Which state had the lowest welfare program funding per capita in 2025?

1. What the best available data actually say — 2021 baseline numbers

The clearest state‑by‑state per‑capita numbers in the results come from an Urban Institute summary of state and local "public welfare" spending in 2021 that reports a U.S. average of $2,597 per capita and a range from $1,062 in Connecticut to $4,249 in New York; the Urban Institute also lists other low‑spending states in 2021 such as Georgia ($1,352), Florida ($1,524), Nevada ($1,541) and Wyoming ($1,577) ^[1]. These figures cover state and local public welfare spending as of 2021, not 2025, and include Medicaid and other programs administered by states.

2. Why you can’t simply project 2021 into 2025 without caution

State spending on welfare programs moves with policy choices (Medicaid expansion, TANF design), federal transfers, demographic change and economic cycles; the Urban Institute highlights that states which declined Medicaid expansion tend to spend less on public welfare overall ^[1]. The search results do not provide updated 2025 per‑capita welfare spending series, so inferring the 2025 bottom state from 2021 data would ignore intervening policy shifts and federal pandemic relief that materially changed state budgets (available sources do not mention a 2025 per‑capita state ranking) ^[1].

3. Other 2025‑dated measures in the record — federal aid, dependence and “net” flows

Several 2025 items in the results measure federal aid or dependence rather than state spending per se. WalletHub and World Population Review pieces analyze states’ reliance on federal funds and net federal aid in 2025, which is a different lens: a state can receive a lot of federal aid per capita yet spend relatively little from state/local coffers on welfare, or vice versa ^{[2] [3]}. Those measures help explain fiscal dependence but do not directly answer which state spent the least of its own and local funds on welfare per resident in 2025.

4. Academic and federal analyses on cross‑state differences and drivers

Research summarized by ASPE and other sources shows systematic patterns: richer states and those with greater fiscal capacity tend to spend more per poor person, and when federal funds are included the gaps narrow but do not disappear ^[4]. That literature explains why low per‑capita spending often clusters in lower‑capacity, non‑expansion or politically conservative states, but the search results lack a single 2025 table tying these patterns to a named “lowest” state in that year ^[4].

5. Where to look next if you need a definitive 2025 ranking

To get a precise 2025 per‑capita welfare spending ranking you should consult state and local finance datasets released after 2021: the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, the Rockefeller Institute or Urban Institute updates, and state budget offices. The search results include links to relevant data producers (Rockefeller/Census via StatsAmerica and Urban Institute) but do not include a 2025 per‑capita welfare ranking ^{[5] [1]}.

6. Bottom line and journalistic take

Current search results do not identify a named state as having the lowest welfare‑program funding per capita in 2025; the most granular per‑capita figures available in these sources are for 2021 (national $2,597; Connecticut $1,062; New York $4,249) and broader 2025 measures focus on federal aid dependence rather than state/local spending per resident ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Any definitive 2025 claim requires consulting the Census/Urban Institute/Rockefeller follow‑ups or official state fiscal reports not present in the supplied reporting (available sources do not mention a 2025 per‑capita welfare spending leader or laggard).