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Welfare State

6 min read

Part of Taxes, spending and debt.

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Every episode (8)

Who argued it

Alex Nowrasteh ×3 · Edward Conard · Joe Mathews · Will Wilkinson · Tom G. Palmer · David Boaz

Immigration · Economics · Constitutional Law · Economic Growth · Libertarianism · Tax Policy · Labor Markets · 10th Amendment

Background

Friedman’s formulation

The welfare state enters The Bob Zadek Show mainly as an objection to immigration. In the 2011 episode, a caller identified as Ed cites Milton Friedman’s remark that illegal immigration is only good because it is illegal, and Bob Zadek agrees, adding that Friedman believed open borders and a welfare state could not coexist and that open borders would bankrupt the country under a welfare state Immigration Reform Is Broken (2011). Zadek states that Friedman regarded undoing the welfare state as a non-starter politically, and that his own first choice would be to undo the welfare system, but since that will not happen he favors denying welfare-type benefits to legal immigrants for a period, including food stamps, so that they come only to work. He attributes a work-visa proposal of this kind to Gary Johnson, whom he calls his favorite candidate for president.

Earlier in the same episode, a caller named Dmitri argues that welfare programs subsidize non-work and should be cut to motivate the unemployed; Zadek cuts the exchange off with “Different topic,” then returns to his own question about whether a low-skilled legal immigrant would be objectionable Immigration Reform Is Broken (2011).

The welfare trap

In the 2017 episode with Dr. Tom Palmer, the welfare state is discussed not as a magnet for immigrants but as a trap for those inside it. Palmer describes a chapter by Lisa Conyers on the nanny state, based on interviews with people who have been trapped in the welfare state, and says the system is set up to make it very difficult to get out once you are in Dr. Tom Palmer on Self Control vs. State Control (2017). His example: someone on rental assistance and food stamps who inherits an automobile is pushed above an asset threshold and disqualified from the other programs, and welfare workers tell them to sell or give the car away quickly and spend the money to requalify, which also requires being re-interviewed. Palmer says the incentives are for people to stay on the welfare state, and that he admires those who leave it. He also notes that the collection he edited includes essays by Jeffrey Miron of Harvard University economics faculty and Lynne Kiesling of Northwestern University.

Building a wall around the welfare state

Alex Nowrasteh, appearing in 2019, states that legal and illegal immigrants do not have access to means-tested welfare benefits under U.S. law, with rare exceptions such as emergency Medicaid and school lunch programs, which he says are funded at the state level What Part of Illegal Immigration Are You Against? Alex Nowrasteh Returns (2019). Using data from the CPS and SIPP surveys, he says immigrants regardless of legal status are much less likely to use these benefits than native-born Americans, and that a foreign-born person costs about 42% less than a similar native-born American. He describes a Cato paper titled “Build a Wall Around the Welfare State, Not Around the Country,” which would tighten the rules so that no non-citizen could take advantage of the welfare state, and says he wants to use immigration as an argument to cut welfare, while conservatives use welfare as an argument to cut immigration. Zadek calls the approach brilliant and consistent with Friedman’s view, and says getting rid of welfare is politically impossible. Nowrasteh cites the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, passed during the Clinton administration, as most successful in its restrictions on non-citizen access, and says Eric Holder’s Department of Justice sued the state of Pennsylvania over means-tested benefits given to illegal immigrants using federal dollars. He also says Representative Grothman, a Republican from Wisconsin, introduced a bill based on Cato’s ideas.

The evidence and the keyhole

In the 2021 episode on the immigration crisis, Nowrasteh repeats that there is no evidence immigrants come for welfare: programs are restrictive against new immigrants, with very little access for the first five years of legal residence and almost none for those here illegally, and immigrants use such programs less, for shorter periods, and consume less money The Immigration Crisis in Context (2021). He says immigrants are increasingly going to states like Florida, Texas and Arizona with smaller welfare programs rather than California, New York and New Jersey, because they come for jobs. He again proposes making it illegal for anybody to use welfare until they become an American citizen.

Ilya Somin, in the 2021 asylum episode, offers a three-part test for claimed harms of immigration: whether the problem is real, whether a less draconian remedy exists, and whether the wealth created by migration can offset it Hard Questions About Asylum and Afghanistan (2021). On overburdening the welfare state, he says the obvious alternative is to limit eligibility for welfare benefits, which he says is already done under the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and other legislation — a “keyhole solution” that addresses the issue without keeping people out. He notes immigration reduces crime because immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, have lower crime rates than native-born Americans, and suggests taxing new wealth from migration to fund wage subsidies if native wages fall.

Across episodes: the same argument, restated

The welfare state as an obstacle to immigration recurs in 2011, 2019 and 2021, with Friedman’s coexistence claim invoked each time. What changes is the proposed remedy: Zadek in 2011 treats abolishing welfare as politically impossible and settles for denying benefits to legal immigrants; Nowrasteh in 2019 and 2021 supplies survey data and a Cato paper to argue for stricter non-citizen eligibility; Somin in 2021 generalizes this into a keyhole-solution framework. Palmer’s 2017 episode treats the welfare state as a trap for recipients rather than a magnet for immigrants, and does not engage the immigration question.

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