Many critics of immigration claim that immigrants will grow the size of government. As their argument goes, allowing for more lawful immigration to the United States will produce a larger government through immigrant voting behavior or their children’s voting behavior. However, if another factor like institutional changes can explain the growth of government, we would expect government to grow independently of the size of the immigrant stock.
There are many measures of the size of government, many of which are included in the Economic Freedom of the World: 2014 Annual Report. As excellent as that report is, the data does not go back far enough to show whether government growth a century ago tracks well with growth in the immigrant population. Older data is essential because there have been radical changes in immigration policy over the last century and larger changes in the growth of government. By looking at the more distant past, a clearer picture can be formed over how immigration has impacted growth in government – if at all. My charts below focus on the federal government only.
Below I use two measures of the growth of the federal government from 1901–2010: Real outlays (2010 dollars) per capita and government outlays as a percent of GDP. I use figures for every decade as yearly data is more difficult to attain.
Source: Table 1.1, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals & U.S. Census
Real government outlays per capita go up no matter what happens to the stock of immigrants. Two forty-year periods had very different immigration policies: 1930 to 1970 and 1970 to 2010.