The allocation plan used the European Union combines four factors: population, GDP (gross domestic product), unemployment, and the number of refugees welcomed in past five years. Population and GDP are weighted equally. After those factors are combined to get an estimate of the nation’s fair share, there two correctives: unemployment and the history of welcoming refugees are correctives, that reduce a nation’s estimated fair share by up to 25%.
Please note that the EU estimates of fair share for relocating refugees started with a decision that Europe would take only 120,000, or 3% of the total number of Syrian refugees. That was a political decision, not based on any theory of justice.
The World Bank estimated, in 2014, that the GDP for the world was $77.9 trillion, and the GDP for the USA was $17.4 trillion, or 22%. I have not figured out how to use GDP as a means to figure out fair share of refugees. The European method started with the assumption that all EU members would share the burden; that assumption doesn’t work for the world. Syria, for example, will not share the load of refugees from Syria. But approximately: using GDP, the USA’s fair share is 22%, or 880,000 of the four million refugees from Syria.
Using population only, my estimate was that the fair share for the USA would be about 175,000.
Combining GDP and population estimates, weighted equally, the USA’s fair share would about 530,000. I don’t understand how to make the corrections for unemployment and history of welcome. But the largest possible correction would be to subtract a quarter of the total. So let’s take off the maximum until I figure out how to use their method more smoothly: 530,000 minus a quarter is a little under 400,000.
Very roughly, using the EU method of estimating fair share, the USA should take 400,000 Syrian refugees.
Now I have five estimates of the USA’s fair share of Syrian refugees:
1. AREA ONLY: 250,000
2. POPULATION ONLY: 175,000
3. ARABLE LAND ONLY: 750,000
4. “EMPTY BEDS”: 950,000
5. EU method: 400,000
