From the CATO Institute.
The federal government spent about $2.3 trillion in 2016 on the welfare state, an amount equal to approximately 60 percent of all federal outlays in that year.
1 A full $1.5 trillion of those expenditures went to the entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare, whose intended beneficiaries are the elderly, while the other $800 billion went to means-tested welfare benefits, whose intended beneficiaries are the poor.
2Overall, immigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans. Immigrants who meet the eligibility thresholds of age for the entitlement programs or poverty for the means-tested welfare programs generally have lower use rates and consume a lower dollar value relative to native-born Americans.
3 The per capita cost of providing welfare to immigrants is substantially less than the per capita cost of providing welfare to native-born Americans.
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