant to several countries and I still am, but

      I had all of the proper paperwork,

      I didn’t sneak across any borders illegally,

      I didn’t overstay my visas,

      I didn’t pay some guy on a boat to bring me there,

      I didn’t commit any crimes that are worse than jaywalking,

      I didn’t get clumped together with other people from my country and try to impose my values on the citizens of the country I was in,

      I didn’t do any under the table work,

      I paid all of my taxes.

      These are the thing that I expect from others as well.

      • friedgreenpineapples@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That’s a lot of words for “I can’t (won’t?) see past my own privilege and have no compassion for people who don’t have the same options I do.”

        • spookex@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Then too bad, I don’t have an option to fly into space, yet you won’t see me trying to glue myself to the next rocket that SpaceX launches.

      • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        After having gone through the process of trying to help an Indian trans person find a job in my country in order to allow them to get here legally and having found the requirements being draconic, I don’t care about anyone illegally moving to a country as long as they behave respectfully, which they most usually do because conflicts where the police gets involved are more likely to get them deported. Do I want them to pay taxes? Sure, but the extent to which they’re able to pay taxes depends on the country deciding to regularize their status.

        • spookex@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Rules are rules and if you don’t follow them, the country doesn’t want you.

          It’s a different conversation when you talk about the consequences of such policies, but that’s what the country decided and those are the rules.

          • lad@programming.dev
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            11 months ago

            A bit tangential, but there are a lot of cases when the country doesn’t want you, especially if you listen to the opinion of the officials. They are quick to judge one to be too poor, too old, too stupid, too smart, too demanding, too questioning their decisions, etc.

  • LazyBane@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    This kind of reasoning is consistent across all forms of bigotry. Having self contradictory believes about a demographic just so nothing they can do will be the right thing for them to do.

  • EvilHaitianEatingYourCat@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s especially ironic to hear that from Americans lol my house is older than your country, what “immigrants” you are talking about

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      11 months ago

      Sure, we’re a “nation of immigrants,” but at what point does one stop being an immigrant? How many generations does it take? And if I’m still an immigrant even though my family has been here for generations, then by rights I should have a “home” country that I can easily return to, but I don’t. Sure, I could in theory immigrate back to Ireland and the UK where my ancestors came from, but you and I both know that no one would ever consider me “Irish” or “British.” I would always still be an “American,” which brings us back to the original question of how long it takes people to stop being immigrants.

      • EvilHaitianEatingYourCat@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I claim: never.

        You are what you are ethnically, that’s it. No amount “living in America” will suddenly make you “American”.

        It’s exactly the same for Russians for example, but in Russian we have 2 words to say “Russian”, one of them implies ethnicity and the other one implies citizenship. You obviously can become “xxx citizen”, but you never become the ethnicity, unless you already are.

        Because I don’t think we can speak of “US ethnicity”, hence only “citizenship” remains. As such, anyone who becomes a citizen automatically looses “immigrant” status, even if only after a couple of years.

  • buzz86us@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Loads of xenophobic idiots laugh at me for this, but I’m noticing a lot of migrations due to climate change. Honestly IMO it will only get worse as time goes on.

    • rbhfd@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’ve been thinking we should play on xenophobe’s fears to get them to support actions to curb climate change.

      At least their bigotry will have some positive result then.

      Of course, ideally, they could be convinced that not “all brown people are bad” (sic) and also support climate change action, but we all now how likely that is.

  • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    This is absolutely possible when people receive welfare and simultaneously work without paying tax. I live in a neighborhood where people are doing this and they are quite open about it, too.

    The trouble is that people either do A) deny their existence and everyone who claims differently is a Nazi. Or B) become a right winger or demand there shall be no welfare efforts.

    • Undaunted@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      There’s an estimation done in Germany every year. And the result is always that only around 4% of the the people on welfare abuse it. Compared to the damage that is done to the state by clever tax evasion of super rich people, these are peanuts. But going after these 4% of welfare abusers is of course easier so that’s why they put a lot effort into it.

      • dmention7@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        It is kind of strange how much more of a visceral reaction people have to the idea of poor people cheating the system, compared to rich people cheating the system. Logically, it seems like the latter should get people a lot more riled up, which I guess speaks to the power of their propaganda.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          See there’s this idea that when rich people cheat the system, they are being intelligent and finding proper loopholes, and by showcasing enough diligence and intellect to find these loopholes they are proving why they deserve to be rich in the first place.

          Poor people who cheat the system, often so that they can stay alive. They are seen as inhuman and the idea is that if they weren’t cretins they wouldn’t be so poor as to need to cheat to begin with.

          Admittedly, this seems to be changing as the gap between the rich and the poor grows wider and wider and wider, with the temporarily embarrassed millionaires now becoming Furious and hungry.

          • lad@programming.dev
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            11 months ago

            I think you’re very right. But there’s also something that makes one change how they see rich doing “tax optimisation”, that I know because I now see it as something amoral, which I didn’t before.

            But also, the difference between poor and middle was bigger thatln middle and rich at some point in time. Now that is the opposite, any one from the middle class is closer to being poor than to being rich, that also may affect opinion shift

        • Urist@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Oh but you see, the rich guys are resourceful and clever while the poor are lazy criminals.

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          It’s because people have strange hang ups about how “a victim” is supposed to be, I think. That is why many people who start helping drug addicts and the homeless are often disillusioned at first, when they find out that many of these people can be quite the assholes.

          The same goes for those who are rather at the short end of the stick themselves and actually have to live in poor neighborhoods. It’s easier to be virtue signalling about how you supposedly care for poor people than actually living with them.

          People need to separate “being good” from deserving help. That would make a lot of problems much easier to work on.

      • Blue@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        A couple year ago I volunteered to a community school kitchen, funded by taxes, a lot kids didn’t need the food, some leaved things they didn’t like, one or two straight up throwed food in the trashcan, but for those 5-10 little shits there was always one kid who would eat all his food, and he did because he didn’t have food at home, and I know what is to be hungry as a child. That program is worth every fuckin cent just for that child, and many more like him.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        And how are they supposed to get these statistics?

        As far as I know, they make these estimates on the basis of how many sanctions and repayments the Job Center imposes. But since it’s not easy at all to get by these people and the effort isn’t worth it, there is no way to say how many people are doing it.

        But if you try to convince people to think smart(er) about the problem, it doesn’t help to deny the reality they are actually living in. It would make more sense to show how it’s the employer who makes profit from tax evasion.