dynomite... here are the real numbers from a 2002 study and they show that a larger percentage of immigrants (legal and illegal) receive welfare.
Among the reports findings:
There is no evidence that the economic slowdown that began in 2000 or the terrorist attacks in 2001 have significantly slowed the rate of immigration. More than 3.3 million legal and illegal immigrants have entered the country since January of 2000.
By historical standards, the 33.1 million immigrants living in the United States is unprecedented. Even at the peak of the great wave of immigration in the early 20th century, the number of immigrants living in the United States was only 40 percent of what it is today (13.5 million in 1910).
Immigrants account for 11.5 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in 70 years. If current trends continue, by the end of this decade the immigrant share of the total population will surpass the all time high of 14.8 percent reached in 1890.
Immigration has become the determinate factor in population growth. The arrival of 1.5 million immigrants each year, coupled with 750,000 births to immigrant women annually, means that immigration policy is adding over two million people to the U.S. population each year, accounting for at least two-thirds of U.S. population growth.
Although immigration has a very large effect on the overall size of the U.S. population, it has a much more modest effect on the age structure in the United States. The nearly 16 million immigrants who arrived in the United States since 1990 have lowered the average age in the United States by only four months.
The percentage of immigrants without a high school diploma is 30 percent, more than 3.5 times the rate for natives. Since 1990, immigration has increased the number of high school dropouts in the labor force by 21 percent, while increasing the supply of all other workers by 5 percent.
The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is two-thirds higher than that of natives and their children, 17.6 percent versus 10.6 percent. Immigrants and their minor children now account for almost one in four persons living in poverty.
The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 24.5 percent compared to 16.3 percent for native households.
One-third of immigrants do not have health insurance — 2.5 times the rate for natives. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 and their U.S.-born children account for 95 percent (7.5 million) of the 7.8 million increase in the size the uninsured population since 1989.
The low educational attainment and resulting low wages of many immigrants are the primary reasons so many live in poverty, use welfare, and lack health insurance, not their legal status or an unwillingness to work.
Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2002, there were 9.7 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.
In 2002, 39.2 percent of immigrants 18 and older were citizens and they comprised 6 percent of all eligible voters.
Immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar rates of entrepreneurship, with about 1 in 10 being self employed.
lazs
