Immigrants cost each and every household in America about $6,200 in 2012 to provide for their welfare benefits, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies.
That’s 41 percent more than what taxpayers shell out for “native households,” CIS said, citing comparisons of cash, food, Medicaid and housing benefits that were doled during that year.
“Immigrants are such heavy users of welfare not because they don’t work, but because, on average, they have little education and thus earn low wages,” said Mark Krikorian, CIS executive director, in a written statement. “If we continue to permit large numbers of less-educated people to move here from abroad, we have to accept that there will be huge and ongoing costs to taxpayers.”
CIS based its findings on data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation.
And among the group’s findings: “Illegal immigrant households cost an average of $5,692 (driven largely by the presence of U.S.-born children), while legal immigrant households cost $6,378,” CIS reported. CIS also found “the average immigrant household consumes 33 percent more cash welfare, 57 percent more food assistance [and] 44 percent more Medicaid dollars” than the average household determined to be headed by natives of the United States.
Meanwhile, immigrants from Central America and Mexico cost taxpayers the largest amount of money for welfare costs, at $8,251 per household – fully “86 percent higher than the costs of native households,” CIS found.
