This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 31st,

2003. I'm Caleb Brown. The average immigrant

consumes considerably less in welfare benefits than the average American.

Put another way, if Native-born Americans consumed welfare benefits at the same rate as immigrants,

we'd see significant savings for U.S. taxpayers.

Cato's Alex Narasta discusses why that is and why that ought to make the U.S. more welcoming

of immigrants.

Alex, it seems that we discuss this exact topic almost every year.

And so give me the comparison then between,

with the most recently updated data

of welfare use in the United States

immigrants, non-immigrants.

In 2020, which is the most updated year that we have for data, immigrants

consume 27% less welfare and entitlement benefits than Native-born Americans

on a per capita basis.

To put that in perspective, immigrants were 14.6% of the U.S. population in 2020

and consumed 11.1% of all means tested welfare and entitlement benefits that year.

So just to put this in perspective or say it another way. We would save money on welfare benefits if we were

to randomly deport Americans and replace them with immigrants.

Well, I don't support that type of policy,

but I would put in another way.

I would say if Native-born Americans consumed welfare at the same level as immigrants

...