June 11, 2008 8:34AM # Spending Money to Restrain Economic Growth By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE [Sayeth the GAO](http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08895t.pdf): > Although DHS has not prepared official cost figures, USCIS officials estimated that a mandatory E‑Verify program could cost a total of about $765 million for fiscal years 2009 through 2012 if only newly hired employees are queried through the program and about $838 million over the same 4‑year period if both newly hired and current employees are queried. USCIS has estimated that it would need additional staff for a mandatory E‑Verify program, but was not yet able to provide estimates for its staffing needs. SSA has estimated that implementation of a mandatory E‑Verify program would cost a total of about $281 million and require hiring 700 new employees for a total of 2,325 additional workyears for fiscal years 2009 through 2013. [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).