Immigration and Welfare

Bryan Caplan has an excellent post on immigration and welfare. Here's part of the post:

1. The welfare state primarily helps the old, not the poor.
2. Immigrants are moderately more likely to be poor, but vastly less likely to be old.
3. Expected net effect of immigration on the budget: Positive.

The welfare state helps the old more because the biggest programs (i.e. Social Security and Medicare) go to the elderly. If I have to guess why the elderly benefit more than the poor its because the elderly vote while the poor don't.