Migration, welfare and public cost
This section keeps legal migration, irregular migration and asylum separate, and shows both expenditure and contribution evidence when comparable official data exists.
There is no single official “cost of migration” figure. Gross spending, tax receipts, service use and long-run fiscal effects measure different things. Nationality, country of birth and immigration status must not be treated as equivalent.
Universal Credit and migration
Reviewed DWP or other official tables on benefit caseloads and amounts.
A claimant count is not the same as expenditure. Eligibility status is not always present in published nationality data, and household awards can include people with different nationalities or statuses.
How scenario analysis will work
Where official microdata provides income, employment or tax bands, we can compare published groups and show what changes when a defined high-income group is excluded. We will not use nationality as a proxy for wealth, poverty or individual contribution.