“Some Migrants in Germany Want to Go Home” is a Wall Street Journal article that includes some information on the practical economics of being a migrant in Germany.
It seems that asylum seekers get free housing, but it is not very high quality:
In October, Amer sold all his belongings in Syria and took his family to a safer life in Germany. Four months later, he wants to return to a country still at war.
Once in Germany, Amer discovered an unexpected reality: Instead of the small house he was hoping for and money to help him open a business, he was given a bare room in an old administrative building turned into an emergency shelter.
They also get a cash stipend:
Before leaving Syria, Amer said he had heard refugees in Germany got around €500 ($546) a month in benefits—a relatively accurate estimate. But he hadn’t realized everything in Germany costs far more than in Syria, he said, dressed in a black hoodie and sweatpants.
“I would probably need 10 years to reach the minimum standard of living of any normal German and the language seems impossible for me to learn,” said Amer, who worked in a snack shop in Syria and never attended university.
Having spent €15,000—everything he owned—to bring his wife, son and brother-in-law to Germany, Amer said he doesn’t yet know how he will pay for their return.
They can presumably get free health care in Germany’s health care system (not a simple single-payer one like in the UK or France).
Overall the package seems less generous than what U.S. welfare recipients collect. The total stipend is only about as much as a U.S. welfare family of three would receive in SNAP (food stamps). (Note that, perhaps coincidentally, the stipend is about the same as the maximum child support revenue obtainable in Germany, e.g., for someone who had sex with the richest person in Germany.) The housing sounds crummier than government-provided housing here.
It’s not the “package”, it is the life style to which many migrant cannot adapt to.
Some examples: In the Middle East, there is no fix hours of work you must commit to, you get work done when you feel like it. Gathering with family and friends is a daily event. Sitting down with friends (beside the family gathering) and just chatting over a coffee with a game of backgammon for 1-2 hours is a daily event. Going to a party that last till 4 AM, is a weekly event, etc. In fact, even in today’s war torn Syria and Iraq, they still organize parties and weddings far more lavish then anything you may have seen in the Europe or the States.
I know this from first hand, I know of relatives-of-relatives who migrated to Canada and Germany: they are complaining of the new “hard” life.
If I recall correctly, that $546 is also in the same ballpark as the wage, not stipend, of apprentice employees in Germany.
Many European countries offer little financial nudges to encourage unemployed disappointed economic migrants to repatriate; to government check books it matters little if they have to pay out the stipend in Germany, or if they have to wire it to Syria, but it can make a world of difference to the recipient.
Nobody questions the fact that there are refugees who are mostly motivated by financial gain. It’s the anti-immigration camp that seems to want to believe there aren’t any legitimately afraid refugees at all.
I recently saw this interview of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands protesting against their living conditions. I found the way it shattered a couple of stereotypes about refugees and their European reception refreshing.
Michiel, the problem with giving them money to leave is that they’ll just take it, leave, and them come back again for more (e.g. take a cheap bus to Turkey and pocket most of the money). This is what happened in France with the gypsies.
Unfortunately, I suspect that most times when migrants threaten to go back to their homelands it is just a ploy to get more money and handouts. Very few of them would consider going back, given that in Europe they make so much more money for doing nothing. A good fraction end up setting up ghettos where they live as close as possible as back home (think sharia law, female genital mutilation, etc.), yet demand their host country support them and their lifestyle in the name of tolerance.
I personally think all migrants should be turned back, except able-bodied fit men with a valid parachuting certificate — so that they can be more easily sent back if their asylum claim is invalid.
Any refugees reading this on their smart phones should note that even those of us born in Europe are not routinely given small houses and stipends to start businesses. Sorry to disappoint.
Also, dear refugees: the political and business class who are welcoming you have told us that your purpose is to work hard and pay a lot of taxes so that our old and retired people (among others) can live the good life they deserve. The reason for this is that we, the original population, for some reason are disappearing and so must be replenished by you, or possibly the people arriving after you. This is called the welfare state.