DACA numbers don't add up

Dear editor,

Dan Stewart, your numbers don't add up [in "Trump’s DACA decision ushers in ‘new morality,'" a letter to the editor published in the Sept. 6, 2017, Santa Rosa Press Gazette].

Your statement that 800,000 DACA immigrants, with a working 91 percent — which would be 728,000 — produces $450 billion worth of our $18 trillion 2016 GDP is [incorrect].

Both U.S. Department of Labor figures being Current Employment Statistics (146.7 million working people) and Current Population Survey (153.5 million working people) when averaged is basically 150 million working people. The 728,000 DACA workers are less than 1 percent at .485 percent of the work force. The $450 billion is 2.5 percent of our 2016 GDP being $18 trillion.

Dan, for less than a half percent of a working DACA population to produce 2.5 percent of GDP they would have to produce five times more than the average comparable American worker. Their contribution on average with the comparable American worker would actually be about $112.5 billion if your other numbers are correct.

Dan, what makes you think they work five times harder, quicker or longer to produce five times more than a comparable average American worker, as your original words described?

They do not work five times harder or produce five times more than the comparable American worker on average. Insulting the American worker to make a … political statement is a low blow.

Insulting their intelligence is even lower.

STEVEN KING

Milton

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This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: DACA numbers don't add up