It's nice to see an MP lay out their thinking in detail, even if I disagree with policy recommendations that come out of it. It allows constituents engaged on the substance in a way that's increasingly infrequent in our fast-moving, short-attention-span news cycle.
On the actual substance of the analysis:
Totally agree on the challenges in data quality, but net fiscal contributions by ethnicity is an unreliable proxy for immigration. Even country of birth data is unreliable, although less so. Selection biases will skew the data here quite substantially. The earnings data quality is much better and so the analysis holds up a lot better.
Second there are deeper questions with the net contribution maths:
Immigrants disproportionately in sectors that have positive externalities (NHS, care roles, high skill sectors). You need to consider vacancies in these sectors - to really calculate the net impact on the economy and the governments fiscal position.
Moreover, the reason for immigrating is not stable. I came to the UK as a dependent (NB: I'm now a citizen) & I know lots who came for education but stayed for high skills jobs. Being thoughtful about the pipeline of talent requires looking beyond original reasons for immigrating
On the recommendations, deeply agree about the chronic underinvestment issue but there are other policy levers to think about - here are just a fewL
1. (Easy win) Helping people work while asylum applications are being processes
2. Building a more effective pipeline of graduates into high skills jobs. This includes more career support and crucially getting better at commercialising research (uk is particularly bad at this esp compared to us)
3. Change how we calculate fiscal contribution so we acknowledge public sector roles' externalities
4. Paying those in the NHS or care sector more (by the nature of these calculations this would make a huge impact to the analysis because they'll be contributing more fiscally)
5. Doing more longitudinal research on dependents to understand lifetime contributions rather than looking at 1 year snapshots and extrapolating without evidence
The differences between RTI monthly earnings and APS hourly earning are very interesting.
For example:
1) Chinese immigrants earn a third more than Nigerians per hour and a third less per month (presumably due to a higher ratio of part-time workers).
2) Indians earn 30% more than Nigerians per hour but the same amount per month, despite identical full-time employment rates (higher rates of self-employment plus, possibly, tax avoidance could potential could explain this).
3) Belgians earning 90% more than Nigerians per hour but the same per month (N/A; possibly bad APS sampling).
It would be great if we could control the RTI dataset for age, sex, and full/part-time work, and see what anomalies remain.
With respect, your party has been presiding over this for the past 14 years, why are you only just waking up to an issue that the public has been concerned with throughout that period? The migration model used by successive Conservative governments has been of the GDP is the only thing that matters nature, yet it is blindingly obvious the it is GDP per capita that is the better measure of national wealth and health. Throughout the entire tenure of Conservative rule, GDP per capita has largely flatlined (I’d guess that if you had data for GDP per capita for the median wage It may even show a decline). Since the 2019 changes, we are seeing actual falls in GDP per capita, even when those in the upper earnings percentiles are getting 16-20% wage increases. If you took them out of the equation, I suspect the fall would be greater than 0.7%. Put bluntly, Conservative policy is making people poorer.
Fair point, but it’s also worth pointing out that no one MP has the ability to steer Party policy. Like all other parties, the Conservatives include people with a wide range of opinions/ideas on a wide range of subjects. The Party can’t adopt policies put forward by all those different elements at the same time.
True, one MP cannot force a change on a party, particularly one with such a ‘broad church’. Also, I would like to thank Mr O’Brien for the analysis he is providing. He is in my view right, that we need an immigration policy that selects for the high skill high wage approach.
Very, very good.
Hey Neil - some thoughts here (also posted on twitter/x: https://x.com/Isar_b/status/1760240849189740794?s=20)
It's nice to see an MP lay out their thinking in detail, even if I disagree with policy recommendations that come out of it. It allows constituents engaged on the substance in a way that's increasingly infrequent in our fast-moving, short-attention-span news cycle.
On the actual substance of the analysis:
Totally agree on the challenges in data quality, but net fiscal contributions by ethnicity is an unreliable proxy for immigration. Even country of birth data is unreliable, although less so. Selection biases will skew the data here quite substantially. The earnings data quality is much better and so the analysis holds up a lot better.
Second there are deeper questions with the net contribution maths:
Immigrants disproportionately in sectors that have positive externalities (NHS, care roles, high skill sectors). You need to consider vacancies in these sectors - to really calculate the net impact on the economy and the governments fiscal position.
Moreover, the reason for immigrating is not stable. I came to the UK as a dependent (NB: I'm now a citizen) & I know lots who came for education but stayed for high skills jobs. Being thoughtful about the pipeline of talent requires looking beyond original reasons for immigrating
On the recommendations, deeply agree about the chronic underinvestment issue but there are other policy levers to think about - here are just a fewL
1. (Easy win) Helping people work while asylum applications are being processes
2. Building a more effective pipeline of graduates into high skills jobs. This includes more career support and crucially getting better at commercialising research (uk is particularly bad at this esp compared to us)
3. Change how we calculate fiscal contribution so we acknowledge public sector roles' externalities
4. Paying those in the NHS or care sector more (by the nature of these calculations this would make a huge impact to the analysis because they'll be contributing more fiscally)
5. Doing more longitudinal research on dependents to understand lifetime contributions rather than looking at 1 year snapshots and extrapolating without evidence
The differences between RTI monthly earnings and APS hourly earning are very interesting.
For example:
1) Chinese immigrants earn a third more than Nigerians per hour and a third less per month (presumably due to a higher ratio of part-time workers).
2) Indians earn 30% more than Nigerians per hour but the same amount per month, despite identical full-time employment rates (higher rates of self-employment plus, possibly, tax avoidance could potential could explain this).
3) Belgians earning 90% more than Nigerians per hour but the same per month (N/A; possibly bad APS sampling).
It would be great if we could control the RTI dataset for age, sex, and full/part-time work, and see what anomalies remain.
With respect, your party has been presiding over this for the past 14 years, why are you only just waking up to an issue that the public has been concerned with throughout that period? The migration model used by successive Conservative governments has been of the GDP is the only thing that matters nature, yet it is blindingly obvious the it is GDP per capita that is the better measure of national wealth and health. Throughout the entire tenure of Conservative rule, GDP per capita has largely flatlined (I’d guess that if you had data for GDP per capita for the median wage It may even show a decline). Since the 2019 changes, we are seeing actual falls in GDP per capita, even when those in the upper earnings percentiles are getting 16-20% wage increases. If you took them out of the equation, I suspect the fall would be greater than 0.7%. Put bluntly, Conservative policy is making people poorer.
Fair point, but it’s also worth pointing out that no one MP has the ability to steer Party policy. Like all other parties, the Conservatives include people with a wide range of opinions/ideas on a wide range of subjects. The Party can’t adopt policies put forward by all those different elements at the same time.
True, one MP cannot force a change on a party, particularly one with such a ‘broad church’. Also, I would like to thank Mr O’Brien for the analysis he is providing. He is in my view right, that we need an immigration policy that selects for the high skill high wage approach.
Agreed 👍