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Title: Immigration, Legal Status, and Public Aid Magnets: Evidence from the U.S. Census

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2009

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Abstract: PREVIOUS STUDIES HAVE DEMONSTRATED statistically and economically significant responses to public aid differentials across locations, or welfare migration, by low-income immigrants and natives (Buckley, 1996; Borjas, 1999; Dodson, 2001; McKinnish, 2007). The contributions of this paper are (1) to update the literature examining welfare migration dynamics to the post-1996 welfare reform period, and (2) to illustrate that the original findings based on U.S. Census data that support welfare migration, though persistent, are occupation-specific. Of particular interest, there is no evidence that California is a welfare magnet for occupations hypothesized to have high percentages of illegal immigrants (e.g., agriculture, construction, other labor). This is notable given continuing state level attention to the denial of public services to new illegal immigrants. Documenting the existence (or absence) of welfare migration for different occupational and legal status groups is of both welfare and immigration policy interest and contributes to a better understanding of the effect of state and local public finance on the locational distribution of migrants.

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Authors: Pena, Anita Alves

Conference Name: National Tax Association

Publisher Location: Denver, CO

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration, Poverty and Welfare, Race and Ethnicity

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