"Welfare Use by Immigrant and Native Households"

by John Stevenson

We are often told by pundits, immigration advocates, and the news media that immigrants use our welfare system less that native-born Americans and that they are, as a group, a net contribution rather than a drain on the nation’s resources.  Are these assertions true?

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has published an extensive report called “Welfare Use by Immigrant and Native Households.”  The report relies on data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation. 

The report compares households headed by an immigrant (legal or illegal) with those headed by native-born.  The report uses the terms immigrant and foreign-born synonymously, and explains that foreign-born includes all who were not U.S. citizens at birth, including naturalized citizens, green card holders, illegal immigrants, and those on long-term visas such as foreign students.  The report includes as welfare: cash, food, and housing programs and Medicaid.  Most of the data are for the year 2012. 

CIS says it is “an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization.”  Its mission is “providing immigration policymakers, the academic community, news media, and concerned citizens with reliable information about the social, economic, security, and fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration…”  You can find CIS and the report at cis.org.

The report includes extensive use of statistics in chart and table formats.  Here, in abbreviated form, are some of the highlights of the data.

In 2012, 51 percent of immigrant-headed households used at least one welfare program compared with 30 percent for native-born. 

Welfare use is high for both new arrivals and well-established immigrants.  Of those who had been in the U.S. for more than two decades, 48 percent still accessed welfare.

Welfare use varies by immigration source.  Those with the highest welfare use came from Mexico and Central America (73 percent), the Caribbean (51 percent), and Africa (48 percent).  Only those from Europe (26 percent) and the Indian sub-continent (17 percent) had lower use than native-born (30 percent).

Many immigrants struggle to support their children, but even immigrant households without children have significantly higher welfare use (30 percent) than native households without children (20 percent).

In 2012, 76 percent of households headed by an immigrant who had not graduated from high school accessed welfare, as did 63 percent of those with only a high school education.

Of immigrant households, 24 percent are headed by someone who has not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of households headed by native-born.

The high rates of immigrant welfare use are not entirely explained by their lower education levels.  Households headed by a college-educated immigrant had much higher (26 percent) welfare use than those headed by college educated native-born (13 percent).

In addition to having higher welfare use, immigrant households pay less in taxes to the federal government on average than do native-born households.  For every dollar that native households pay in income and payroll taxes, immigrant households pay 89 cents.

We also are often told that immigrants, especially illegals, are legally barred from accessing the welfare systems.  The report deals extensively with that issue.  Here’s a brief summary:  Most new legal immigrants are barred from welfare programs when they first arrive, as are illegal immigrants.  But the ban does not apply to all programs; most legal immigrants have been in the U.S. long enough to qualify for at least some programs, and the bar often does not apply to children; States often independently provide welfare to new immigrants; naturalizing makes immigrants eligible for all programs; and, most important, immigrants (including illegals) can receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children. 

And, the report adds, some provisions restricting immigrant use of welfare are entirely unenforced. 

It is important to recognize that the report addresses only immigrants’ use of welfare programs.  It does not address whether or to what extent welfare programs play a role as an immigration magnet.  It does not deal at all with other important issues such as immigrant versus native-born crime rates, immigration’s financial and social effects on our public schools, or the overall cultural and societal impacts of immigration.

The report, which is based on Census Bureau data, only answers the immigrant-use-of-welfare issue---and convincingly.  And it bolsters the case for immigration reform and a merit-based system.

Rebuilding the Family

by Monreale

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor. She ends her article, The Decriminalization Delusion, with these words:

In the final analysis, America does not have an incarceration problem; it has a crime problem. And the only answer to that crime problem is to rebuild the family—above all, the black family. The media troll incessantly for an outlier case of a hapless bourgeois who got slammed in prison for a one-shot mistake. In fact, the core criminal-justice population is the black underclass. “Young black males between the ages of 17 and 26 drive the system,” says corrections expert Steve Martin. “Family is the solution—and the work ethic. You show me people with intact families and those folks work—their chances of ending up in prison are next to zero."

How, then, to rebuild the family, not only as an antidote to crime but as the repository and source of our highest and best selves? 

I'm going to go out on a limb here--I think it's necessary.

Seventy percent of black children are born out of wedlock. How many of us realize that the rate for the rest of us (including Hispanics) approaches 50%? For almost 50 years study after study has identified this phenomenon as linked to dysfunction and crime, as causing serious damage to children, especially boys. Yet our society refuses to face it, to grapple with it.  Blacks go along with this because they prefer to blame their problems wholly on racism and external forces rather than assigning proper weight to deep cultural flaws. Liberal commentators and social scientists go along with it because it's politically correct and because they fear that truth-telling, describing behavior that's unflattering to people of color, would subject them to the charge of racism or blaming the victim. The rest of us go along and when we're asked to examine our own culture we also turn away. Why? I think it's because facing the facts would mean we'd have to change our ways, some of which are clearly dissolute.  Despite the price paid by our children, we'd rather not change anything.

We must affirm marriage as the historically universal union of a man and a woman, in which the state takes an interest only because it may result in children. Other than for the promise of the next generation, the state should have no interest in marriage. Gay marriage probably can't be undone but we don't need to accept what it teaches.  Affirm the importance of the role of a mother who nurtures children and oppose the feminist propensity to denigrate motherhood and elevate careerism over motherhood. Affirm the importance of fathers as supporters and guides to their children, balancing the mother's role. Criticize the prevalence of divorce and make it more difficult until such time as any children of the marriage reach their majority. Dishonor any women who decide to have children on their own as a lifestyle choice. Refuse government subsidy to unwed mothers except to maintain the children, and if children are not reasonably cared for, remove them to foster parents. Dishonor and penalize men who father children outside of marriage; require them to support their children. And more.

Unrealistic? Who would have guessed 25 years ago that the movement to tolerate homosexuals would become a requirement to endorse them,  would lead to a mandate to celebrate them and then would impose on all of us the decree to accept the legitimation of gay marriage (or be accused of "homophobia"), which would, in turn, lead to the walls crashing down around any resistance to transgenderism?  
 

In the recently televised annual Oscars ceremony, the film Call Me By Your Name was up for Best Picture. Critics loved the film, saying it was about "two young men falling in love."  The film portrays a summer sexual affair between a boy who appears to be around age 14 and a man who looks around 30. Yet the critics ignore or laboriously downplay the obvious homosexual aspect of the film, perhaps for fear they would be accused of legitimizing public perceptions that gay men often engage teenagers. The critics take comfort in the fact that, for obvious reasons, the Director has the boy initiate the encounter as well as having the boy's father issue glib praise and approval to both the boy and man for engaging in the affair, in that it enriched the boy's experience.

Totally ignored: the film is based on a gay novel, the screenwriter and the Director are both gay, and gay Hollywood has embraced the film as its own.  Could this film have gained such prominence even a short five years ago? Very recently many popular outlets reported a story of bestiality (with a dolphin!), providing the details quite unabashedly, even sympathetically. We're adults, aren't we?  So what's next?

Public opinion can change rapidly in a positive direction too. All it takes is a leadership willing to take risks and a followership not stifled by PC. Notice how the concept of "Diversity" started to take hold in the mid-70's. Today, despite the complete lack of any evidence for its purported benefits, Diversity has become America's most visible cultural ideal. What if a determined cohort set out to establish the nuclear family in the same position? There are nascent signs of strength (for example see distinguished professor of law Amy Wax on traditional values, a New York Times piece for which she is being hounded, punished but not silenced).

We should refuse to concede defeat.

Diversity Uber Alles---the Sequel, Winter 2018

by John Stevenson

My Mar. 7 essay described the media adoration of the “diversity” of two 2016 summer Olympians.  To the point where they celebrated the Islamic identity of one competitor while completely ignoring her lack of success in the actual competition.  And in the other instance---an actual gold medalist!---they focused so much on her race that their headline failed to identify her by name.

Fast forward to the 2018 Seoul winter games.  The Olympic motto is “faster, higher, stronger.”  Fox News Executive Editor John Moody criticized the U.S. Olympic Committee’s effort to increase the representation of Blacks and gays.  He wrote that the USOC’s goal was to make the team “darker, gayer, different.”   Ooops.

Moody questioned how that effort would contribute to representation on the medal stand.  Moody’s question was loudly booed, including by Fox News itself, which effectively disowned him:  “John Moody’s column does not reflect the views or values of Fox News and has been removed.”

Well, it turned out Moody’s concern was correct: Team USA gathered 23 medals---fewest since 1998. 

The most front-and-center, in-your-face, of the “darker, gayer, different” contingent made their mark not in their competitions but in their sideshow antics.  These were speed skater Shani Davis, freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, and figure skater Adam Rippon.  Here’s what happened:

Shani Davis and luge athlete Erin Hamlin were among the nominees to carry the Stars and Stripes in the opening ceremony.  According to USA Today, “….the vote was tied 4-4 between Davis and Hamlin. The USOC’s official procedure, determined last year and communicated to athletes, dictated that a coin flip must be used to break the tie.”  Hamlin won the toss. 

Davis did not accept this gracefully.  USA Today reported that he tweeted: “…when I won the 1000m in 2010 I became the first American to 2-peat in that event. @TeamUSA dishonorably tossed a coin to decide its 2018 flag bearer…#BlackHistoryMonth2018…”  And he then chose not to march in the opening ceremony parade with his teammates.  So apparently Davis thought his color and his prior-year medal entitled him to be the flag bearer---rules be damned.

Officially gay Gus Kenworthy failed to medal in his freestyle skiing event.  But he got his moment in the spotlight.  At the conclusion of his failed event, his boyfriend Matthew Wilkas was waiting for him, rainbow flag in hand and wearing a shirt emblazoned USAGAY.  According to time.com, Kenworthy had been vocal about representing LGBT Americans at the Seoul games.  Kenworthy and Wilkas shared a televised kiss in front of an ecstatic crowd. 

And just to be sure the world knew (as if the world cared) of his disdain for the current Administration, Kenworthy tweeted:  “Everybody here has worked so hard to make it to the Olympics…Everyone except Ivanka. Honestly, tf is she doing here??” [tf is an abbreviation of wtf, see urbandictionary.com]

Flamboyantly gay (if you doubt it, google him) figure skater Adam Rippon spent his Olympic energy criticizing Vice President Mike Pence, who was charged, along with his wife Karen, to lead the U.S. delegation at the Seoul games.  Reports differ, but it appears that Pence offered to meet with Rippon but was rebuffed.

Unlike Davis and Kenworthy, Rippon actually won a share of a bronze medal in a team event.  Rippon was always-on: calling attention to himself, stirring up controversy, and yakking up a storm.  After his competition in the games, NBC offered Rippon a gig as a correspondent for their coverage.  But, as reported on money.cnn.com, Rippon turned down the offer, saying he needed instead to stay with his teammates and friends in the Olympic village.    

Fortunately, the Seoul games were not all about diversity and grievance.

Space won’t permit listing them all but there were many highlights, including a gold for women’s hockey and a surprise first-ever gold in curling.  And the only American woman to land a triple axel in any Olympics.  A total of nine gold medals, and no raised fists or rainbow flags on the medal stand. 

And finally there’s Lauren Gibbs (who is African-American).  Gibbs and her teammate Elana Meyers Taylor won silver in the women’s bobsled.  Gibbs took several selfies with Ivanka Trump and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.  Along with the selfies, Gibbs posted the message in the paragraph below.  What a refreshing and encouraging contrast to the rudeness and disrespect displayed by the aggrieved.

“It’s important to remember that we don’t have to agree on everything to get along, be civil to each other and enjoy each others company. #itsforamerica it was a pleasure to meet you both! Lauren Gibbs (@lagibbs84) February 25, 2018.”

Diversity Uber Alles, Summer 2016

by John Stevenson

This is not about either of two fine athletic competitors, Ibtihaj Muhammad and Simone Manuel.  It is about the press coverage of their respective achievements.

A pre-competition CNN headline read: "Muslim fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad set to make U.S. Olympic history in Rio."  Reading the story which followed that headline, you would have to reach the twelfth paragraph before finding out anything about her ability or achievements as a fencer.  The entire rest of the article exalted her for wearing the hijab.

After the individual saber competition, the ABC News headline was: "Fencer becomes first American Olympian to compete in hijab."   Like the earlier CNN article, this one focused almost entirely on the great breakthrough in American athletics:  having a hijab-wearer compete on Team USA.  A single brief paragraph told of her performance (she was eliminated mid-way through the event, as were the other Americans). 

Ah, but in the team saber event, a medal for America!  Here is the New York Daily News headline: "Ibtihaj Muhammad, U.S. teammates win bronze in sabre fencing at Rio Olympics."  The article began: "U.S. fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad came to the Rio Games determined to show the world that Muslim-American women can excel in sports."   Deep into the article you will discover the names of her co-medalist teammates, including one who had been a two-time gold medal winner in a previous Olympics---and whose performance in Rio likely saved the bronze for Team USA. 

Muhammad's teammates' performance, their names, even their very existence were just not the story the press was interested in covering.  It was all about the wearing of the hijab.

(Update: In November 2017, Mattel announced the launch of its hijab-wearing Barbie, “modeled after Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad.”  This further celebrates her astounding athletic achievement.)

So onward to Simone Manuel. 

The headline in the San Jose Mercury News read:  "Phelps shares historic night with African-American."  Say what?

Manuel won Olympic gold in the 100 meter freestyle event.  Rather than honoring her by announcing her name in its headline, the newspaper instead identified her only by her race. 

With her performance in Rio, Manuel became the first African-American woman to win an individual gold in any Olympic swimming event.  Earlier in the day Michael Phelps had taken his 22nd gold by winning the 200 meter individual medley.  Thus the two were tied together in the Murky News headline.

The swift social media backlash caused the paper to rewrite its headline to "Stanford's Simone Manuel and Michael Phelps make history."  (Never mind the obvious ambiguity in that re-write---the cleanup squad was surely rushed.)  The paper also offered this apology:  "The original headline on this story was insensitive and has been updated to acknowledge the historic gold medal wins by both Simone Manuel and Michael Phelps. We apologize for the original headline." 

But the cat was out of the bag.  The Murky News had divulged to readers that in their mindset the most important thing was not the champion herself, or even her performance, but that she was African-American.

The press treatment of these two Olympic stories betrays an obsession with race, gender, diversity---at the expense of the actual athletic news.  But perhaps that obsession is just a reflection of the diversity uber alles mindset of academia, the media, and other opinion shapers in today's America.