Cost of Illegal Immigration in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania taxpayers reportedly picked up the tab to the tune of more than $1 billion annually for the cost of illegal immigration, which put Pennsylvania near the top in cost burden among the nation’s states.

An estimate published by the Pew Hispanic Center in December 2014 indicated the illegal immigrant population in Pennsylvania was 170,000 in 2012. That figure was a bit less than the one cited by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which indicated that Pennsylvania was the home of an estimated 180,000 illegal aliens as of 2010.

FAIR estimated annual fiscal costs borne by Pennsylvania’s taxpayers because of illegal immigration at $1,377,867,908, which ranked Pennsylvania with the 15th-highest such total among U.S. states.

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Government entities provide four types of benefits relevant to determining fiscal costs of immigration, according to The Heritage Foundation:

Public education, which is largely free or heavily subsidized for parents with low incomes
Welfare programs, which provide food, housing, cash, medical, and other services to about 100 million low-income U.S. residents.
Direct benefits such as workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, Medicare, and Social Security
Population-based services such as parks, highways and police and fire protection, which must be expanded when a community’s population increases

The average U.S. household in 2010 received $31,584 in government benefits and services in these four categories, according to The Heritage Foundation.

To illustrate how costly illegal immigration proved, it claimed that U.S. households headed by a person with a college education on average in 2010 received $24,839 in government benefits and paid $54,089 in taxes — amounting to a fiscal surplus of $29,250.

At the same time, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services and paid $10,334 in taxes, bringing a fiscal deficit of $14,387.

FAIR claimed Pennsylvania’s estimated annual illegal immigration expenses include: