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Immigrant Poverty Rate
About This Indicator
What Is This?
The share of people born abroad, naturalized citizens and noncitizens alike, living below the official poverty line, computed from the Census Bureau's March income survey the way Census computes its own figure. The poverty line counts cash income before taxes. Since 1993.
Why Does It Matter?
Whether newcomers get ahead is at the heart of most arguments over what immigration costs and what it adds. Children born here to immigrant parents are counted as native-born, so a poor immigrant family is split across two figures: the parents are counted here and their American-born children are not.
Can Politics Influence It?
Through the job market above all, and through who is admitted: more visas for skilled workers, family members, or refugees change who arrives, and eligibility rules decide which immigrants can get aid. Food aid, housing aid, and tax credits are not counted as income here, so help of that kind does not show.
Key Idea
The rate can rise without anyone getting poorer. Newcomers usually start near the bottom and earn more with each year here, so a surge of arrivals adds many low earners at once and lifts the rate even while families already here move up. A falling rate can likewise mean fewer arrivals rather than higher pay.
Scored: A Fall Ranks Better
Source: Census Bureau. Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement public-use microdata (api.census.gov).
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