I can't help but feel that your statement is highly misleading or possibly outright false. The US population is estimated around 323 million. That would make social safety net spending at an average of $8,173 per PERSON per year.
That's incredibly difficult to believe.
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consist of almost 50% of the federal budget. If you include "Other," which includes other welfare programs such as veterans benefits, federal food stamps, as well as "Non-defense," which includes additional veterans benefits/housing/health, you can see that a very large percentage of the federal budget is on social safety nets.
And again, that is only federal. The amount of money locally and statewide that is put into affordable housing, homeless shelters, planned parenthood, etc at the local level contributes to what amounts to a nontrivial amount spent on social safety nets.
Social Security and Medicare are not particularly redistributive, so I don't think it's appropriate to include them either. The terms "welfare" or "safety net" implies to me taking from the well off and helping a relatively small number who are in need.
But then, again, the US is going to look pretty good compared to others.
(and I would like to add that there are plenty of economists saying that in fact most or all of a country's military budget is a social welfare program, as it's a job-of-last-resort for young people, which definitely helps them)