Graph of the Day: Welfare Reform, 10 Years Out (and How Much of Today’s Caseload Is Illegals?)

And where is the apocalypse that was predicted?

More from City Journal’s Kay Hymowitz, with a monster HT to S.O.B. Alliance Member NixGuy. A big point: It’s done a lot, but it’s not the whole answer. Read the whole thing to get the missing link.

Then read this piece I came across from Christian Science Monitor (HT Lucianne) that tells us just how difficult solving the “missing link” problem will be.

Follow-up question: Anyone have a link to how low the caseload would be if it were not for illegal immigration, or a way to estimate it?

______________________________

UPDATE: I think I just found an answer to the previous question, though I’m having a difficult time believing it. The good news is that Euphoric Reality (HT Right on the Right) has the stats; the not-so-good news is Heidi at ER quotes them from previously published LA Times pieces without linking them (not possible, thanks to the LAT subscription wall) or linking back to previous ER posts that contain them.

So with that warning, here’s the stat (first item in the second list at the post):

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops but 36% are on welfare.

IF, IF, IF that’s correct, and there are 12 million illegals here (that seems to be a rough consensus based on what I’ve read), then there are roughly 4.3 million illegals on welfare, which would be over 80% of the current caseload in the graph above. I’m not quite believing it. Further insights are welcome. See UPDATE 2 for clarification.

UPDATE 2 — Got this e-mail:

The stats you are quoting from Euphoric Realty are absurd, just as you surmised. I don’t have time to fact check all of them, but when I first saw Heidi’s post reproduced elsewhere I took the time to fact check #2 - another one that seemed just to wild to believe.

“Fact” #2 states:
Of the 10 million people in L.A. County, 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak only Spanish.

This is demonstrably false (the e-mailer is absolutely correct in pointing out the falsehood. — Ed.). The link from the US Census is here:
http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po47b.htm

As you can see, less than 5% of hispanic in LA County do not speak english. That works out to a little less than 400,000 people. In other words, the “fact” is off by about a factor of ten.

If I were you I would update your post to reflect the fact that these statistics are wrong, or I would ask Heidi to provide sources.

Finally, I think that the answer to your original question regarding illegals and welfare is that illegals affect welfare rolls only slightly (unless you count education and emergency healthcare as “welfare” - a trick popularized by Pete Wilson). That having been said, I suspect that specific, hard numbers on the issue will be hard to come by.

Very good points. I believe the trick in the “welfare” numbers is more in Food Stamps than it is in education and health care. I’m certain that families who only get food stamps are not in the “welfare caseload” graphed above (the population on food stamps is in the 20 million range, I believe), yet would be considered by the people who put out the 36% stat above to be receiving some kind of government assistance (often shorthanded to be “welfare”).