Posted on 02/03/2026 9:07:20 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
The UK economy would be 3.6% smaller by 2040 if net migration fell to zero, forcing the government to raise taxes to combat a much bigger budget deficit, a thinktank has predicted.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said falling birthrates in the UK and a sharp decrease in net migration last year had led it to consider what would happen if this trend continued to the end of the decade.
In this scenario the UK population would stop growing at about 70 million in 2030. The latest official figures showed the UK population was 69.3 million in 2024.
Dr Benjamin Caswell, a senior economist at NIESR, said: “Net zero migration leaves the economy 3.6% smaller by 2040 and this reflects slower employment growth and a smaller workforce.”
The thinktank said that initially real wages and disposable income would rise as firms would be forced to use more machinery and become more productive, with GDP per capita rising by 2% by 2040.
However, these gains would come at the cost of weaker growth in the economy overall as a smaller and ageing population would lead to fewer tax revenues, opening up the gap between public spending and receipts and causing the government to borrow more.
“Imagine it as like freezing the population where it is, and then just having a continually ageing population,” Caswell said. “In the short to medium term, it’s not too detrimental, but over 20 years this gap [in spending and receipts] becomes continually larger and larger.”
The thinktank said the government would fill this gap by borrowing, which would cause the budget deficit to increase by about 0.8% of GDP, or £37bn, by 2040.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
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No, expenditures would greatly shrink.
That the gov’t part of GDP is a Good Thing, might not be so true.
Sounds like a fantastic deal.
BS. Most of the migrants are on welfare, and commit crimes.
Oh yeah, the “migrants” are making everyone richer. I believe that, yup.
Correct. The government wouldn’t be given away taxpayers money to the freeloaders for them to spend instead of the taxpayer.
Thieves and cons say a lot of things too.
3.6% smaller GDP; 20% smaller population means 16% higher GDP per capita. And these numbers tend to make stupid, invalid presumptions about immigration, such as that it’s the high-performing immigrants who quit coming... and that central banks will create deliberate recessions to cool off the job market.
The people who cheer are the people who worry about labor costs “overheating” the economy. (Translation: working class people are becoming able to demand better wages.)
(actually more like 21% higher GDP per capita, but I try to keep the numbers looking sensible.)
That’s ok. We’ll just have to manage without them. Let NRO and the like cry about it.
“forcing the government to raise taxes to combat a much bigger budget deficit”
Such BS. Fewer immigrant people on the dole —> reduced government spending needed —> no need to raise taxes.
Besides, predicting a 3.6% shortfall in 14 years is hardly even a rounding error. That is 0.25% per year. Nobody can predict an economy with that precision over 14 years.
Pure BS.
“Well then, business will have to suffer, all right?”
Don’t tell me: Again, they fail to distinguish between legal immigration and illegal; between people who assimilate and become productive residents, and those who siphon off welfare and gang rape young British girls.
WORTH IT. Plus, you’ll find ENGLISH births will rise without resource competition.
When you think about it, all growth has a finite limit. When all of the planet is expanded into, and everything has merged into one single company, IE (Taco Bell in Demolition Man), growth ends.
So really, all we are arguing about is -when- to stop the growth.
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