UK migrant income policy
The continuing failure of the British government to reduce the number of incoming migrants has led to some outrageous and embarrassing policy proposals. In recent weeks, soon after the country’s supreme court rejected the Conservatives’ much-maligned plan to ship prospective refugees to Rwanda for processing, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has more than doubled the income levels required for employment-based migrants to sponsor their families.
While the far right has embraced the plan, the actual results are likely to have catastrophic consequences for the UK job market because the new minimum threshold of £38,700 per year is significantly higher than the average salary in several fields where the UK desperately requires foreign workers. Nursing is among the fields with limited exemptions, but even these are discriminatory — nurses on work visas can still sponsor relatives if they are below the threshold, but British national nurses must still meet the minimum income level.
Meanwhile, the Home Office’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), an independent body, actually advised the government to reduce the income threshold for such reasons. The new minimum threshold means that a person must be in the top 27% of UK earners to sponsor their family. The wage level almost certainly rules out several other areas where foreign workers are essential, either to fill shortages or because British workers are unwilling to do those jobs — average salaries for restaurant workers are around £26,000, while farmworkers make even less. Even some university teachers fail to meet the threshold.
Average salaries in London are significantly higher than in the rest of the UK, meaning that a disproportionate number of beneficiaries will be concentrated in the already congested capital, rather than areas that both need and can easily absorb more migrant workers and families. Unfortunately, rallying the party’s political base appears to be taking precedence over national interest.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2023.
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