Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Not sure Samuelson can blame it all on immigration...

I saw the secondary headline, We can't ignore the facts. Only an act of willful denial can separate immigration and poverty, and as I started to read the article, I paused...

The poverty rate is not great where I live in Toledo, many families are struggling, a recent article reported how the foodbanks in town are facing higher demand than ever before and we are rated fairly high in home foreclosure numbers. None of this is due to immigration, we don't have a large number of immigrants, legal or otherwise in our community. The deeper I read, the more it seems to blame immigration for the poverty level is to forget a key factor. The economy...

Perhaps it is accurate that the number of hispancs are adding to the current reported poverty numbers, while I think it's important as Samuelson points out to be aware of the affect of immigration on poverty numbers, I also believe it's not a factor for every area with above average poverty rankings.

1 comment:

-Sepp said...

I'm thinking that immigration may have a part to play in those numbers but, and there is always a "but", the immigration poverty number 9 times in 10 only occurs in the first generation. Succeeding generations that assimilate into American culture are normally far better off than their parents were.