🚀 go-pugleaf

>
> That's odd - in MY universe, the employee and employer BOTH contribute
> on the FICA amount.
>
>

If an employer hires NOBODY, then no money goes to Social Security,
Medicare, etc, as there are no wages paid from which taxes can be withheld.
If an employer hires SOMEONE (legal or otherwise), then a certain amount of
that employee's wages are withheld to cover SS, Medicare, etc.

For someone to claim that illegal aliens are pumping extra money into Social
Security  without being able to draw it is ludicrous.  The only difference
is, WHO is the money withheld from?  While it's true that the illegal alien
won't be able to draw SS (etc.) benefits at retirement, that doesn't mean
that there will be more money available to NOT pay those benefits.  It
simply means that someone legal didn't pay into the system, but someone else
did.

Again, it boils down to an illegal alien stole someone's job.  That's the
only difference.

Let's look at this mathematically.  Assume an employer has 20 employees, and
each of them has 20 bucks a week withheld to pay for social security . . .
(this is a WAY over-simplified example, obviously)

If none of the employees are illegal aliens, 400 bucks a week goes to social
security.  If all of them are illegal aliens, 400 bucks a week still goes to
social security.  Some argue that this helps social security, as the illegal
aliens can't draw benefits at retirement.  No, it just means that 20 legal
citizens are jobless.  The same number of citizens are going to claim SS
benefits at retirement age (or upon disability), regardless of where that
money comes from.

On a side note, there are probably SOME illegal aliens that use false SS
numbers and claim "exempt" filing status.  In that case, the illegal aliens
may actually be robbing money from social security, as their employer isn't
withholding taxes and the illegal aliens sure as heck aint filing tax
returns to pay up later.

So whether or not it's valid to argue that illegal aliens help social
security, it is at least as valid to claim that illegal aliens might be
hurting social security.  -Dave