Refugees Will Cost Taxpayers an Estimated $4.1 Billion in FY 2017
American taxpayers will spend more than $4.1 billion
in the 2017 budget to support the 519,018 refugees who have been resettled by
the federal government in the United States since October 2009, according to a
cost estimate by Breitbart News.
Even if the Trump administration were to entirely shut down the
flow of refugees into the United States in FY 2018 and beyond, the refugees who
have already arrived in the country will cost at least another $3.5 billion in
2018, and about $2 billion to $3 billion annually thereafter until FY 2022 and
beyond.
The annual $4.1 billion
cost of these refugees is about eight percent of “the total annual fiscal
impact of first generation [immigrants to the United States] and their
dependents, averaged across 2011-2013,” which the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, in September 2016, estimated “is a cost of $57.4
billion.” That report offered this summary of the characteristics of all immigrants to the United
States between 1995 and 2014:
The number
of immigrants living in the United States increased by more than 70
percent—from 24.5 million (about 9 percent of the population) in 1995, to 42.3
million (about 13 percent of the population) in 2014; the native-born
population increased about 20 percent during the same period.
Annual flows of lawful permanent
residents have increased. During the 1980s, just under 600,000 immigrants were
admitted legally (received green cards) each year; after the 1990 Immigration
Act took effect, legal admissions increased to just under 800,000 per year;
since 2001 legal admissions have averaged just over 1 million per year.
Estimates of the number of
unauthorized immigrants in the United States roughly doubled from about 5.7
million in 1995 to about 11.1 million in 2014.
“For the 2011-2013
period, the net cost to state and local budgets of first generation adults [who
have immigrated to the United States] is, on average, about $1,600 each,” the
National Academies report found.
The analysis that
estimates a $4.1 billion annual cost of refugees is based on the same
methodology and data used in a November 2015 study from the non-partisan Center
for Immigration Studies (CIS), which concluded that “in their first five years in
the United States each refugee from the Middle East costs taxpayers $64,370—12
times what the UN estimates it costs to care for one refugee in neighboring
Middle Eastern countries.”
The CIS study focused on
cost estimates for refugees arriving from ten Middle Eastern countries derived
from the 2013 Annual Survey of Refugees contained in the Office of Refugee
Resettlement’s Annual Report to Congress FY
2013 published by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
The ten Middle Eastern countries included in the 2015 CIS study were Afghanistan,
Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.
Those countries
accounted for 155,865 of the 519,018 refugees who have been resettled in the
United States since FY 2010, according to the State Department’s interactive
website.
Breitbart used the data in that same 2013 Annual Survey of
Refugees for all countries who send refugees to the United States (more than
one hundred countries), and applied the same methodology CIS used to determine
the costs for the Middle Eastern refugees within that group.
Our analysis shows that over a five year period, American
taxpayers pay $59,251 per refugee, or $5,119 less than the average Middle
Eastern refugee over the same period of time.
The 2015 CIS study limited the cost estimates to five years
because the 2013 Annual Survey of Refugees data was limited to refugees who had
been in the country for five years or less. The survey, then, is of refugees
who were resettled in the United States between FY 2009 and FY 2013.
In the Breitbart News estimate, we assumed that those costs
would diminish to 50 percent of the annual average for years 1 through 5 in
year 6, 25 percent in year 7, 10 percent in year 8, and zero in years 9 and beyond
for each refugee.
It is reasonable to assume that overall welfare usage will
decline the longer a refugee is in the country.
For instance, per the
2014 Annual Survey, 95 percent of refugees here for a year or less are in
the SNAP (Food Stamps) program. By contrast, after 5 years of
residence 60 percent of refugees are in the SNAP program—about 4 times the
national average.
Leaving aside the inadequate rate at which refugees are leaving
some welfare programs, in at least one significant welfare program the rate
goes up with each year in the country.
SSI, a cash welfare program for the disabled or elderly, is used
by about 14 percent of refugees in the first year of arrival. Slightly more
than 29 percent of refugee families who have been here for five years have
one or more members receiving SSI, a lifetime benefit in most cases. Each year
of residence brought an increase in the rate of SSI usage, as Table 1 below,
taken from the Office of Refuge Resettlement’s 2014 Annual Survey of Refugees
(where it is listed as Table II-20) shows.
Source: Office of Refugee
Resettlement 2014 Annual Survey of Refugees, Table II-20.
The November 2015 CIS study calculated a dizzying
array of twelve specific federal programs which provide direct and indirect
financial benefits to refugees. Table 2 below, a truncated version of the same
table that appeared in the CIS study, shows the amount of money the average Middle
Eastern refugee receives from each of these twelve programs over their first
five years in the United States, which totals $64,370.
SOURCE (from the November
2015 CIS Study):
Rates for SSI, TANF, SNAP, general assistance, and housing are from the 2013
Annual Survey of Refugees (ASR) and are household-based. Figures for Medicaid
and lack of health insurance are also from the ASR, but reflect individual use
rates. Average payments for SSI, TANF, and SNAP are from Census Bureau data.
Average payments for some programs come from administrative data and other
sources. Average education costs are from the National Center for Education
Statistics. We estimate that 28 percent of refugees are school-age (1.12
students per household). See text for additional explanation for how estimates
were made.
The Breitbart News
estimate of a $59, 251 cost to taxpayers over five years for the average
refugee resettled in the United States simply applies the actual use rates for
each of these twelve programs found in the 2013 Annual Survey of refugees for
all refugees, and applies it on a pro-rata basis to the calculations first used
in Table 2 by CIS.
To illustrate this methodology, the average use rate for SSI
among Middle Eastern refugees was 32.1 percent, according to the 2013 Annual
Survey of Refugees. In the same table of that report, the average use rate for
SSI among all refugees was 21.1 percent, hence, the five year cost for all
refugees for SSI is estimated at $3,559, as opposed to $5,414 for Middle
Eastern refugees.
Here are the use rates
for all refugees by cost category used in the Breitbart News estimates, as
found in the 2013 Annual Survey of Refugees: TANF, 19.0 percent. SNAP, 74.2
percent. General Assistance, 12.4 percent. Public/Subsidized Housing, 22.8
percent. WIC, 16.2 percent. School Lunch, 23.9 percent. Medicaid, 56.0 percent.
Without Health Insurance, 20.2 percent. Public Education, 28.0 percent.
Table
3 summarizes the Breitbart estimate of $4.1 billion annual costs to taxpayers
for resettled refugees in FY 2017:
Table 3: FY 2017 Cost to U.S.
Taxpayers of Resettled Refugees
|
Arrival Year
|
Refugees
|
Cost
|
|
Cost per Refugee
|
|
2017
|
36,205
|
696,373,107
|
|
19,234
|
|
2016
|
84,994
|
850,294,383
|
|
10,004
|
|
2015
|
69,933
|
699,621,586
|
|
10,004
|
|
2014
|
69,987
|
700,161,811
|
|
10,004
|
|
2013
|
69,926
|
699,551,557
|
|
10,004
|
|
2012
|
58,238
|
291,311,412
|
|
5,002
|
|
2011
|
56,424
|
141,118,815
|
|
2,501
|
|
2010
|
73,311
|
73,341,567
|
|
1,000
|
|
Total
|
519,018
|
4,151,774,239
|
|
67,754*
|
*The
cost for the first five years is estimated at $59,251. Years 6 through 8 add an
additional $8,503 in costs, bringing the total to $67,754.
The November 2015 CIS report offered a number of caveats,
including the following:
It is worth adding that ORR often
reports that most refugees are self-sufficient within five years. However, ORR
defines ‘self-sufficiency’ as not receiving cash welfare. A household is still
considered “self-sufficient” even if it is using any number of non-cash
programs such as food stamps, public housing, or Medicaid.
The estimated costs reported here
are conservative because they only include costs incurred by the State
Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); costs for
resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office
of Refugee Resettlement (ORR); public education; and most welfare programs.
There are many public
expenditures not included in this analysis, such as the cost of local social
workers who help refugees sign up for assistance, English language instruction
in public schools not covered by ORR, and many means-tested programs such as
the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head Start, and the Additional Child Tax Credit,
for which we do not have data. Costs for basic government services such as
infrastructure maintenance, law enforcement, and fire protection are also not
included. There are many public expenditures not included in this analysis,
such as the cost of local social workers who help refugees sign up for
assistance, English language instruction in public schools not covered by ORR,
and many means-tested programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head
Start, and the Additional Child Tax Credit, for which we do not have data.
Costs for basic government services such as infrastructure maintenance, law
enforcement, and fire protection are not included.
While Middle Eastern refugees in the first five
years must pay some taxes to offset a fraction of the costs they create,
published data from ORR indicates that more than 90 percent of households have
incomes below 130 percent of poverty, which means they will pay virtually no
income tax and will make very modest tax contributions of all types.
For help in sorting out
that dizzying array of twelve federal programs that provide financial benefits
to refugees, the November 2015 CIS report offers the following (with
emphasis added):
State
Department Expenditures. The State Department reports that 69,926 refugee were
admitted to the United States in 2013. While the State Department also helps
refugees overseas, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) within the State Department spent $310
million on resettling refugees in the United States in 2013. This means that an average of $4,433 was spent per refugee in 2013. These
figures include costs for the “overseas processing of refugee applications,
transportation-related services, and initial reception” and “housing,
furnishings, clothing, food, medicine, employment, and social service referrals”.
In this analysis we assume the amount spent by PRM per Middle Eastern refugee
is the same as for refugees from the rest of the world.
Office
of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The ORR spent nearly a billion dollars in 2013, but a
significant share went to help the resettlement of unaccompanied minors and
their families from Central America. Expenditures on new refugees and other
related groups such as Cuban/Haitian entrants and asylees were $613,963,000 in
2013. Asylees and Cuban/Haitian entrants are essentially eligible for the same
programs as refugees. Dividing this amount by the 128,000 individuals that ORR
reports are covered by its programs (excluding unaccompanied minors) means
that $4,797 was spend per refugee by
ORR in 2013. In general, ORR only provides assistance to local
communities, charities, and the refugees themselves in the first year after
they arrive in the country or are awarded asylum. After a year, charities and
state and local social service agencies are expected to care for them.
Refugees
and Welfare. Unlike other new legal
immigrants, refugees are eligible for all welfare programs
upon arrival. Further, there are several short-term
programs, such as Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) and Refugee Medical Assistance
(RMA), for which only refugees and other humanitarian immigrants are eligible.
Refugees have the most generous access to welfare programs of any population in
the country. The ORR conducts the Annual Survey of Refugees each year and the
2013 survey provides a detailed profile of the socio-demographic and economic
characteristics of refugees who entered the country in the prior five years,
including use of many of the nation’s major welfare programs by sending region.
We use information published by ORR on Middle Eastern refugees’ welfare use as
the basis of our cost estimates.
Welfare
Use Rates. The 2013
Annual Survey of Refugees shows the following welfare use rates for Middle
Eastern refugee households: 32.1 percent receive Supplemental Security Income
(SSI), 36.7 percent receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), 17.3
percent receive General Assistance, 91.4 percent receive the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also called food stamps), and 18.7 percent
live in public housing. The refugee survey also reports that 73.1 percent of
individual Middle Eastern refugees are on Medicaid or Refugee Medical
Assistance.
It should
be kept in mind that the survey reports welfare use for all Middle Eastern
refugees who arrived in the last five years, not just new arrivals. Many refugees get RMA and RCA, but then
transition to Medicaid and other cash programs like TANF or SSI after the
eight-month eligibility window for RMA and RCA runs out. So, for example, use of TANF is
likely lower for the first eight months than the 36.7 percent reported above.
To be sure, some refugees access cash welfare or Medicaid in the first eight
months. But for those refugees who have been in the country for more than eight
months the rate is higher than 36.7 percent. The 36.7 percent represents the
use rate for all Middle Eastern refugees in the Annual Survey of Refugees who
arrived in prior five years averaged together. For this reason, it is possible
to estimate five-year costs for welfare programs based on published information
from the survey, but it is not possible to estimate welfare costs for, say, the
first year after arrival.
It should be noted that published figures from the refugee
survey provide only use rates, not payment amounts received by refugees. It is
necessary to estimate payments using other data sources.
Average
Welfare Payments and Costs. To estimate welfare payments and costs by household we use
Census Bureau data and other information. To get per-person costs for programs
reported at the household level, we divide by four based on the assumption that
average Middle Eastern refugee households receiving welfare consist of four
people. This assumption is based on the Annual Survey of Refugees…
To estimate average payments by household for SSI, SNAP, and
TANF we use the public-use files of the 2013 to 2015 Annual Social and Economic
Supplement of the Current Population Survey (ASEC CPS) collected by the Census
Bureau. We match the countries listed as being part of the Middle East to the
ORR list of countries from that area using the country of birth reported in the
ASEC CPS.8 The ASEC CPS shows an average payment of $13,494 from SSI for
immigrant households from the Middle East (refugee and non-refugee) using the
program. For TANF, the same data shows an average payment of $5,061, and for
SNAP it was $4,039.9 It should be noted that the ASEC CPS generally
underestimates welfare use.10 Because we do not adjust for this undercount,
actual average payments are likely higher than that reported here. All payment
figures are rounded to nearest dollar.
To
estimate payments from general assistance programs, we average state payment
figures compiled by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). The average annual benefit across states for
this program is $2,885.12 (We assume that there is only
one person per refugee household receiving this program.) For the average cost of housing programs we
use the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website, which shows an average
cost per unit of public or subsidized housing of $637 per month ($7,644 per
year).
The Annual Survey of Refugees does not provide estimated use
rates for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program or the free
or subsidized school lunch program. For completeness, we include estimates for
these small programs by assuming that the use rates for these two programs
among Middle Eastern refugees is proportional to their use of SNAP… [T]he
school lunch program and WIC add only modestly to the five-year average costs
per individual. However, refugee use of these programs still would cost
millions of dollars annually.
Health
Insurance Coverage. Healthcare coverage is reported at the individual level in
the refugee survey, not the household level. There are three types of
“coverage” that create costs for taxpayers: the Refugee Medical Assistance
program, Medicaid, and those refugees who are uninsured. Costs for the RMA
program are covered by ORR and are included in the expenditures for that agency
reported above. For the Medicaid cost we use the average costs figure reported
in the Office of the Actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
annual report. In 2013, the program cost was $6,897 per enrollee. The refugee
survey reports 12.7 percent of individual Middle Eastern refugees had no medical
coverage in any of the previous 12 months. Based on information from the Kaiser
Family Foundation on the non-elderly without health insurance, we estimate that
uninsured refugees cost $1,943 on average annually.
Public
Education. Data is not reported in the refugee survey on the share of
Middle Eastern refugees who are in primary or secondary school. However, the
refugee survey does show that 65.1 percent of all refugee households who
arrived in the previous five years, not just those from the Middle East, have
children under age 16. The State Department also reports that 24.1 percent of
Iraqi and 33.6 percent of Afghan refugees were school-age (five to 17), the two
largest groups of Middle Eastern refugees for which there are statistics in
fiscal year 2013.19 Based on these figures, we estimate that 28 percent of new
Middle Eastern refugees are school-age and enrolled in public school. This
means that there is slightly more than one child in public school per Middle
Eastern refugee household.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that
average per-pupil expenditures in the United States are $12,401.20 There are
certainly added expenses associated with helping refugee children in school,
such as helping those who have emotional issues due having been traumatized. We
do not include those costs here partly because we do not have any reliable
figures for how much extra it costs to educate these children. We also do not
include them because some share of these costs are paid for, at least in the
first year, by ORR grants and are included above in that agency’s expenditures
in the first five years.
Sources familiar with the federal refugee resettlement program
who have reviewed the Breitbart News estimate say that estimate probably
significantly underestimates the cost of refugees to federal and state
taxpayers.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/19/refugees-will-cost-taxpayers-an-estimated-4-billion-in-fy-2017/