We had this conversation yesterday from an article from Helsinki times, and it said foreigners pay more taxes than how much benefits they recieve. Yes, but it was almost 50/50, making the number actually alarming.
Yle is 100% bs.
Immigrants who integrate into the society are good indeed!
I mean, in general immigrants do bring good stuff to the Finnish economy.
Very nice, now let’s see the immigrants backgrounds.
The study does not do an apples to apples comparison.
The reason that the finns are in tbe red is because of the pensioners. E.g no immigrants have been here long enough to be on the pension.
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Talking about immigration as a whole in this context is just stupid and borderline dishonest. When in reality there are different groups of immigrants that are widely different in this matter. Some are more of a burden that Finland has chose to take due to humanitarian reasons, and some are good for public finances and generating tax revenue. Saying that immigration is good or bad for public finances is an oversimplification and does not reflect whats actually going on in this matter, because immigrants are not some single group that are all the same and are immigrating here for different reasons with different educational backgrounds etc.
Yes, we need these articles once per week to remind people about the benefits of mass immigration
yeah economic immigrants: yes. welfare immigrants: well …
Immigrants in Finland contribute more to public finances than they cost?
the “Immigrants Give Finland a €225M Surplus” Claim Is Misleading.
1. It only counts cash benefits, completely ignores schools, hospitals, and policeThe Diakonia report compares taxes paid (€2.7 bn) vs. benefits received (€2.4 bn). It leaves out the entire public sector, education (€2.1 bn/year for immigrant-background pupils), healthcare (€1.8 bn/year), criminal justice, housing subsidies, and infrastructure. Those are billions extra every year. simply not included.
2. One year snapshot says nothing about lifetime costs.In 2023 most immigrants were prime working age (25–45). Add retirement, family reunification, and children growing up. the same person typically costs €700,000–€1,000,000 net over a lifetime (Suomen Perusta 2019, Danish Ministry of Finance 2023).
3. Mixes everyone together to hide massive differences.German engineer + Somali refugee = average looks positive. Reality is Western/EU migrants +€1,000/year, Middle East/North Africa €19,000/year, Sub-Saharan Africa €11,000/year. The “surplus” only exists because high-earning expats pull the average up.
4. Employment numbers don’t match official statistics.The report claims native Finns have only 50 % employment rate. Statistics Finland says 73.4 % (age 20–64, 2023). When the baseline is wrong, the entire €225M “plus” is calculated on false premises.
5. Second generation is completely ignoredChildren of non-Western immigrants end up on benefits 6–8 times more often than native kids. Today’s tiny “surplus” turns into billions in deficits over the coming decades.
We don’t know who is good to whom or what. Life is too complicated for that. I’m a native Finn, and personally I don’t care about migrants’ cost to Finland, or even how migrants live, whether they are perfect people, or are they old friends of police as we say in Finland. I know that no one asked how I feel about this issue, but my feelings might reflect broader views too. Who knows. So because I’m not perfect, why should I demand that any other person is? I don’t accept that new trend to bully migrants in their residence permit issues and citizenship issues. Probably the trend is going to continue, that’s almost 100% sure. Dark times are ahead.Â
But if we try to understand Finnish mental landscape, this all is linked to our history and certain kind of loneliness that we are forced to experience as a nation. Let me try to explain. Following text does not reflect my personal feelings or beliefs totally, these are just things that I can spot in our culture right now.Â
Right now about 11% of Finland’s population are other than native Finnish and Swedish speakers. In Sweden about 35% of people have a foreign background (40 % of the youth). So in Sweden the situation is that one day the original Swedish culture might vanish. What a pity, after all Swedes and their culture were our best friend about a thousand years. But everything ends in this world. We will have a new “Sweden” whatever it is, but its emotional links to Finland are naturally weaker. Why would they care about Finland? Time to survive alone on this side of the pond. So my point is that these are sentimental things. We are talking about FEELINGS here, not amount of different moneys.Â
”they paid some 2.7 billion euros in taxes while receiving 2.4 billion euros in transfers, with a net contribution of about 225 million euros” that is a terrible stat. It should be at least 2b in contributions.
While sure, it is a net positive, but probably only because Finland has quite strict requirements for immigration(which they dont mention), yet somehow theyll use this stat to argue for infinity somalians. Great
How is this not propaganda? You have to be a complete imbecile OR really really really nitpick the stats to make this sound plausible in any form.
I’m an immigrant, I’ve integrated into society (though my language skills are still mediocre), I pay taxes, I support immigrants, BUT, I’m always wary of articles or claims that take complex data and groups of people, and boil it down to something simple. I believe that this aggregate math may be true, but it paints a dishonest oversimplification about the complexity of the situation at hand. I know we all want the complex laid out simply when it comes to news, but sometimes we need the messy details to make informed decisions about what’s working and what isn’t for our country.
This has already been debunked like 100 times. I don’t think anyone believes this type of shit in EU anymore. The calculations didn’t include for example education, healthcare and family reunification fees (which are significant).
The amount of people that can’t tell the difference between refugees and immigrants…
Propaganda.
Hello, I’m a net profit immigrant for you guys. I pay for other people’s pensions and pay lots of taxes… For some reason I can’t stay unemployed so I can’t really get into those language integration classes… I wish I got some free language classes for my taxmoney.
The myth that only highly educated are beneficial is also flawed. Actually the low skilled contribute as much, if not more. You’d see pre dominantely immigrants working in cleaning, house keeping, delivery, security, elderly care and other low skill jobs natives are not willing to do any longer. I found it ironic when some so called ‘high skilled immigrants’ look down on a certain group of people.
This isn’t very big news but long ignored fact. And the ignorance is due to right wing propaganda which carefully selects the fact so that the result is favorable for their already decided position.
For instance, every Finnish-born child is “unemployed” and only an expense to the society about 20 years after birth. An adult immigrant is available to job market in much shorter time.
20 comments
No one is swallowing this bs
We had this conversation yesterday from an article from Helsinki times, and it said foreigners pay more taxes than how much benefits they recieve. Yes, but it was almost 50/50, making the number actually alarming.
Yle is 100% bs.
Immigrants who integrate into the society are good indeed!
I mean, in general immigrants do bring good stuff to the Finnish economy.
Very nice, now let’s see the immigrants backgrounds.
The study does not do an apples to apples comparison.
The reason that the finns are in tbe red is because of the pensioners. E.g no immigrants have been here long enough to be on the pension.
[removed]
Talking about immigration as a whole in this context is just stupid and borderline dishonest. When in reality there are different groups of immigrants that are widely different in this matter. Some are more of a burden that Finland has chose to take due to humanitarian reasons, and some are good for public finances and generating tax revenue. Saying that immigration is good or bad for public finances is an oversimplification and does not reflect whats actually going on in this matter, because immigrants are not some single group that are all the same and are immigrating here for different reasons with different educational backgrounds etc.
Yes, we need these articles once per week to remind people about the benefits of mass immigration
yeah economic immigrants: yes. welfare immigrants: well …
Immigrants in Finland contribute more to public finances than they cost?
the “Immigrants Give Finland a €225M Surplus” Claim Is Misleading.
1. It only counts cash benefits, completely ignores schools, hospitals, and policeThe Diakonia report compares taxes paid (€2.7 bn) vs. benefits received (€2.4 bn). It leaves out the entire public sector, education (€2.1 bn/year for immigrant-background pupils), healthcare (€1.8 bn/year), criminal justice, housing subsidies, and infrastructure. Those are billions extra every year. simply not included.
2. One year snapshot says nothing about lifetime costs.In 2023 most immigrants were prime working age (25–45). Add retirement, family reunification, and children growing up. the same person typically costs €700,000–€1,000,000 net over a lifetime (Suomen Perusta 2019, Danish Ministry of Finance 2023).
3. Mixes everyone together to hide massive differences.German engineer + Somali refugee = average looks positive. Reality is Western/EU migrants +€1,000/year, Middle East/North Africa €19,000/year, Sub-Saharan Africa €11,000/year. The “surplus” only exists because high-earning expats pull the average up.
4. Employment numbers don’t match official statistics.The report claims native Finns have only 50 % employment rate. Statistics Finland says 73.4 % (age 20–64, 2023). When the baseline is wrong, the entire €225M “plus” is calculated on false premises.
5. Second generation is completely ignoredChildren of non-Western immigrants end up on benefits 6–8 times more often than native kids. Today’s tiny “surplus” turns into billions in deficits over the coming decades.
We don’t know who is good to whom or what. Life is too complicated for that. I’m a native Finn, and personally I don’t care about migrants’ cost to Finland, or even how migrants live, whether they are perfect people, or are they old friends of police as we say in Finland. I know that no one asked how I feel about this issue, but my feelings might reflect broader views too. Who knows. So because I’m not perfect, why should I demand that any other person is? I don’t accept that new trend to bully migrants in their residence permit issues and citizenship issues. Probably the trend is going to continue, that’s almost 100% sure. Dark times are ahead.Â
But if we try to understand Finnish mental landscape, this all is linked to our history and certain kind of loneliness that we are forced to experience as a nation. Let me try to explain. Following text does not reflect my personal feelings or beliefs totally, these are just things that I can spot in our culture right now.Â
Right now about 11% of Finland’s population are other than native Finnish and Swedish speakers. In Sweden about 35% of people have a foreign background (40 % of the youth). So in Sweden the situation is that one day the original Swedish culture might vanish. What a pity, after all Swedes and their culture were our best friend about a thousand years. But everything ends in this world. We will have a new “Sweden” whatever it is, but its emotional links to Finland are naturally weaker. Why would they care about Finland? Time to survive alone on this side of the pond. So my point is that these are sentimental things. We are talking about FEELINGS here, not amount of different moneys.Â
”they paid some 2.7 billion euros in taxes while receiving 2.4 billion euros in transfers, with a net contribution of about 225 million euros” that is a terrible stat. It should be at least 2b in contributions.
While sure, it is a net positive, but probably only because Finland has quite strict requirements for immigration(which they dont mention), yet somehow theyll use this stat to argue for infinity somalians. Great
How is this not propaganda? You have to be a complete imbecile OR really really really nitpick the stats to make this sound plausible in any form.
I’m an immigrant, I’ve integrated into society (though my language skills are still mediocre), I pay taxes, I support immigrants, BUT, I’m always wary of articles or claims that take complex data and groups of people, and boil it down to something simple. I believe that this aggregate math may be true, but it paints a dishonest oversimplification about the complexity of the situation at hand. I know we all want the complex laid out simply when it comes to news, but sometimes we need the messy details to make informed decisions about what’s working and what isn’t for our country.
This has already been debunked like 100 times. I don’t think anyone believes this type of shit in EU anymore. The calculations didn’t include for example education, healthcare and family reunification fees (which are significant).
The amount of people that can’t tell the difference between refugees and immigrants…
Propaganda.
Hello, I’m a net profit immigrant for you guys. I pay for other people’s pensions and pay lots of taxes… For some reason I can’t stay unemployed so I can’t really get into those language integration classes… I wish I got some free language classes for my taxmoney.
The myth that only highly educated are beneficial is also flawed. Actually the low skilled contribute as much, if not more. You’d see pre dominantely immigrants working in cleaning, house keeping, delivery, security, elderly care and other low skill jobs natives are not willing to do any longer. I found it ironic when some so called ‘high skilled immigrants’ look down on a certain group of people.
This isn’t very big news but long ignored fact. And the ignorance is due to right wing propaganda which carefully selects the fact so that the result is favorable for their already decided position.
For instance, every Finnish-born child is “unemployed” and only an expense to the society about 20 years after birth. An adult immigrant is available to job market in much shorter time.
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