GDP per head falling

[vetran]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ellor-tax.html

Is THIS why you can't get a GP appointment? Soaring immigration and inflation means government spending per person has fallen by £500 since 2021

Oh what a surprise importing cheap labour has increased costs but dropped tax take, who could have predicted such a thing?

[reddog]

It's about time this issue has been picked up in the media.

It has been talked about online for quite a while.

Focussing on the overall GDP figure is a big mistake.

[sreed]

It's about time this issue has been picked up in the media.

It has been talked about online for quite a while.

Focussing on the overall GDP figure is a big mistake.

......not for Sunak who can claim I AM GROWING THE ECONOMY.....in the most short-sighted way possible!

Sunak knows that this is end-of-days for him, before he goes swanning off to California or India. There's no other explanation for completely ignoring the fact that immigration is THE top issue for Tory voters and his supposedly "hard on immigration" colleagues. If the all-talk-no-action types Badenoch and Braverman had any backbone or conviction on this issue, they have so many tools they could use to surface this glaring problem.

[willendure]

Blame it all on the immigrants?

Immigrants are mostly working age, and willing to accept low paid jobs. Low paid workers help to make a profit for their employers, so it does not make much sense to claim they are responsible for falling GDP per head.

What is the reason? I think the main reason is that the baby boomers, who are the largest generation we have ever had, are now heading into retirement. Instead of earning, they are drawing down their pensions. Capital is more scarce, its harder for businesses to raise capital. Government revenues are falling and we are failing to invest in the national infrastructure.

The earnings power of a nation is its working population size multiplied by their productivity. Our working population is shrinking and so is our productivity, in no small part due to low rates of investment.

Right, you can get back to your Daily Fail now...

[vetran]

Some unsupported denial of the official figures and random support of uncontrolled immigration

Right, you can get back to your Daily Fail now...

Nothing wrong with migrants with high net worth. a few million Just Eat and Uber drivers not paying tax just means the money that the top third of workers pay has to be spread thinner, if you don't understand that you are in trouble. The "boomers" by the way paid significant taxes before they retired.

[xoggoth]

What is the reason? I think the main reason is that the baby boomers

We have so many retired people because of a big increase in the population after the war. So we tackle that with a big increase in population? Immigrants get old too so it's not a solution, we are just kicking the problem down the road.

The growth of those out of work is not just due to more of retirement age either:

Exodus of more than half a million from workforce ‘puts UK economy at risk’ | Economics | The Guardian

Not supposed to mention it of course but some ethnicitiies are significantly more likely to be unemployed. Nothing to do with immigration?

Unemployment - GOV.UK Ethnicity facts and figures (ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk)

[sreed]

Blame it all on the immigrants?

Immigrants are mostly working age, and willing to accept low paid jobs. Low paid workers help to make a profit for their employers, so it does not make much sense to claim they are responsible for falling GDP per head.

What is the reason? I think the main reason is that the baby boomers, who are the largest generation we have ever had, are now heading into retirement. Instead of earning, they are drawing down their pensions. Capital is more scarce, its harder for businesses to raise capital. Government revenues are falling and we are failing to invest in the national infrastructure.

The earnings power of a nation is its working population size multiplied by their productivity. Our working population is shrinking and so is our productivity, in no small part due to low rates of investment.

Right, you can get back to your Daily Fail now...

I actually agree with the gist of your post, including sharing your disdain for rags like the Daily Mail.

I don’t blame immigrants one bit for moving to the UK from countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. I would do the exact same in their place, just doing what’s best for my and my family’s future prospects. They’re following the incentives and good on them for doing that.

But I do blame our government for permitting mass legal immigration at the levels that they are at now, especially given that 95% of it is on visas stamped by the Home Office, previously led by the so-called strong-on-immigration politician Suella Useless Braverman.

I agree that we need a solution to an ageing population and a rising dependency ratio but I disagree that the only/primary answer is importing millions of non-EU immigrants who will get a passport in a few years and (unlike EU immigrants) are never going to leave irrespective of whether the UK economy is in a boom or bust. And a large portion of them will have day 1 voting rights as citizens of Commonwealth countries.

[willendure]

Some illogical guff about imigrants and the gig economy.

The "boomers" by the way paid significant taxes before they retired.

Indeed they did. But they are paying less and spending less now that they have retired. They were the most productive people in our workforce and now that workforce is shrinking and declining in productivity.

Uber and Just Eat are making plenty money - thus contributing to GDP. It doesn't matter if the workers are low paid, if they generate profits for the company, that contributes to GDP/head. How much people are paid is kind of irrelevant to calculating this, because it is the gross productivity that matters. But the gig economy isn't really what investing for the countries future growth would look like is it?

What about the "lost decade" that followed the 2008 bank bailouts? Inflation was low after that period because the inflation figures don't for some weird reason include the cost of housing, which exploded due to the low interest rates. A house is still the same house but somehow worth more, how can that be if the house is the same house? Because the money is worth less is how.

If you look at a graph of wage growth in the UK it is around 2.5% per anum from 1950 to 2009, and then flatlines after that. We have just had 1.5 decades of stagflation disguised by soaring housing costs. Shame about all those promising young entrepeneurs that might be building Britains future if they weren't slogging out their day gigs for a bedsit.

Think about it. Imigrants are just who you blame because you cannot reason your way out of a paper bag, and probably at least a wee bit racist. Of course imigration comes with problems and I certainly do not advocate for uncontrolled immigration. But ranking the things that are causing this countries financial woes without paroting the kind of brain-dead crap you read in the mail yields a list something like this:

1. The great financial crisis and lost decade.
2. The massive debt bubble from Covid.
3. Declining workforce.
4. Lack of investment and north/south wealth divide.
5. Brexit.

[SueEllen]

We have so many retired people because of a big increase in the population after the war. So we tackle that with a big increase in population? Immigrants get old too so it's not a solution, we are just kicking the problem down the road.

If you choose your immigrants carefully there is a good chance that they f*** off before they get old to their home country or that of their spouse/partner.

Unfortunately we decided to stop doing that....

[willendure]

We have so many retired people because of a big increase in the population after the war. So we tackle that with a big increase in population? Immigrants get old too so it's not a solution, we are just kicking the problem down the road.
[/URL]

We had a big population increase after the war - when the boomers first entered the workforce they actually found it hard to find jobs because there were too many of them chasing too few jobs. But in an advanced and wealthy country the native population who were well educated and integrated were able to get ahead and become our most productive generation. As the workforce shrinks it is possible to some degree to make up the shortfall by bringing in immigrants, but if they are not of the same educational quality or face other headwinds such as discrimination, they are not going to necessarily make up for the loss in productivity.

It has worked in some places at some points in time though. For example, the USA was populated and built by immigrants and only very recently has started to become anti-immigrant as the established population reaches some kind of equilibrium and the days of rapid growth are falling behind. In the UK you frequently meet people from asian backgrounds that are very well educated and have worked very hard to get into top jobs.

So I think the question of productivity and immigration is complex and there is no simple judgement that can be made without a closer examination of the real facts.

Presumably when we are bashing immigrants on here we are talking about those Albanians that like to nick our cars, or the rag dressed old lady from Syria that asks for our spare change outside the supermarket. If we are going to adopt the Daily Mail stereotypes...