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Thursday, September 10, 2015

LEGAL IMMIGRANT HOUSEHOLDS ACCOUNT FOR 75 PERCENT OF IMMIGRANT WELFARE USE

“A person may work, but also create very significant costs for the welfare system. However, those costs are diffuse, borne by all taxpayers, while employers get the workers they want and the immigrants improve their lives by coming to the United States,” the report reads. “Focusing only on the desire of employers to bring in additional workers or the desire of immigrants to come to America misses the potentially enormous impact immigrant workers can have on American taxpayers.”
“When welfare is taken into consideration, allowing immigrant workers into the country to perform low-wage jobs is clearly problematic,” it continues. “It would, at least from the point of view of avoiding welfare expenditures, make more sense to hire from the enormous pool of less-educated natives not working rather than adding less-educated individuals through our immigration system.”
Beyond the fiscal costs, Camarota noted immigrants’ high welfare use likely has political implications as well as recent surveys have shown immigrants tend to prefer big government policies.
“If your goal is to curtail the welfare state adding more voters who use it certainly makes [growing] it more likely,” he added.