Undocumented Immigrants Contribute Billions to Social Security, Never to Receive Benefits

A useful reminder (i.e., this really is old news) from the Seattle Times that undocumented immigrants annually pay billions into Social Security but have little, if any, likelihood of ever receiving a cent in Social Security benefits:

“While many Americans believe illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes, billions of dollars deducted from paychecks issued to undocumented workers flow to the Social Security Administration (SSA) every year. Those workers almost certainly will never see that money again.

Social Security officials keep a record of wages that do not match up with real names and numbers in their system. The record is called the earnings suspense file.

In 2009, the last year for which figures are available, employers reported wages of $72.8 billion for 7.7 million workers who could not be matched to legal Social Security numbers.

That total hit a record $90.4 billion, earned by 10.8 million workers, in 2007, just before the recession. Some of those were legal workers who simply made paperwork mistakes, but the majority are believed to be illegal immigrants.” (emphasis added).

KJ