What did2015 cost? Budget outcomes and lifecycle models answer different questions

Annual Report for Central Government2015, communication2015/16:101, table2.58 page89, gives UO8 Migration expenditure of SEK18,725 million in2015. The original budget was17,433 million; supplementary budgets1,440 million. Outcome, original appropriation and supplementary budgets are separate columns.

Expenditure2014 was12,551 million. The2015−2014 difference is6,174 million, our subtraction of reported values. This is not an isolated causal cost of2015 asylum applicants. UO8 covers several operations and people with different application years.

Budget Bill2016/17:1 UO8 table2.1 reproduces the2015 outcome. Migration Agency4,719 million; reimbursements and accommodation12,405; migration-policy measures416; court reviews548; legal counsel99; public counsel254; departures237; EU-funded measures47. Sum18,725 million.

This is central-budget expenditure area8 at2015 current prices. Integration in other budget areas, all municipal expenditure and future tax receipts are not included as a combined net measure. Dividing this amount by asylum applications would not give verified cost per admitted refugee. Application year is not permit year.

Konjunkturinstitutet Special Study117 (2025) contains both2022 cross-sections and a separate lifecycle calculation in section8. Table6 page45 gives discounted present value per person at1.5%: all foreign-born SEK+1,521,000, refugees−988,000, other foreign-born+1,902,000. Values use2022 prices.

This is the source’s model calculation, not our own recalculation or observed final lifetime outcome. Groups are weighted as in the baseline scenario. The model accounts for expected residence, mortality, employment, income and welfare consumption. The annuities use60 remaining years; they must not be added to present values.

Section5 and table1 give2022 net contribution of approximately SEK+6 billion for all foreign-born,−22 for refugees and+28 for other foreign-born. These are the source’s allocation-based annual calculations for registered residents, not the2015 cohort or UO8 budget spending.

Direct taxes and transfers use registers; other items require allocation assumptions including age and equal shares of collective expenditure. The report assumes public revenue and expenditure balance each year. One annual net must not be multiplied by an arbitrary number of future years.

The earlier calculation using71,700 permits,54,000 family members and an alleged KI−1.4 million mean specifically for2015 lacks a matched original. The130–150 billion total and claimed uncertainty range consequently lack support. They are withdrawn, not proved false.

This page now answers the bounded budget question and presents KI’s actual general model. It still does not answer the2015 cohort’s total lifetime net. That requires an identified cohort, admission ground, age and a correct cohort model; applications and general group averages are insufficient.

Earlier unsupported cohort income, employment, benefit amounts, GDP smoothing and second-generation conclusions are withdrawn. Group model values do not assign individual guilt, capacity or worth.