IMMIGRANT WELFARE RECIPIENCY - RECENT TRENDS AND FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Using microdata from the 1970 and 1980 U.S. Censuses, this article examines recent trends in immigrant welfare recipiency. Immigrant welfare use increased over the 1970s, both in absolute terms and in comparison to the welfare use of natives. A small number of source country characteristics explain over two-thirds of the large variation in welfare recipiency that exists across national origin groups. Moreover, changes in the average source country characteristics of the foreign-born population between 1970 and 1980 can account for almost all of the increase in immigrant welfare recipiency that occurred over the decade.