“For the last year, the local Somali community has been in the political spotlight, facing pressure from state and federal officials over fraud allegations,” MPR News reported last week. “In recent weeks, families and leaders in the Somali community are worried a string of shootings involving Somali youth in Eden Prairie will add even more negative focus on their community.”
The article is titled “To take on youth violence, Imam says Somali community needs ‘real investment’.” “When it comes to Somali youth — some community leaders believe more opportunities are necessary,” the report continues:
“What I want to see is investment, real investment in these communities, mental health resources, developmental programs, economic opportunity,” Imam Hassan Jama of the Al-Hikma Islamic Center told MPR News host Clay Masters. “Not more profiling. I want the justice system to do its work.”
“They are making poor choices,” he added. “They are creating destruction and we disagree with that. But also there is not that much resources [to] help our youth.”
But data show that Minnesota’s Somali community is already well provided with taxpayer cash.
Welfare
A 2025 report from the Center for Immigration Studies found that:
While just 6 percent of native households in Minnesota receive cash welfare — including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplement Security Income, and general assistance — 27 percent of Somali households do. The disparities are even greater for food and medical care, with over half of Somali households receiving food stamps and nearly three-quarters using Medicaid. Altogether, 81 percent of Somali households consume some form of welfare, compared to 21 percent of native households.5 Somalis with 10 years of residency have welfare consumption rates that are only marginally lower than the Somali population as a whole.
Households with children are especially likely to use welfare. Figure 3 shows that even Minnesota’s native-headed households with children consume Medicaid at a high rate of 28 percent. The contrast with Somalis is still clear, however, as nearly all (86 percent) of the Somali households with children are on Medicaid.
Minnesota has tested to destruction the idea that throwing its taxpayer’s cash at the Somali community will solve its problems.
Not surprisingly, the above average rates of welfare dependency among Minnesota’s Somali community are the result of above average rates of economic deprivation.
Economic deprivation
The Minnesota State Demographic Center’s “2026 Economic Status of Minnesotans Report” shows that Minnesota’s Somali households have below average incomes. “Minnesota’s Ojibwe households have the lowest median income of any cultural group represented here, at about $40,000,” the report notes, “followed by Somali and African-American households, similarly situated at about $43,000:” For the state generally, the Median Household Income is $82,700.
Somali Minnesotans also have the lowest share of individuals living “Not in Poverty,” 36% compared to 79% for the state generally.
Employment and wages
Much of this can be explained by below average employment outcomes. The Somali community’s rate of labor force participation — 72% — is ten percentage points below the state average, 82%.
But, as I have written before, the labor force contains both those people who are working and those people who are not but are looking, who are counted as “unemployed.” The unemployment rate among Somali Minnesotans is 8%, double the rate for the population generally.
Indeed, if we add together the number of people who are unemployed and the number who are out of the labor force completely, the rate for Minnesota’s Somalis — 33% — is 12 percentage points above the rate for the state generally, 21%.
Sadly, the Somali community’s economic problems do not end with lower than average levels of employment. Even when Minnesota’s Somalis are employed, their outcomes are typically worse than average. The Demographic Center’s report finds that “Somali employees were most likely to work part-time, with about four in ten doing so,” compared to about two in ten for the state generally. These jobs, clearly, will typically pay lower wages than full-time jobs.
And, even when Minnesota’s Somalis work full time, they are among the lowest earning groups, “$45,000 or less annually,” the report discloses. For the state generally, the number is $61,900.
Education
These below average employment outcomes are, to some extent, driven by below average educational outcomes. The report finds “37% of [Somali] adults ages 25 to 64 lacking a high school diploma or GED—the highest rate of any cultural group in the state.”
The chain of causation runs something like this: Somali Minnesotans record below average educational outcomes; this leads to below average outcomes from employment; this leads to above average levels of economic deprivation; this causes above average levels of welfare dependency.
It could be argued that we would see a better return on the investment of taxpayer’s money if we spent it at the start of this chain — on education — rather than at the end, on welfare.
First, it is highly doubtful that that is what is being proposed: a shift of government spending away from welfare and towards education. More likely, the new spending would be in addition to current spending, not instead of it.
Second, it isn’t clear from the data that Somali students in Minnesota are currently under resourced.
Minnesota’s Department of Education (MDE) provides data on the “Home Primary Language” of students by district which we can compare this with data on per pupil spending (Total – General Fund / Dollars Per ADM Served) by district, As Figure 1 shows, school districts with below 33.3% of their students’ home primary language being Somali spend $18,694 per pupil, those with between 33.3 and 66.6% $18,215, and those with over 66.6% $17,713. Only in this last category, curiously, is the figure exceeded by the state average — $17,334 — and even then, not by much.
Figure 1: Per pupil spending, 2024-2025
Of course, it could be argued that schools and districts with higher shares of foreign “Home Primary Language” speakers should be getting substantially more per pupil spending than those with lower shares, but this undermines further the argument that such immigration is an unalloyed fiscal boon.
Minnesota’s Somalis face several problems, all of which feed off each other: Poor educational attainment, below average labor market outcomes, lagging economic outcomes, and above average rates of welfare dependency, along with the other problems these issues bring. These problems have arisen despite vast amounts of Minnesotan and American tax money being sent to the community. If taxpayer handouts were going to solve these problems, we might have seen some evidence of that by now, but we have not, and there is no reason to believe that yet more taxpayer cash will succeed where the previous billions failed.
Still, these problems do require solutions and all Minnesotans have a role to play in finding them. Only by honest inquiry and plain speaking will we do so.