Although the 1996 welfare reform legislation limited the eligibility of immigrant households to receive assistance, many states chose to protect their immigrant populations by offering state-funded aid to these groups. I exploit these changes in eligibility rules to examine the link between the...

This paper examines if welfare programs reduce the probability that vulnerable household experience food deprivation because of financial constraints. Although the 1996 welfare reform legislation specifically limited the eligibility of immigrant households to receive assistance, many states...

This paper investigates if the location choices made by immigrants when they arrive in the United States are influenced by the interstate dispersion in welfare benefits. Income-maximizing behavior implies that foreign-born welfare recipients unlike their native-born counterparts, may be...

There exist sizeable differences in the incidence and duration of welfare spells across ethnic groups, and these differences tend to persist across generations. Using the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, we find that children raised in welfare households are themselves more likely to...

This paper documents the extent to which immigrants participate in the many programs that make up the welfare state. The immigrant- native difference in the probability of receiving cash benefits is small, but the gap widens once other programs are included in the analysis: 21 percent of...

This paper uses the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Public Use Samples of the U.S. Census to trace the evolution of immigrant participation in welfare programs during the past two decades. The data indicate that immigrant participation in welfare programs is on the rise, and that the dollar costs...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of immigrant participation in the welfare system using the 1970 and 1980 U.S. Censuses. The availability of two cross-sections allows for identification of cohort and assimilation effects. The data indicate that recent immigrant cohorts use the welfare...