Conclusion

Native-born Americans consume, on an average per capita basis, more welfare and entitlement benefits than all immigrants, and this pattern has held for several years across data from multiple datasets analyzed with different methods. The dollar differences are most pronounced for the two largest entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security. Noncitizens consume the least, and naturalized immigrants consume more than natives because they are older and thus consume greater per capita quantities of Medicare and Social Security.