10. Hawaii: $2.52 billion

Hawaii has one of the lowest welfare expenditures. This stat might be surprising because Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the U.S., with residents spending 67.4 percent more than the national average, found another GOBankingRates study.

However, Hawaii also has a low unemployment rate with only 2.6 percent of the population being unemployed, according to August preliminary statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.