Working Paper: NBER ID: w17667
Authors: Marianne Bitler; Hilary W. Hoynes
Abstract: Beginning with the 1996 federal welfare reform law many of the central safety net programs in the U.S. eliminated eligibility for legal immigrants, who had been previously eligible on the same terms as citizens. These dramatic cutbacks affected eligibility not only for cash welfare assistance for families with children, but also for food stamps, Medicaid, SCHIP, and SSI. In this paper, we comprehensively examine the status of the U.S. safety net for immigrants and their family members. We document the policy changes that affected immigrant eligibility for these programs and use the CPS for 1995-2010 to analyze trends in program participation, income, and poverty among immigrants (and natives). We pay particular attention to the recent period and examine how immigrants and their children are faring in the "Great Recession" with an eye toward revealing how these policy changes have affected the success of the safety net in protecting this population.
Keywords: immigrants; welfare reform; safety net; poverty; program participation
JEL Codes: I3; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1996 welfare reform (I38) | decline in immigrant participation in safety net programs (J68) |
| decline in immigrant participation in safety net programs (J68) | lower participation rates among immigrant families (J69) |
| economic downturns (F44) | rise in child poverty rates for immigrant-headed households (I32) |
| increase in unemployment (J64) | larger increase in poverty for immigrant children (I32) |
| safety net (H55) | less protection for children in immigrant-headed households during economic downturns (J13) |