" Second, the Cato Institute and others argue that Social Security and Medicare should be included in welfare use rates, though somewhat amusingly, Cato’s own Poverty and Welfare Handbook explicitly excludes those programs because they are “more universal.” The Census Bureau correctly calls these programs “social insurance” and considers them distinct from welfare because one has to pay into them to receive benefits."
This strikes me as pretty misleading. What matters isn’t how the Census Bureau classifies programs for purposes of welfare-use statistics, but whether immigrants are a net fiscal burden relative to native-born citizens. For that question, excluding the two largest components of the modern welfare state—Social Security and Medicare—because they don’t meet a technical definition of “welfare,” and are instead labeled “social insurance,” is just a dodge.
It’s true that one must pay into Social Security to receive benefits, but that doesn’t make the program actuarially fair. Its benefit formula is explicitly progressive: lower-income workers receive substantially more in benefits relative to their contributions than higher-income workers do. Medicare is similar in spirit: it is not means-tested, but it is financed in large part through general revenues and provides benefits that have little relation to individual contributions.
If the question is whether immigrants impose a net fiscal cost, then what matters is taxes paid versus benefits received over the lifetime—not whether those benefits are classified as “welfare” or “social insurance.”
Just do the math on what the net fiscal impact is of a median Hispanic household over their total lifetime. It's not hard to do and it's bad. And that is an income that is too high to qualify for more of the big welfare programs! They simply don't pay enough taxes to fund our ordinary government spending (education, healthcare, retirement, etc).
The problem with counting social security is that people will look at working-age lower-skilled migrants and count their (small) social security tax payments now and not count their larger future benefits because they lie outside the 10-year budget window. So counting them causes a bigger inaccuracy, not a correction.
This is part of a much bigger government accounting problem. A healthy low-income immigrant without too many children may be a net payer in the next 10 years, but not over their lifetime.
Totally fair point! It's not at all clear to me how all this shakes out, or what the best comparisons to make are. I just want to emphasize that the definitional point about "welfare" is a distraction.
great response and my thoughts exactly - why even post this article if we are withholding two of the largest pieces of the entire budget? you can make numbers look any which way when you start withholding gigantic pieces of the pie.
Another thought is that those taxpayer dollars going to working immigrants are actually subsidizing their employers, who would otherwise be forced to pay higher wages if they hoped to fill available jobs. Especially since many of those jobs are not readily subject to automation.
Jensen Huang who founded the richest company in the world is far different from the guy in today's sob story in the NYT who with his wife is self deporting back to Mexico, mostly because they are afraid they'll get caught out for breaking many laws.
The general gist of this article is that highly skilled immigrants are a net plus, and those with very low skills are often a net loss. One can manipulate statistics however you want, but if you go to any place servicing low income people, you will hear very little English spoken.
My wife and most everyone in our social circle are immigrants, and every single one is here legally. None collect any type of social welfare, the kids all compete to get into the most prestigious colleges. Following the laws of the country that takes you in is very important, as is being a contributing member of society.
Ah I see. So the feds were justified in shooting him 10 times while he was unarmed and defenseless on the ground. Tim Walz said something mean, so of course they had to shoot a random unarmed US citizen, and then lie about it. Good theory. Wait til Newsom sends his masked thugs to hunt down some maga folk in flannel. Welcome to North Korea.
Tragically, for Mr Pretti, this isn't merely another maga culture war. They killed him. He's dead. Can you tell me why?
The only mob I saw was the mob of masked agents on top of a nurse wielding a cell phone. After removing the gun he never pulled, they plugged him 10 times in the back. Sorry Dan, video don't lie:). No whataboutism allowed for this thuggery.
It's called conformation bias. No matter what you see, it only confirms your bias. So you conveniently ignore the way Walz and Frey were whipping up the mobs to get you that video. You're just the useful idiot to them.
Due process should have occurred at entry. Believe me, we are much nicer on illegal immigration than anywhere I've seen. Due process could take many decades, and that was the intent.
The constitution is pretty clear on due process. Obama deported more people than Don, though some quibble over definitional issues. Regardless, I don't recall any executions of citizens, masks, tactical costumes, roving patrols, occupying cities, or the administration openly lying about fellow citizens. I'm not sure what's more terrifying about Dons approach. The actual executions, or our government immediately lying about the victims. They knew we would know they were lying, but they did it anyway, to make a point.
There was a time self-described conservatives claimed to believe in federalism, the 2nd amendment, and opposition to the concentration of power in the federal government/executive. We were told the 2nd amendment was there so we could defend ourselves from a possible future tyrannical federal government. How quaint.
Don has revealed their true belief. They actually like state violence, as long as it's targeted at those they hate.
If this is truly the road we choose to go down, isn't it inevitable that the other tribe adopts the same tactics, but has a different list of those they hate?
I have to admit, I'm curious what term you would use for shooting an unarmed man in the back 10 times, followed immediately by lies from the state. Another day at the office?
I was musing. Based on the "new" rights newfound justification on the use of force by the state, clearly the Capitol police should have opened up on the insurrectionists on January 6th. They weren't merely being filmed, or yelled at, they were being beaten with confederate flagpoles... Instead, they did what professional forces are trained to do, de-escalate. ICE and CBP aren't making mistakes, they're following orders.
I must have missed the part in your discussion regarding the illegal immigrants who are using bogus papers to work. They pay state taxes, federal taxes, and into social security, knowing they will never be able to collect on these benefits, and it will all go to support US citizens. Boy that's really ripping off us citizens.
I'm no economist, but wouldn't clawing back some of the Billionaire tax breaks offset the cost of helping those evil immigrants? Nah…. probably better to foment class division among workers than strive for more income equality.
You're missing that constantly bringing in more cheap labor we drive down wages and push up the cost of housing, healthcare, and transportation. Pushing more American workers into having to rely on the government to make ends meet. Which in turn means we go after the rich for more taxes because the working class are artificially being kept below the point that they would be able to help shoulder the burden of taxes.
It's one giant ball of corruption. The sad part is that those economists you mention should be the ones pointing out that higher labor prices is what creates the incentive to invest more money into labor saving innovations. While turning a blind eye to illegal immigration only incentivizes more corruption, such as the rich spending more money lobbying our politician to do nothing to fix the broken system they are exploiting.
Very interesting analysis. What is also shocking is that 37% of US born headed households receive welfare benefits. What a horrible commentary on the income inequality in our country. And this will only get worse under Trump.
You've actually got that backwards. The growing inequality is being driven by "free trade" and mass immigration. We allow the rich to exploit foreigners both at home and abroad, including polluting foreign lands in ways that would those same businessmen thrown in prison here in America. That's what's driving the growing inequality.
We've practically allowed the recreation of segregation with our lack of immigration enforcement. Including replacing the old KKK with the new woke mobs. The result is that more and more of modern America is starting the resemble the old south. With all the corruption and inequality that went with it.
What is the economic impact of low-skilled immigrants? How did blue state governors and mayors react when Texas was providing impoverished immigrants with free bus trips to blue cities? I don't recall them celebrating the great fiscal windfall they would reap.
A median Hispanic family earns around $70,000 a year. Let us model that family over a lifetime (from birth, working age, and death). We will use a two adult two child model of the household (or two lifetime individuals).
Counting only individual entitlements (education/daycare, medical insurance subsidies, and retirement benefits) each of the individuals in this household has a net fiscal DEFICIT of around $1M. If we include an even per capita assessment of non-entitlement government expenses (infrastructure, policing, military) then it rises to over $1.5M per member.
That is conservative. Its higher in blue states with higher social spending.
And that's someone making $70,000 a year! No medicaid. No snap. No cash welfare. Just mediocre below average earnings, progressive taxation, and a bloated government budget.
Let's keep our eye on the ball as Don's authoritarian project marches forward. There was a bigger story out of Minneapolis recently as masked federal agents gunned down unarmed citizens (aka "domestic terrorists" according to our government) under the guise of rounding up violent brown criminals. Plus the UAE sheikh crypto corruption caper that the WSJ broke. A half billion "investment" into World Liberty and presto!-a cool $187 mill directly in Don's pocket, $31 mill in Witcoff's pocket, followed by the chip deal, a deal that had been held up given concern over potential transfers to China. Commonplace might muster a thought?
What is missing from this analysis is an international comparison. Look at Denmark. If you are a non-citizen and try to access government benefits, the government will not let you. You have to qualify for benefits, even as a legal immigrant, and it can take up to 10 years to be treated equally to citizens. The rationale for these limits is simple; when you give money to immigrants, you are taking money away from citizens.
If the US had a Denmark-style program, every LEGAL immigrant could get health care, but they could not get any other benefit until they had worked for about 5 years. By the way, the 5-year mark also includes receiving educational benefits.
The welfare utilization data Camarota presents from the 2024 SIPP deserves serious attention—53% of immigrant households accessing at least one welfare program represents a genuine fiscal reality that policy makers cannot ignore. These costs are real, the programs are strained, and the distributional questions about who bears these burdens matter considerably. Any honest assessment of immigration policy must grapple with these numbers and the challenges they represent for both immigrants struggling to establish themselves economically and for native-born workers competing in the same labor markets.
Yet this analysis suffers from a familiar pattern: presenting costs in high resolution while rendering contributions invisible. Absent from this accounting are the payroll taxes immigrants pay into Social Security and Medicare (systems they often won't fully benefit from), the sales and property taxes funding state and local services, the business formation rates among immigrant entrepreneurs, and the consumer demand that sustains entire economic sectors. More fundamentally, the framework treats immigrants purely as economic units to be evaluated rather than as people whose children are Americans, the methodological choice to attribute U.S. citizens' benefits as "immigrant costs" reveals the analysis's ultimate purpose. When you exclude Social Security and Medicare (because they don't fit the "welfare" definition), dismiss the NAS study's mixed findings, and ignore wage effects research showing more complex dynamics than simple supply curves, you're not conducting neutral fiscal analysis. You're constructing a case for a predetermined conclusion: that less-educated immigration is categorically problematic. The costs are real and must be weighed, but this selective accounting cannot bear the weight of the policy prescriptions it supports.
I always laugh a little when people compare the percentages to attempt to prove huge swaths of people are this or that (I'm especially reminded of the bogus 81% of Somalis are committing fraud in Minnesota).
Taking a closer look at the percentages, if the highest percent from SIPP graph in the article, if 59% of all immigrants (discounting households since it doesnt break it down further) were on welfare compared to the 37% of US born citizens (again assuming population for households), that would mean that at most immigrants make up 22% of the population on at least one welfare program.
This is why I prefer concrete numbers to percentages. Helps tell a clearer story in my opinion.
"More than half of immigrant-headed households use at least one welfare program today. The reason is simply that a large share of immigrants have modest levels of education, and their resulting low incomes allow them to qualify for aid."
This a) is not necessarily "illegal" and b) does show that even these immigrants do not contribute more to the rest of us than not. If it IS illegal, that could be enforced and if enforcement means that some immigrants self deport, that's an efficient outcome.
The analysis I see is nearly 40% of native born headed households can’t make ends meet. So we should cut off immigrant headed households access to welfare give native born headed households more assistance? Sounds like a Democratic Socialist plan to me!
Natives can vote and their ancestors played some role in the building of the country (and thus are part owners), so in both practical and moral terms we are stuck with them.
The same is not true of immigrants.
But if you want to propose say forcibly expelling black people I would wish you luck, I just don't think it would go anywhere.
" Second, the Cato Institute and others argue that Social Security and Medicare should be included in welfare use rates, though somewhat amusingly, Cato’s own Poverty and Welfare Handbook explicitly excludes those programs because they are “more universal.” The Census Bureau correctly calls these programs “social insurance” and considers them distinct from welfare because one has to pay into them to receive benefits."
This strikes me as pretty misleading. What matters isn’t how the Census Bureau classifies programs for purposes of welfare-use statistics, but whether immigrants are a net fiscal burden relative to native-born citizens. For that question, excluding the two largest components of the modern welfare state—Social Security and Medicare—because they don’t meet a technical definition of “welfare,” and are instead labeled “social insurance,” is just a dodge.
It’s true that one must pay into Social Security to receive benefits, but that doesn’t make the program actuarially fair. Its benefit formula is explicitly progressive: lower-income workers receive substantially more in benefits relative to their contributions than higher-income workers do. Medicare is similar in spirit: it is not means-tested, but it is financed in large part through general revenues and provides benefits that have little relation to individual contributions.
If the question is whether immigrants impose a net fiscal cost, then what matters is taxes paid versus benefits received over the lifetime—not whether those benefits are classified as “welfare” or “social insurance.”
Just do the math on what the net fiscal impact is of a median Hispanic household over their total lifetime. It's not hard to do and it's bad. And that is an income that is too high to qualify for more of the big welfare programs! They simply don't pay enough taxes to fund our ordinary government spending (education, healthcare, retirement, etc).
The problem with counting social security is that people will look at working-age lower-skilled migrants and count their (small) social security tax payments now and not count their larger future benefits because they lie outside the 10-year budget window. So counting them causes a bigger inaccuracy, not a correction.
This is part of a much bigger government accounting problem. A healthy low-income immigrant without too many children may be a net payer in the next 10 years, but not over their lifetime.
Totally fair point! It's not at all clear to me how all this shakes out, or what the best comparisons to make are. I just want to emphasize that the definitional point about "welfare" is a distraction.
great response and my thoughts exactly - why even post this article if we are withholding two of the largest pieces of the entire budget? you can make numbers look any which way when you start withholding gigantic pieces of the pie.
Another thought is that those taxpayer dollars going to working immigrants are actually subsidizing their employers, who would otherwise be forced to pay higher wages if they hoped to fill available jobs. Especially since many of those jobs are not readily subject to automation.
https://lokirobotics.co/ automation for low end physical jobs is probably under ten years away
Jensen Huang who founded the richest company in the world is far different from the guy in today's sob story in the NYT who with his wife is self deporting back to Mexico, mostly because they are afraid they'll get caught out for breaking many laws.
The general gist of this article is that highly skilled immigrants are a net plus, and those with very low skills are often a net loss. One can manipulate statistics however you want, but if you go to any place servicing low income people, you will hear very little English spoken.
My wife and most everyone in our social circle are immigrants, and every single one is here legally. None collect any type of social welfare, the kids all compete to get into the most prestigious colleges. Following the laws of the country that takes you in is very important, as is being a contributing member of society.
But, why the cruelty and lack of due process? Can't we merely treat our fellow humans as, humans? Or, is the cruelty the point?
The cruelty is result of Democrats whipping up mobs to protect their corruption.
Ah I see. So the feds were justified in shooting him 10 times while he was unarmed and defenseless on the ground. Tim Walz said something mean, so of course they had to shoot a random unarmed US citizen, and then lie about it. Good theory. Wait til Newsom sends his masked thugs to hunt down some maga folk in flannel. Welcome to North Korea.
Tragically, for Mr Pretti, this isn't merely another maga culture war. They killed him. He's dead. Can you tell me why?
The only mob I saw was the mob of masked agents on top of a nurse wielding a cell phone. After removing the gun he never pulled, they plugged him 10 times in the back. Sorry Dan, video don't lie:). No whataboutism allowed for this thuggery.
It's called conformation bias. No matter what you see, it only confirms your bias. So you conveniently ignore the way Walz and Frey were whipping up the mobs to get you that video. You're just the useful idiot to them.
Due process should have occurred at entry. Believe me, we are much nicer on illegal immigration than anywhere I've seen. Due process could take many decades, and that was the intent.
The constitution is pretty clear on due process. Obama deported more people than Don, though some quibble over definitional issues. Regardless, I don't recall any executions of citizens, masks, tactical costumes, roving patrols, occupying cities, or the administration openly lying about fellow citizens. I'm not sure what's more terrifying about Dons approach. The actual executions, or our government immediately lying about the victims. They knew we would know they were lying, but they did it anyway, to make a point.
There was a time self-described conservatives claimed to believe in federalism, the 2nd amendment, and opposition to the concentration of power in the federal government/executive. We were told the 2nd amendment was there so we could defend ourselves from a possible future tyrannical federal government. How quaint.
Don has revealed their true belief. They actually like state violence, as long as it's targeted at those they hate.
If this is truly the road we choose to go down, isn't it inevitable that the other tribe adopts the same tactics, but has a different list of those they hate?
Good luck America.
I'm sorry Karl but crazy talk simply doesn't impress me. Might go over well on Bluesky but not with me. Executions blah blah blah.
I have to admit, I'm curious what term you would use for shooting an unarmed man in the back 10 times, followed immediately by lies from the state. Another day at the office?
I'm sorry I don't interact with some folks, good luck to you.
Case closed. Thank you.
I was musing. Based on the "new" rights newfound justification on the use of force by the state, clearly the Capitol police should have opened up on the insurrectionists on January 6th. They weren't merely being filmed, or yelled at, they were being beaten with confederate flagpoles... Instead, they did what professional forces are trained to do, de-escalate. ICE and CBP aren't making mistakes, they're following orders.
I must have missed the part in your discussion regarding the illegal immigrants who are using bogus papers to work. They pay state taxes, federal taxes, and into social security, knowing they will never be able to collect on these benefits, and it will all go to support US citizens. Boy that's really ripping off us citizens.
I'm no economist, but wouldn't clawing back some of the Billionaire tax breaks offset the cost of helping those evil immigrants? Nah…. probably better to foment class division among workers than strive for more income equality.
You're missing that constantly bringing in more cheap labor we drive down wages and push up the cost of housing, healthcare, and transportation. Pushing more American workers into having to rely on the government to make ends meet. Which in turn means we go after the rich for more taxes because the working class are artificially being kept below the point that they would be able to help shoulder the burden of taxes.
It's one giant ball of corruption. The sad part is that those economists you mention should be the ones pointing out that higher labor prices is what creates the incentive to invest more money into labor saving innovations. While turning a blind eye to illegal immigration only incentivizes more corruption, such as the rich spending more money lobbying our politician to do nothing to fix the broken system they are exploiting.
Very interesting analysis. What is also shocking is that 37% of US born headed households receive welfare benefits. What a horrible commentary on the income inequality in our country. And this will only get worse under Trump.
You've actually got that backwards. The growing inequality is being driven by "free trade" and mass immigration. We allow the rich to exploit foreigners both at home and abroad, including polluting foreign lands in ways that would those same businessmen thrown in prison here in America. That's what's driving the growing inequality.
We've practically allowed the recreation of segregation with our lack of immigration enforcement. Including replacing the old KKK with the new woke mobs. The result is that more and more of modern America is starting the resemble the old south. With all the corruption and inequality that went with it.
What is the economic impact of low-skilled immigrants? How did blue state governors and mayors react when Texas was providing impoverished immigrants with free bus trips to blue cities? I don't recall them celebrating the great fiscal windfall they would reap.
Here is simple math.
A median Hispanic family earns around $70,000 a year. Let us model that family over a lifetime (from birth, working age, and death). We will use a two adult two child model of the household (or two lifetime individuals).
Counting only individual entitlements (education/daycare, medical insurance subsidies, and retirement benefits) each of the individuals in this household has a net fiscal DEFICIT of around $1M. If we include an even per capita assessment of non-entitlement government expenses (infrastructure, policing, military) then it rises to over $1.5M per member.
That is conservative. Its higher in blue states with higher social spending.
And that's someone making $70,000 a year! No medicaid. No snap. No cash welfare. Just mediocre below average earnings, progressive taxation, and a bloated government budget.
Let's keep our eye on the ball as Don's authoritarian project marches forward. There was a bigger story out of Minneapolis recently as masked federal agents gunned down unarmed citizens (aka "domestic terrorists" according to our government) under the guise of rounding up violent brown criminals. Plus the UAE sheikh crypto corruption caper that the WSJ broke. A half billion "investment" into World Liberty and presto!-a cool $187 mill directly in Don's pocket, $31 mill in Witcoff's pocket, followed by the chip deal, a deal that had been held up given concern over potential transfers to China. Commonplace might muster a thought?
Good luck America.
What about all of the facts that completely disprove your point?
https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-government-budgets-1994-2023
What is missing from this analysis is an international comparison. Look at Denmark. If you are a non-citizen and try to access government benefits, the government will not let you. You have to qualify for benefits, even as a legal immigrant, and it can take up to 10 years to be treated equally to citizens. The rationale for these limits is simple; when you give money to immigrants, you are taking money away from citizens.
If the US had a Denmark-style program, every LEGAL immigrant could get health care, but they could not get any other benefit until they had worked for about 5 years. By the way, the 5-year mark also includes receiving educational benefits.
The welfare utilization data Camarota presents from the 2024 SIPP deserves serious attention—53% of immigrant households accessing at least one welfare program represents a genuine fiscal reality that policy makers cannot ignore. These costs are real, the programs are strained, and the distributional questions about who bears these burdens matter considerably. Any honest assessment of immigration policy must grapple with these numbers and the challenges they represent for both immigrants struggling to establish themselves economically and for native-born workers competing in the same labor markets.
Yet this analysis suffers from a familiar pattern: presenting costs in high resolution while rendering contributions invisible. Absent from this accounting are the payroll taxes immigrants pay into Social Security and Medicare (systems they often won't fully benefit from), the sales and property taxes funding state and local services, the business formation rates among immigrant entrepreneurs, and the consumer demand that sustains entire economic sectors. More fundamentally, the framework treats immigrants purely as economic units to be evaluated rather than as people whose children are Americans, the methodological choice to attribute U.S. citizens' benefits as "immigrant costs" reveals the analysis's ultimate purpose. When you exclude Social Security and Medicare (because they don't fit the "welfare" definition), dismiss the NAS study's mixed findings, and ignore wage effects research showing more complex dynamics than simple supply curves, you're not conducting neutral fiscal analysis. You're constructing a case for a predetermined conclusion: that less-educated immigration is categorically problematic. The costs are real and must be weighed, but this selective accounting cannot bear the weight of the policy prescriptions it supports.
I always laugh a little when people compare the percentages to attempt to prove huge swaths of people are this or that (I'm especially reminded of the bogus 81% of Somalis are committing fraud in Minnesota).
Taking a closer look at the percentages, if the highest percent from SIPP graph in the article, if 59% of all immigrants (discounting households since it doesnt break it down further) were on welfare compared to the 37% of US born citizens (again assuming population for households), that would mean that at most immigrants make up 22% of the population on at least one welfare program.
This is why I prefer concrete numbers to percentages. Helps tell a clearer story in my opinion.
"More than half of immigrant-headed households use at least one welfare program today. The reason is simply that a large share of immigrants have modest levels of education, and their resulting low incomes allow them to qualify for aid."
This a) is not necessarily "illegal" and b) does show that even these immigrants do not contribute more to the rest of us than not. If it IS illegal, that could be enforced and if enforcement means that some immigrants self deport, that's an efficient outcome.
The analysis I see is nearly 40% of native born headed households can’t make ends meet. So we should cut off immigrant headed households access to welfare give native born headed households more assistance? Sounds like a Democratic Socialist plan to me!
Natives can vote and their ancestors played some role in the building of the country (and thus are part owners), so in both practical and moral terms we are stuck with them.
The same is not true of immigrants.
But if you want to propose say forcibly expelling black people I would wish you luck, I just don't think it would go anywhere.