National Review, February 9, 2026
In a new Center for Immigration Studies analysis of government survey data from 2024, my co-author Karen Zeigler and I found that 53 percent of all households headed by immigrants use one or more welfare programs, compared with 37 percent of U.S.-born households. But a recent report by the Cato Institute finds immigrant use of welfare is lower than among the native-born. How can these findings be reconciled?
The answer depends on the exact question being posed. If we want to know how much welfare immigrants receive directly, excluding benefits received by their U.S.-born dependent children, then Cato’s approach will give you the answer. By contrast, if we want to know how much extra burden is placed on the welfare system because immigrants are in the country — a calculation that necessarily includes the welfare consumed by their dependent children — then the more relevant numbers are in our report.
Both organizations used the Census Bureau’s 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Our approach looks at the share of immigrant- or native-headed households using each program. Immigrants, typically referred to as the “foreign born” by the government, are primarily naturalized citizens, permanent residents, or illegal immigrants. (Yes, illegal immigrants are included in government surveys.) We are basically measuring welfare use by immigrants and their U.S.-born dependent children, versus natives and their children.
By contrast, Cato looked at individual recipients of welfare payments (or the cash equivalent). Benefits received by the U.S.-born dependent children (under the age of 18) of immigrants are attributed to the U.S.-born, not to immigrants. This matters enormously because roughly one-fourth of all children in poverty today are U.S.-born with an immigrant parent. As American citizens, these children have full welfare eligibility and make extensive use of the entire welfare system. By assigning benefits in this way, Cato significantly understates immigrant welfare use, while inflating use by natives.
For Cato’s approach to make sense, one would have to believe that when immigrants come to America and have children whom they cannot support, and subsequently turn to the taxpayer for support, this has nothing to do with immigrants or immigration policy. Yet the billions of dollars spent on welfare for immigrants’ dependent children would not exist if their parents were not in the country. Furthermore, when the government provides money, food, housing, or medical care to children, it is a clear benefit to their parents who are legally obligated to care for them.
In another recent paper, this one looking at all costs and tax payments using a different survey, Cato again assigns the welfare costs of immigrants’ U.S.-born children to the U.S.-born. That study even excluded the roughly $200 billion spent educating these children. Of course we should educate the U.S.-born children of immigrants. But as is true of welfare, the impact on the education system must be considered when setting immigration policy. Any analysis that fails to do so does profound disservice to the public discourse.
Another important issue with Cato’s welfare approach is the decision to report the average dollar value of benefits rather than use rates. Because the SIPP does a better job capturing use of welfare than the amount recipients receive, Cato has to make various adjustments to the values in the SIPP. None of this means that reporting dollar amounts is a terrible idea. But it does mean that their results are dependent on all the assumptions they make.
Of course, reporting welfare by households, as CIS does, has some limitations. It means the benefits received by U.S.-born adults living in immigrant households, such as American spouses, are attributed to immigrants. But we found that immigrant households without any U.S.-born adults still had significantly higher welfare use overall than the U.S.-born and for most individual programs.
Welfare use is so high among immigrants because many have low incomes, reflecting the large share with modest levels of education. The laws barring new legal immigrants and illegal immigrants from welfare do not make that much difference because of the presence of U.S.-born children and because all immigrants are allowed to use some programs. Furthermore, states often provide welfare to ineligible immigrants, and most legal immigrants have resided here long enough to qualify for benefits.
It is wrong to cast aspersions on immigrants because many access welfare. Rather, they are simply using programs for which they or their U.S.-born children are eligible at a time when the social stigma surrounding these programs has largely gone away. But given that we estimate 51 percent of legal immigrants use the welfare system, what is needed is a legal immigration system that selects skilled immigrants unlikely to need welfare. A willingness to enforce laws against illegal immigration is also needed. Otherwise, immigration will continue to create very large costs for taxpayers.