After running a cash register for a few years at a New Jersey grocery store, my brother, who is no policy wonk, observed: “I thought immigrants couldn’t get welfare, yet so many people on food stamps have a foreign accent. Something’s not right.” The public has long sensed that there is a problem with immigrants’ use of welfare. New research published by my organization, the Center for Immigration Studies, shows that the public is right.
In 2012, 51 percent of all immigrant households (legal and illegal) used Medicaid or received cash, housing, or food assistance. No single program accounts for immigrants’ higher overall welfare use. Using data from the Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), my colleagues and I calculated that the share of immigrant households that use food programs (40 percent) and Medicaid (42 percent) is much higher than that of native-born households (22 percent and 23 percent). Immigrant use of cash programs is somewhat higher than that of natives (12 percent vs. 10 percent); immigrant and native use of housing programs is comparable (about 6 percent).
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