WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — While many Americans believe that illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes, the Social Security Administration sees billions of dollars flow into its coffers every year that have been deducted from paychecks issued to undocumented workers using false names and phony Social Security numbers.
SSA officials keep a record of total wages that do not match up with real names and numbers in their system. The record is called the earnings suspense file.
In 2009, the last year for which figures are available, employers reported wages of $72.8 billion for 7.7 million workers who could not be matched to legal Social Security numbers.
In 2007, just before the recession, that total reached a record $90.4 billion earned by 10.8 million workers. Some of those were legal workers who simply made mistakes in their paperwork, but it is believed that the majority were undocumented.
