British Expats

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-   -   Expats vs Benefits (https://britishexpats.com/forum/spain-75/expats-vs-benefits-715803/)

DaveyD May 5th 2011 12:49 pm

Expats vs Benefits
 
News story today tells of a study that says how Immigrants contribute far more to the economy of Spain than they get in return (http://www.tumbit.com/news/articles/...h-economy.html) - something I'm sure we have all suspected for a while !

bil May 5th 2011 6:03 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by DaveyD (Post 9344924)
News story today tells of a study that says how Immigrants contribute far more to the economy of Spain than they get in return (http://www.tumbit.com/news/articles/...h-economy.html) - something I'm sure we have all suspected for a while !

I don't know anyone who gets money from the Spanish government.

What do they reckon? the average brit who buys a house here and lives here for 10 years will at the end of it shoved about 300K into the Spanish economy?

HBG May 5th 2011 7:49 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 
My local, now regional Spanish bank manager answered the question for me. We were in a cafe and he only had a smallish piece of paper to write the numbers on.

I don't remember them, but when he calculated the money brought into Spain by UK immigrants, the zeros went right off the page, a phenomenal account.

I suppose we can work it out for ourselves - a million people bringing an average of something like £20,000 a year into the country, without even counting the initial setting up costs, usually buying a property.

I'm hopeless at arithmetic, and those zeros are too much for me.

bil May 5th 2011 8:13 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by HBG (Post 9345694)
My local, now regional Spanish bank manager answered the question for me. We were in a cafe and he only had a smallish piece of paper to write the numbers on.

I don't remember them, but when he calculated the money brought into Spain by UK immigrants, the zeros went right off the page, a phenomenal account.

I suppose we can work it out for ourselves - a million people bringing an average of something like £20,000 a year into the country, without even counting the initial setting up costs, usually buying a property.

I'm hopeless at arithmetic, and those zeros are too much for me.

Pretty simple, if those millions all bought a house, then that would be, over 10 years, something like 300,000,000,000 per million Brits. Or if you prefer 30 (yankee) billions a year per million Brits.

HBG May 5th 2011 9:02 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by bil (Post 9345741)
Pretty simple, if those millions all bought a house, then that would be, over 10 years, something like 300,000,000,000 per million Brits. Or if you prefer 30 (yankee) billions a year per million Brits.

Sorry Bil, it's meaningless. I'll have to keep it simple. I spend around 130 Euros a week in Mercadona, 100 a month on electric, a bit less on water and I'm wavering already, perhaps 30 a week on petrol and 400 on a new desktop, 60 a week on meals out, there's no point in going on, it gets too confusing.

I like a decent whisky and my wife is fond of a decent bottle of wine, our two dogs are eating us out of house and home, and we're happy to be able to keep things going.

In paradise. That's what it is for two people from humble backgrounds in the UK. Maybe that should be humblish, but as I expected, it didn't pass the spellcheck.

Being a blabbermouth, if people like us returned to the UK, in numbers, it wouldn't help the Spanish unemployment figures, but might help to restore the country to its former, raw beauty.

bil May 5th 2011 10:04 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by HBG (Post 9345822)
Sorry Bil, it's meaningless. I'll have to keep it simple. I spend around 130 Euros a week in Mercadona, 100 a month on electric, a bit less on water and I'm wavering already, perhaps 30 a week on petrol and 400 on a new desktop, 60 a week on meals out, there's no point in going on, it gets too confusing.

I like a decent whisky and my wife is fond of a decent bottle of wine, our two dogs are eating us out of house and home, and we're happy to be able to keep things going.

In paradise. That's what it is for two people from humble backgrounds in the UK. Maybe that should be humblish, but as I expected, it didn't pass the spellcheck.

Being a blabbermouth, if people like us returned to the UK, in numbers, it wouldn't help the Spanish unemployment figures, but might help to restore the country to its former, raw beauty.

Not a chance mate. Raw Beauty? If we all pissed off back to the UK, selling our homes and emptying our bank accounts, the country would really have problems. Imagine, all that cash draining out and a tsunami of vacated property that would make the current state of the housing market look wonderful.

HBG May 5th 2011 11:08 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by bil (Post 9345929)
Not a chance mate. Raw Beauty? If we all pissed off back to the UK, selling our homes and emptying our bank accounts, the country would really have problems. Imagine, all that cash draining out and a tsunami of vacated property that would make the current state of the housing market look wonderful.

It was a long time ago, but I flew out to Spain in a funny coloured aeroplane and landed in Malaga with my family for a holiday. We stayed in Benalmadena, a small, pleasant, cheap holiday resort.

Years later I returned to Benalmadena and found a monstrosity, there's no other way to describe it. The raw beauty has gone forever, it's a soulless concrete jungle that really doesn't belong to Spain.

Dick Dasterdly May 5th 2011 11:19 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 
Well somehow I can't see them moving the bulldozers in to wipe out all those tens of thousands of hotel blocks messing up al the Costas.
After all they were the ones who were so keen to knock them up in the first place and make a swift buck or million or two while the sun shines.
Only pity is it wasn't spread about a bit more evenly especially in these hard times, instead of mostly ending up in the hidden bank accounts of bent property developers,townhall mayors and such.
As for the rest of the raw beauty,the Spanish are spoilt for choice throughout the rest of their land, but could possibly also take better care of that also, as the dumping of rubbish here, there and everywhere is worse than in almost any country I've seen.
As you say Bil the withdrawal of all N.Europeans would most likely be the last straw that breaks the camels back and turn crisis into disaster.

megmet May 5th 2011 11:24 pm

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by HBG (Post 9346037)
It was a long time ago, but I flew out to Spain in a funny coloured aeroplane and landed in Malaga with my family for a holiday. We stayed in Benalmadena, a small, pleasant, cheap holiday resort.

Years later I returned to Benalmadena and found a monstrosity, there's no other way to describe it. The raw beauty has gone forever, it's a soulless concrete jungle that really doesn't belong to Spain.

Precisely why those of us who can still remember the beauty of the CDS before the concrete have mostly moved inland.

bil May 6th 2011 7:19 am

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by Dick Dasterdly (Post 9346057)
Well somehow I can't see them moving the bulldozers in to wipe out all those tens of thousands of hotel blocks messing up al the Costas.
After all they were the ones who were so keen to knock them up in the first place and make a swift buck or million or two while the sun shines.
Only pity is it wasn't spread about a bit more evenly especially in these hard times, instead of mostly ending up in the hidden bank accounts of bent property developers,townhall mayors and such.
As for the rest of the raw beauty,the Spanish are spoilt for choice throughout the rest of their land, but could possibly also take better care of that also, as the dumping of rubbish here, there and everywhere is worse than in almost any country I've seen.
As you say Bil the withdrawal of all N.Europeans would most likely be the last straw that breaks the camels back and turn crisis into disaster.

Can't disagree, especially with the bit about their propensity for dumping rubbish and litter, it is quite sickening.

As for the straw that would break the camel's back, I suspect it would be more like a tree trunk than a straw.

steviedeluxe May 6th 2011 7:43 am

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by bil (Post 9345529)
I don't know anyone who gets money from the Spanish government.

What do they reckon? the average brit who buys a house here and lives here for 10 years will at the end of it shoved about 300K into the Spanish economy?

The original report (commissioned in Spanish) will have looked at the effect of immigrants overall - and Brits are not the biggest group. Nationalities like Rumanians and Ecuadorians are. I know there are (probably) greater numbers of Brits who holiday here and aren't officially registered, but the report isn't looking at that.

I'm not so sure either that the report is looking at the effect of Brits buying housing - which you could argue has been detrimental to the country's economy, causing the unsustainable housing boom. It's looking at the effects of migrants working and providing services, against whatever they take from the state. Obviously there are plenty of Brits working (or even just buying in the local economy), but as I said there are larger groups of migrants from other countries.

Here's the breakdown of the official resident population (2009 figures, so will have changed a bit since then)


The top ten by nationalities, with the change over last year is as follows:
1. Rumania 829,715 +30,823
2. Morocco 746,760 +28,705
3. Ecuador 395,069 -26,357
4. United Kingdom 387,226 +11,523
5. Colombia 289,296 -7,378
6. Bolivia 210,624 -20,079
7. Germany 195,579 +4,577
8. Italy 183,999 +8,683
9. Bulgaria 169,195 +4,478
10. China 156,607 +9,128

Read more: http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news...#ixzz1LYb1BL5i

JLFS May 6th 2011 7:44 am

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by bil (Post 9345529)
I don't know anyone who gets money from the Spanish government.

What do they reckon? the average brit who buys a house here and lives here for 10 years will at the end of it shoved about 300K into the Spanish economy?


That is one of the perks in attracting a large number of early retired and foreign pensioners, not just Brits, but Scananavians and such.

They worked in their own country, but are spending their own governments money in a different country (Spain). Nett profit for Spain.

Also the people who "export disabilty benefits" are also giving a nett proffit to Spain.

Certain parts of the country would cease to exist without them...

JLFS May 6th 2011 7:50 am

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by steviedeluxe (Post 9346706)
The original report (commissioned in Spanish) will have looked at the effect of immigrants overall - and Brits are not the biggest group. Nationalities like Rumanians and Ecuadorians are. I know there are (probably) greater numbers of Brits who holiday here and aren't officially registered, but the report isn't looking at that.

I'm not so sure either that the report is looking at the effect of Brits buying housing - which you could argue has been detrimental to the country's economy, causing the unsustainable housing boom. It's looking at the effects of migrants working and providing services, against whatever they take from the state. Obviously there are plenty of Brits working (or even just buying in the local economy), but as I said there are larger groups of migrants from other countries.

I know quite a few immigrants to Spain from other countries, mainly South America, they do not seem to be a drain on Spain, as they are working "most" of the time, and even when they are not working for the odd week or 2, they do not claim any benfits, as it is not worth the hassle.

So no benefits are being claimed, as for bringing other less able, or older members of the family over to live here, that is not possible untill they have been working for a considerable length of time and they canshow that they are able to financially support their relatives.

steviedeluxe May 6th 2011 8:00 am

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by JLFS (Post 9346712)
I know quite a few immigrants to Spain from other countries, mainly South America, they do not seem to be a drain on Spain, as they are working "most" of the time, and even when they are not working for the odd week or 2, they do not claim any benfits, as it is not worth the hassle.

So no benefits are being claimed, as for bringing other less able, or older members of the family over to live here, that is not possible untill they have been working for a considerable length of time and they canshow that they are able to financially support their relatives.

Well yes, there are a lot of hard-working Latinos and EEs around (not just in Spain!) I still think it's been to the detriment of local workers (especially pay rates) but I'm constantly told locals are lazy and feckless, so I can't really comment any further.

JLFS May 6th 2011 8:13 am

Re: Expats vs Benefits
 

Originally Posted by steviedeluxe (Post 9346727)
Well yes, there are a lot of hard-working Latinos and EEs around (not just in Spain!) I still think it's been to the detriment of local workers (especially pay rates) but I'm constantly told locals are lazy and feckless, so I can't really comment any further.

As this thread was about benfits, sort of, I was saying that not many immigrant workers claim them, but I can see where you are coming from, with the "chain reaction" theory you have.

For every job they take, it could be aregued that s Spanish worker is now on the dole and claiming benefits, untill it runs out of course.


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