My colleague Steve Camarota has published a look at welfare use by immigrant families with children, and it’s pretty dire. Fifty-seven percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children (which is alarmingly high in itself). The highest rates are for families headed by an immigrant from the Dominican Republic (82 percent using welfare) and Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent). The states with the highest rates are Arizona, Texas, California, and New York (61–62 percent) — which, unfortunately, are also the top states of immigrant settlement. For immigrant households with four or more children, 81 percent are using welfare, as are 80 percent of households with children that are headed by an immigrant without a high school degree.
Iain Murray and Mickey Kaus were respondents at the panel discussion releasing the report, commenting from libertarian and neo-liberal perspectives, respectively; the video will be up next week.
In related news, this disturbing information in the latest Rural Migration News:
The Fresno county city of San Joaquin has a higher share of children under 18 than any other California city, 41 percent compared to the state average of 25 percent. Orange Cove has the second-highest share of children. Both cities are over 95 percent Hispanic, and both have per capita incomes lower than the per capita income of Mexico, which was $10,000 in 2009, or $14,000 at purchasing power parity. Per capita income in San Joaquin was $8,000, and $7,500 in Orange Cove.
So we now have communities with lower per capita incomes than Mexico. But don’t worry — I’m sure it’ll all work out fine.
Well then, why don't the nice people of Mexico wire money to the poor Mexicans in San Joachin county? Don't they believe in charity down there?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is getting to be dire. While I am not a legal immigration restrictionist and would like to see robust immigration of *skilled, educated* foreigners from across the world rather than unskilled, uneducated, illegal waves of Central Americans, what is clearly paramount is ending illegal immigration as well as legal immigration of the chain/family and low-skilled varieties.
Sure, the tired and downtrodden were necessary 100 years ago when we had a manufacturing economy based on raw manpower. (And even then there were strict controls to prevent people coming illegally, with over 25% of immigrants entering Ellis Island sent home.) But America today is a wealthy country in a competitive global knowledge economy where our prosperity is always in danger of being toppled.
If we continue to let in uneducated Mexicans, then, by golly, we're going to become a poorly educated country much like Mexico.
I cannot understand why so many Americans, in spite of the clear evidence presented by California's world-historical fall from grace, seem bent on a less-educated, less-wealthy future, all so that we can let in millions of people from the disaster to our south ... and promptly give them taxpayer dollars.
It's nuts, and if the GOP doesn't make illegal immigration into a key plank in 2012, they'll not only fail to ever fix our spending addiction, they'll leave the country in a parlous state and probably without the means to ever right itself.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThese are facts that Americans need to know in making their voting decisions. Thank-you, Mark and Steve.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLumping legal and illegal immigrants together when discussing their impacts on salaries is highly dishonest.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUnless something has changed recently, the per capita income estimates would not include the value of non-cash government subsidies. It therefore understates real income.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Unless something has changed recently, the per capita income estimates would not include the value of non-cash government subsidies. It therefore understates real income."
Well, okay then. I'm sure that the California state treasury needs those welfare clients. Or to restate that, the Cal state bureaucracy needs the unionized employees to manage those welfare clients.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA lot of the increased usage seems to be coming from free/reduced-price school lunch and the children health insurance (SCHIP). The income limit for these two programs are very high. A family of four can qualify for reduced-price school lunch at 185% FPL, or about $40,000. SCHIP eligibility tops out at 300% FPL in California, around $60,000 for a family of four, and 400% FPL in New York, or just under $90,000.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually, MarkW, I think it makes it more dramatic. I'm betting that the legal immigrants are probably not large contributors to those welfare numbers, and contribute disproportionately to the salaries.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow do you say "anschluss" in Spanish?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSolution is simple: workplace enforcement + points-based immigration on the Canadian or Australian model.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere may have once been a legitimate purpose to drawing distinctions between legal and illegal. But when most immigrants nowadays come from the same ethnic-cultural-linguistic cohort, when nearly all of them are poor, and nearly all of them are at best semi-literate peasants with little human capital, does illegal vs. legal really mean anything?
Whether it's being done through the front door or the side door, the fact remains we're importing poverty into an out-of-control welfare state. That is not economically tenable, but it's happening. Does anyone else here think this is being done to us on purpose?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"... both have per capita incomes lower than the per capita income of Mexico ..."
"Per capita" doesn't mean THESE families were making that kind of income in Mexico. If they had been, they would have stayed there.
Much better (for them) to come here and live on welfare, parasiting off YOU and ME.
(But not parasiting off Dems, cuz Dems so often have problems paying their taxes. ;-)
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