An academic study by the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at University College London suggests migrants are good for the British economy and debunks right-wing claims about ‘burdens’, ‘pressures’, ‘benefit tourists’ and the rest. Recent immigrants to Britain are better educated, pay more taxes and draw less state benefits than native Britons.

The authors of the report concluded that fears of ‘benefit tourists’ coming to the UK with no intention of working were ‘disconnected from reality’… According to the report, immigrants who arrived after 1999 in Britain, and made up a third of the overall immigrant population in the UK in 2011, were 45% less likely to receive state benefits than native Brits. They were also 3% less likely to live in social housing. They were also better educated than native Britons. The study suggests the net fiscal contribution from migrants, between 2001 and 2011, was around £22bn – equivalent to a 5p cut in the basic rate of income tax.

“Migrants from non-EEA countries made a more modest but still positive contribution, putting in roughly 2 per cent more than they took out. But over the same period, native Britons paid much less into the system than they took out in benefits, contributing only 89 per cent of what they cost. (Reported by The Financial Times and the Huffington Post UK edition, November 5, 2013)

This will be a blow to the backwoodsmen who have made a career out of “tarring and feathering” immigrants and labelling them freeloaders. Epicurus never had to deal with voluntary migrants, but I’m sure he would have welcomed anyone who pulled their weight and wanted to fit in.