TY  - JOUR
AU  - Borjas,George J.
TI  - Immigration and Welfare Magnets
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6813
PY  - 1998
Y2  - November 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6813
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6813.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
George J. Borjas
Harvard Kennedy School
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-1393
Fax: 617/495-9532
E-Mail: gborjas@harvard.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1999-04-01
AB  - 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 clustered in the states that offer the highest benefits.  The empirical analysis indicates that immigrant welfare recipients are indeed more heavily clustered in high-benefit states than the immigrants who do not receive welfare, or than natives.  As a result, the welfare participation rate of immigrants is much more sensitive to changes in welfare benefits than that of natives.
ER  -