What percentage of Somali immigrant households in the US receive government assistance?

1. What the reporting actually measures — foreign aid and humanitarian need, not U.S. immigrant welfare rates

Most documents in the search results measure U.S. government foreign assistance to Somalia — dollars obligated to humanitarian response, development and security programs — and humanitarian needs inside Somalia (for example, USAFacts’ reporting of roughly $1.18 billion promised for FY2023 and other yearly obligation figures) ^[2]. Press releases and UN/WFP reporting describe life‑and‑death food assistance and funding gaps inside Somalia — e.g., the U.S. announced roughly $199 million in new humanitarian assistance in 2021 and the 2025 Somalia Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan was only 12.4% funded at one point — rather than domestic benefit recipiency among Somali‑origin households in the United States ^{[3] [4] [5]}.

2. Why the gap matters — different data domains and different agencies

Welfare and public‑assistance recipiency in the United States is tracked by domestic agencies and statistical bureaus (Census, Department of Health and Human Services, state agencies). The search results you supplied do not include those U.S. domestic data sources; instead they focus on foreign assistance databases, humanitarian agencies and country analyses ^{[1] [2] [5]}. Because the topic you asked — percent of Somali immigrant households in the U.S. receiving government assistance — sits in a different data domain, the current reporting set cannot answer it.

3. What the available sources do say about Somali vulnerability and aid needs

Available sources document acute humanitarian vulnerability in Somalia itself: millions face crisis or worse food insecurity and WFP says it is supporting only 20% of Somalis in urgent need due to funding shortfalls ^[5]. The UN‑led humanitarian plan for 2025 sought roughly $1.42 billion and was just 12.4% funded at the time of reporting ^[4]. Those figures show heavy dependence on external assistance for people inside Somalia, but they do not translate into a U.S.‑household welfare‑rate for Somali immigrants living in America ^{[5] [4]}.

4. Signals about U.S. policy and its limitations for your question

U.S. materials in the results are focused on foreign policy and assistance programming — e.g., the interagency foreignassistance.gov dashboard and Department of State announcements — including security cooperation and aid obligations ^{[1] [3]}. Congressional or oversight materials in the results discuss U.S. engagements with Somalia (diplomatic/aid posture, security) rather than domestic immigrant assistance statistics ^{[6] [7]}. The agenda implicit in the sampled documents is to inform foreign policy decisions and humanitarian funding, not to document immigrant socioeconomic outcomes in the U.S. ^{[1] [6] [7]}.

5. How to get the precise percentage you asked for — recommended data sources

To answer “what percentage of Somali immigrant households in the U.S. receive government assistance” you need U.S. domestic datasets not present here: Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) microdata or tables, Department of Health and Human Services/state welfare administrative reports, or academic studies that disaggregate benefit receipt by nativity and ancestry. The current search results do not contain those sources, so they cannot supply the percentage you asked for (available sources do not mention the U.S. household‑level percentage).

6. Potential pitfalls and competing narratives to watch for

Public debate often conflates foreign aid to Somalia with domestic assistance received by Somali immigrants — a misleading comparison and one the supplied sources illustrate by focusing only on international aid ^{[2] [3]}. Another common error is to treat aid‑dependent conditions in Somalia as equivalent to socioeconomic status of Somali diaspora communities; available reporting separates those domains and does not support conflating them ^{[5] [4]}. If you see claims about U.S. Somali household welfare rates, demand citation of ACS or administrative benefit data.

7. Bottom line and next steps

Available reporting in your search results documents large U.S. and international assistance flows to Somalia and severe humanitarian need inside Somalia but contains no figure for the share of Somali immigrant households in the United States receiving government assistance ^{[2] [3] [5] [4]}. If you want that percentage, I can pull it from the U.S. Census ACS, HHS statistics, or peer‑reviewed research — provide permission to search for U.S. domestic data and I will retrieve and cite those sources.