Means-Tested Safety Net Programs and Hispanic Families: Evidence from Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC

Abstract

Hispanic families have historically used means-tested assistance less than high-poverty peers, and one explanation for this may be that anti-immigrant politics and policies are a barrier to program participation. We document the participation of Hispanic children in three antipoverty programs by age and parental citizenship and the correlation of participation with state immigrant-based restrictions. Hispanic citizen children with citizen parents participate in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid more than Hispanic citizen children with noncitizen parents. Foreign-born Hispanic mothers use Medicaid less than their socioeconomic status would suggest. However, little evidence exists that child participation in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) varies by mother’s nativity: foreign-born mothers of Hispanic infants participate in WIC at higher rates than U.S.-born Hispanic mothers. State policies that restrict immigrant program use correlate to lower SNAP and Medicaid uptake among citizen children of foreign-born Hispanic mothers. WIC participation may be greater because it is delivered through nonprofit clinics, and WIC eligibility for immigrants is largely unrestricted.

According to official measures of the poverty thresholds, roughly one in three children who live in poverty in the United States is Hispanic, with one in ten residing in deep poverty, defined as less than 50 percent of the official federal poverty level, which was $10,210 in 2017 for a family of three in the forty-eight contiguous states (Guzman, Thomson, and Ryberg, this volume). Social safety net programs provide support to poor children, reducing the negative impact of income deprivation on children’s future well-being, including educational completion and earnings (Almond, Hoynes, and Schanzenbach 2011; Duncan, Magnuson, and Votruba-Drzal 2014; Hoynes, Schanzenbach, and Almond 2016). Connections to social assistance and services, like connections to the formal labor market, may also serve as gateways to other types of support for children, such as employment or jobs programs, early childhood and related education, and parenting support programs (Golden et al. 2013), and foster social inclusion in ways that can yield positive intergenerational returns.

The means-tested safety net programs that most benefit families with children include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly known as food stamps), which provides income earmarked for food via electronic benefit cards for use at food stores; and the Medicaid program, which covers health care costs for eligible low-income families. Each of these programs has the potential to free up net household income by reducing expenditures on basic needs like food and health. SNAP’s role in reducing poverty for children is second only to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit, likely in part because SNAP—unlike the tax credits—is not conditioned on having positive earnings (and receiving subsequent tax refunds) and can reach all children, including those in deep poverty (Bitler, Hoynes, and Schanzenbach 2020).¹ Further, evidence exists that SNAP plays an important countercyclical role, providing more assistance to families when economic conditions are bad, which exceeds that of the EITC (Bitler, Hoynes, and Iselin 2020). Indeed, a recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2019) estimates that support from safety net programs, coupled with direct income supplements, such as cash allowances through tax credits, if adopted, could reduce child poverty by half over the next 10 years. This same report notes that these estimates are subject to assumptions about reaching all children equitably, regardless of race, ethnicity, or citizenship status.

Knowing how well safety net programs address child poverty and shape the future life chances of Hispanic children is complicated by the patchwork of varying program eligibility rules at both federal and state levels and varying take-up rates among those eligible. Given the risks that childhood experiences of poverty carry for future earnings potential, and the anticipated growth of the Hispanic child population, including Hispanic children potentially residing in poverty, providing cash and near-cash assistance through safety net programs is an important vehicle for public investment in the future U.S. workforce.

In this article, we use administrative and survey data to estimate the use of means-tested safety net programs among Hispanic children, with a specific focus on citizen children. We focus on citizen children for three reasons. First, the administrative data on birth certificates are only collected for U.S.-born children. Second, survey data may have low response rates for noncitizens. Third, all citizen children are eligible for these programs if they satisfy other rules; this is not true for noncitizen children. Next, we document differences in program uptake among children by mother’s birthplace (using birth certificate data) or parent’s birthplace (using survey data) and by mother or parent citizenship status (we use parent or mother born abroad and mother without high school diplomas or general equivalency diplomas [GEDs] as proxies for citizenship).² We then examine how variation in state-level restrictiveness of benefits to immigrants relates to uptake of each of these three programs among Hispanics.

From the survey data (the only source of data on citizenship), we find that citizen Hispanic children with noncitizen mothers or parents born abroad participate in Medicaid and SNAP at lower levels than do Hispanic children whose mothers are citizens or who have no parent born abroad. Findings are similar for households with children age 0 to 5 and age 6 to 17. By contrast, survey data about participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) show that Hispanic children with noncitizen mothers or a parent born abroad participate at higher levels than do Hispanic children of women born in the United States. These findings remain true even with alternative specifications to identify citizenship status. We find that foreign-born Hispanic mothers’ Medicaid participation rates are lower than what might be predicted by their socioeconomic status as measured in the birth certificate data, suggesting that eligible Hispanic foreign-born mothers may have lower Medicaid take-up than U.S.-born mothers. Two features of the WIC program might explain this finding: its availability to unauthorized immigrants (in all states but Indiana) and its coordination by nonprofit clinics and public health programs rather than directly by government agencies. We also use a count variable to assess the number of policies for which access restrictions are imposed over immigrants and relate it to participation in the case of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Medicaid benefits from 2000 to 2018. Hispanic children of foreign-born mothers residing in states that impose the most restrictions on benefit use by immigrants have particularly low rates of SNAP and Medicaid benefit use compared to other Hispanic citizen children.

Background

Hispanic child households and public programs

The potential reasons for lower utilization of public benefits among Hispanic child households are varied, and studies have pointed to a host of possible explanations for this. Some research suggests that federal and state legislators, along with administrators, create administrative burdens in the form of punitive rules and complex processes to access and maintain benefits (Moynihan, Herd, and Rigby 2016; Herd and Moynihan 2019). These rules and processes intersect with characteristics of low-income Hispanic child households, such as the higher likelihood of residing with two parents and with adult earners (Gennetian et al. 2019). These differences complicate accessing and enrolling in benefit programs, such as through confusing documentation requirements for items including earnings, citizenship, and even, in some cases, child immunization and birth records (Gennetian, Hill, and Ross-Cabrera 2020).

Other research suggests that members of racial minority groups (particularly African Americans) experience less generous benefits and more punitive programs, along with disparate treatment from caseworkers (Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011; Gooden 2006; Barnes and Henly 2018). Because many low-income Hispanic children reside in racially diverse states (Lichter and Johnson, this volume), Hispanic families may be affected by strategies intended to exclude African Americans. This effect of decentralized authority over the implementation of social benefits may have spilled over to Hispanic families under the agenda of immigrant exclusion (Barnes and Gennetian 2021).

Hispanic families’ decisions to apply for public benefits may be particularly susceptible to eligibility determination based on household members’ and parents’ immigration statuses and to the broader landscape of state and federal immigration policy and public charge concerns. Although the vast majority of Hispanic children are born in the United States, estimates suggest that one out of four resides with an undocumented parent or adult (Clarke, Turner, and Guzman 2017). For Hispanic children, the likelihood of residing in deep poverty is also higher for those living with a parent who is not English proficient or who is not a U.S. citizen (Guzman, Thomson, and Ryberg, this volume). Characteristics related to English language proficiency and citizenship intersect not only with the quality and stability of work as a source of income, but also with receipt of income support available for each member of the household. Further, even Hispanic citizen families, more so than other racial ethnic groups, experience outsized chilling effects due to anti-immigration policies (Haley et al. 2020).

Key features of the U.S. safety net

The United States has a fragmented and decentralized safety net, with various programs providing cash and in-kind goods. Programs vary in their eligibility thresholds and rules about family composition; have different rules about whose income and which types of income matter, as well as whether assets matter; and, importantly for our purpose, vary as to whether and how immigration status matters. For example, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), TANF, SNAP, free and reduced-price school meals, and WIC represent programs for low-income individuals, children, or families who are eligible. However, they differ in who can qualify and how individuals can use benefits. SSI and TANF provide cash assistance to categorically eligible groups of disabled low-income persons (SSI) and low-income families with children (TANF). SNAP provides Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) benefits that subsidize food purchases via an electronic benefit card that can only be used for nonprepared foods; the school meals programs subsidize meals provided by schools participating in the program, and WIC provides a subsidy through an EBT card specifically providing access to foods high in particularly important nutrients for young children and pregnant women. Each of these programs has different rules for determining income eligibility, determining the length of program receipt upon eligibility determination, and connections across programs, such that eligibility for one program implies that someone is also eligible for another (e.g., eligibility for TANF cash benefits usually implies eligibility for SNAP, and families do not need to apply for both given they have applied for TANF). These programs are also often administered by different entities. TANF, for example, is administered by human services agencies, while WIC is typically administered by public health clinics or other local entities. SNAP is often administered by state offices (sometimes in human services) but SSI is administered via the Social Security Administration (SSA).

We focus here on three large programs, widely used by Hispanics, which we examine with a combination of survey and administrative data: Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC. Medicaid provides health care for low-income pregnant women and children, among other groups. SNAP provides benefits electronically through debit cards (EBT) that can be used to purchase food. The WIC program provides EBT cards for purchasing foods that provide essential nutrients for low-income pregnant, postpartum, and/or breastfeeding women and children under age five. Other parts of the safety net include TANF, school meals and other food aid, and housing assistance; but these either are block grants (TANF and housing)—which supply a fixed amount of funding to states (TANF) or states and other entities (housing) and do not expand when more eligible people apply to them—or only apply to school-age children during the school year (school meals). Finally, some states and localities provide payments that are less targeted, typically grouped together as “general assistance.”³

The SNAP benefits can be redeemed for unprepared foods at participating retailers for those with gross income under 130 percent of the level set by the Federal Poverty Guidelines and net income under 100 percent of the federal poverty level after various disregards are applied (for items like excess shelter, excess medical expenses, and earned income). Average household monthly benefits were $258 per month for fiscal year (FY) 2019 (U.S. Department of Agriculture 2021). The WIC program likewise provides EBT cards as of 2020, but only to low-income pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women and children up to age five. The WIC participants also receive nutritional education and referrals to social assistance programs. To be eligible, applicants must be at risk of poor nutrition and have income under 185 percent of the federal poverty level or be receiving Medicaid, TANF, or SNAP. Around 6.4 million people redeemed WIC benefits in 2019 (U.S. Department of Agriculture 2020), with an average cost to the program of about $41 for food per person per month.

Medicaid is a multifaceted program that provides health care to low-income elderly and disabled persons as well as pregnant women, children, and, to a lesser extent, parents. Currently, pregnant women and children up to 138 percent of the poverty level are eligible in all states (with most states using higher thresholds). As of April 2019, 35 million children were enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2020), and, combined, Medicaid and CHIP cover about 42 percent of births in the United States.⁴

All three programs provide health and nutritional benefits to families and children; thus, by covering the costs of these benefits, they can free up net household income for other household expenditures. Studies have shown that SNAP improves both the health and well-being of children; it decreases birth weight, increases consumption of healthy food, and may improve child test scores (for a review, see Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2016). In addition, research has shown WIC receipt to have some positive impacts on birth outcomes (e.g., Hoynes, Page, and Stevens 2011; Figlio, Hamersma, and Roth 2009; Rossin-Slater 2013), although some studies find otherwise (Joyce, Gibson, and Colman 2005; Joyce, Racine, and Yunzal-Butler 2008). The expansion of Medicaid has improved health coverage and health outcomes for children in both the short run (e.g., Currie and Gruber 1996a, 1996b; Dafny and Gruber 1996; Card and Shore-Sheppard 2004; Ham and Shore-Sheppard 2005) and the long run (Wherry and Meyer 2016; Miller and Wherry 2019; Wherry et al. 2018), and research has shown it to improve other outcomes such as earnings and taxes paid to the government (Brown, Kowalski, and Lurie 2020).

Safety net programs and immigrants

Medicaid, SNAP, and related safety net programs vary widely in their rules regarding immigrants and the authorized and unauthorized populations. Considerable state-level variation was introduced with passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which changed the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) entitlement program to a block grant for TANF. This act greatly increased state flexibility in deciding rules for various programs⁵ and gave states choices about how and whether to allow or exclude legal permanent residents from eligibility. Immigrants arriving after the date of enactment, August 22, 1996, were banned from using federally funded TANF benefits, but states were allowed to use federal or state TANF dollars to provide benefits to immigrants admitted to the United States by the August 1996 cutoff date and to later immigrants after a five-year waiting period. States are permitted to use federal Medicaid dollars to provide benefits to pre-enactment immigrants and can provide state-funded Medicaid benefits to postenactment immigrants. Immigrants lost eligibility for SSI and SNAP (then called food stamps), although states could use their own funding to provide benefits for these groups.⁶ These varied limitations on participation in food stamps/SNAP, SSI, Medicaid, and AFDC were later partially removed by state and federal actions. In fact, a number of states chose to “fill in” these benefits; for example, some states use state money to allow undocumented immigrants to have access to Medicaid (Wherry et al. 2017).

Eligibility requirements have loosened somewhat since welfare reform became law. Beginning in 1998, foreign-born children were also made eligible for SNAP. Since 2003, immigrants with disabilities and immigrants who had resided in the United States at least five years became eligible for the program. Some groups, such as refugees and asylees and those serving in the military, were exempt from these policy changes during welfare reform. Additional changes made to CHIP allowed states to cover unauthorized pregnant women’s pregnancy care. The 2002 CHIP unborn child option allowed mothers to get pregnancy coverage from CHIP if the family had low enough income to otherwise qualify for Medicaid, and the CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) let states cover authorized immigrants without a five-year waiting period. In contrast to SNAP and Medicaid, WIC does not restrict participation by immigrants except at state choice. Therefore, unauthorized and authorized women are eligible for WIC unless states choose otherwise, and to our knowledge, only Indiana restricts access by unqualified foreign-born women 18 and older (loosely speaking, unauthorized women).

Studies that have used empirical methods to identify how policy changes in SNAP affected immigrant health have found mostly positive impacts on health and well-being of gaining access to SNAP or negative effects of losing SNAP. Studies with similar designs looking at Medicaid have been mixed. Borjas (2003, 2004) found that immigrants who lost access to benefits because of welfare reform had increases in food insecurity but no changes in health insurance status (the loss of Medicaid was compensated for by an increase in employer-sponsored health coverage). East (2020) uses variation in the fill-in policies for SNAP to demonstrate long-run improvements in children’s health, including reductions in the share of children who were in fair or poor health. East and Friedson (2020) use a similar strategy to demonstrate that SNAP access improved immigrant adult health. Wherry et al. (2017) find that the Medicaid changes known as CHIPRA and the CHIP unborn child option, which expanded Medicaid for unauthorized immigrants, both led to increased prenatal care use but not to improvements in health.

Immigrants are also affected by other important policy regulations. The first is the public charge rule, which pertains to those wanting to adjust their citizenship status and to those entering the country legally. Immigration law has long included language to exclude immigrants from entering the United States who could become “public charges” or dependent on federal programs. When (as described earlier) PRWORA banned recent immigrants from access to TANF, SNAP, SSI, and CHIP, immigrants and immigrant advocates were unclear about the extent to which any receipt of aid, even that allowed under PRWORA, would result in immigrants being deportable as a public charge. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, also implemented in 1996, created a requirement for immigrants’ sponsors to sign affidavits that hold sponsors responsible for supporting them (although this practice was seldom enforced; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 2019). Confusion about these provisions dampened immigrant participation in programs for which they and citizen children were eligible. Fix and Passel (1999) document a chilling effect on the use of public assistance by immigrants after welfare reform. A 1999 regulation then defined public charge explicitly, making clear that public charges were only those either obtaining cash benefits (TANF, SSI, or general assistance) or relying on long-term institutional care at government expense, thus excluding immigrants who used in-kind programs such as SNAP and Medicaid from being designated public charges.

The Trump administration in 2019 expanded the number of programs that count toward a public charge claim. The administration’s rule redefined public charge status as participating in one or more public benefits for a 12-month period out of 36 months. The list of public programs was expanded to include Medicaid (except for emergency services and services for pregnant women and children), SNAP, and housing assistance. School meal programs, CHIP, WIC, and Medicaid for pregnant women and children under 21 were exempted. This rule worked its way through the courts, and in March 2021, the Department of Homeland Security stopped applying the rule and has reverted to the prior rule from 1999.⁷ Preliminary notice has been given about intent to issue a new rule soon.

Policies enacted at the state level also likely deter take-up of public benefits, particularly if they increase the likelihood of detention and/or deportation. The most prominent examples of deterrence are the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs, in which local law enforcement officers partner with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to identify and detain unauthorized immigrants. In 287(g) programs, ICE provides training and deputizes state and local law enforcement agents to act as immigration enforcement agents. Under Secure Communities, state and local law enforcement agencies are mandated to share fingerprints of arrested and detained individuals with the Department of Homeland Security. If the fingerprints match an individual who is suspected of being in the country illegally, ICE issues a detainer (or an “immigration hold”), requiring the person to be transferred to federal custody for an additional 48 hours so that ICE can begin removal proceedings.

Increasing the risk of deportation lowers use of benefits, such as Medicaid and WIC (Vargas 2015; Vargas and Pirog 2016; Watson 2014). Alsan and yang (2018) estimate that, after Secure Communities, SNAP and SSI benefit use among Hispanics declined by 26 percent and 72 percent, respectively. Decreases in benefit use were lower in so-called sanctuary cities (cities that do not participate in Secure Communities), suggesting that immigrants’ benefit use fluctuates in response to the perceived or actual level of deportation risk.

Our Analysis of SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC

We exploit the variation in use of SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC among Hispanic families by nativity and immigration status to assess how state-level policies toward benefit use among immigrants is correlated with uptake of these programs.⁸

Snapshot of current program use

We start by presenting a snapshot of current use of SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC among all children, separating Hispanic children and children of other race/ethnic groups, using a combination of the 2019 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement or ASEC (for Medicaid and SNAP), and 2016 to 2018 Food Security Supplement data from the December CPS (for WIC).⁹ Appendix Figure A1 shows that the vast majority of Hispanic children are born in the United States. For children under 15, nearly all are born citizens; and even among older children, the percentage not born as citizens is negligible. Therefore, we focus on children in the CPS who were born citizens.¹⁰ We then split the sample by whether a parent was born abroad (asked about both parents) or whether the child’s mother reported being a citizen (asked only if she is in the household). We then restrict the dataset to include only the children with a mother identified in the data, and we compare those with mothers who did not complete high school to those whose mothers have a high school diploma. We show participation in both SNAP and Medicaid during calendar year 2018 for these children, as well as whether the family is low income (under 150 percent of the federal poverty level), and we use data from the December CPS for 2016 to 2018 to explore use of WIC in the past month by Hispanic children compared with non-Hispanic children, further stratifying by mother’s citizenship and parents’ birthplace for Hispanic children, and by mother’s education overall.¹¹

Analysis of Medicaid and WIC use with U.S. birth certificate data

To examine participation in WIC and Medicaid, we rely on U.S. birth certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Natality Detail Files, covering 99 percent of all U.S. births. These long-form birth certificate data contain information on the demographics of the mother, maternal health behaviors during pregnancy, and health characteristics of the newborn. Benefit use is either self-reported by the mother (WIC use) or collected by the hospital (i.e., use of Medicaid to pay for the birth). The U.S. birth certificate data contain information on the mother’s state of residence, which we use to capture cross-sectional variation related to state-level regulations about immigrants’ eligibility for programs. Our working dataset contains approximately 30 million births from 2011 to 2018.

We use the birth certificate data to present patterns of WIC and Medicaid use, presenting contrasts among five subgroups: foreign-born Hispanic, U.S.-born Hispanic, U.S.-born white, U.S.-born Black, and foreign-born non-Hispanic. Program use is further considered by level of education and state of residence.

Comparisons according to ease of access to programs for immigrants

Policy restrictions for immigrants are drawn from the State Immigration Policy Resource (SIPR), a database compiled by the Urban Institute and updated by Gelatt, Bernstein, and Koball (2017). The SIPR, for 2000 to 2018, measures state-level immigration policies in three areas: enforcement, public benefit access, and integration. We concentrate on policies related to public benefit access because measures in the other two areas have not been updated to 2018. Public benefit access consists of eight variables that dichotomously measure whether unauthorized immigrants and lawful permanent residents can legally access TANF and Medicaid. The variable for Medicaid access also measures whether the program is offered to children and pregnant women. Each state received a score from zero to eight, which was then reverse coded. A score of eight would be considered the most restrictive (i.e., the state offers noncitizens no legal access to TANF and Medicaid) and a score of zero the least restrictive (i.e., the state offers access to TANF and Medicaid for all unauthorized immigrants and lawful permanent residents). The least restrictive states are California and New York, with zero restrictions; while the most restrictive are Indiana and Mississippi, with seven restrictions. We group states into three categories: those with zero to two restrictions, which we call low-restriction states; those with three or four restrictions, which we call medium-restriction states; and those with five or more restrictions, which we call high-restriction states.¹² We compare participation rates among Hispanic children for these three groups of states, contrasting participation for those with parents born in the United States or mothers born in the United States with others.

Results

Findings from survey data

Figures 1 and 2 show participation levels for SNAP (by any household member) and Medicaid by age, for Hispanic children with no parent born abroad and those with at least one parent born abroad. Levels of SNAP use are similar across age and by parents’ nativity. Medicaid use is higher for children with at least one parent born abroad, but this is likely partially due to different income levels across these groups.

FIGURE 1.

Share of Hispanic Children Having a Household Member on SNAP Last Year, by Age and Parent Nativity

NOTE: Authors’ tabulations of the 2019 CPS ASEC, using ASEC weights. Graph shows, by age, the share of Hispanic children born citizens whose household contained someone on SNAP last year by whether any parent was born abroad.

FIGURE 2.

Share of Hispanic Children on Medicaid Last Year, by Age and Parent Nativity

NOTE: Authors’ tabulations of the 2019 CPS ASEC, using ASEC person weights. Graph shows, by age, the share of Hispanic children born citizens reported to be on Medicaid last year by whether any parent was born abroad.

The first two columns of Table 1 show the share of children ages 0 to 5 and 6 to 17 whose households are below 150 percent of the official poverty level. Overall, Hispanic children and Black non-Hispanic children are much more likely to be under 150 percent of the poverty level than white non-Hispanic and other non-Hispanic children. For children from birth to age five, 44 percent of Hispanic children and 47 percent of Black non-Hispanic children are in households under 150 percent of poverty. A relatively high percentage (58 percent) of Hispanic children age zero to five whose mothers are not citizens are under the 150 percent poverty threshold. High shares in poverty underscore the importance of using education status as a proxy for income (income is not available in the birth certificate data). Columns 3 and 4 show mean participation in Medicaid in the last year by age group across these other categories, columns 5 and 6 show means for SNAP use in the last year, and column 7 shows means for WIC use in the last month. Black and Hispanic children have comparable Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC usage rates; both demographic subgroups use the programs at higher rates than non-Hispanic white children. Usage among Hispanic children varies by nativity and citizenship status, however, with children of noncitizen mothers using the programs at higher rates than Hispanic children whose mothers were born in the United States or became a naturalized citizen. Hispanic children of noncitizen mothers have the highest rates of Medicaid usage (63 percent for ages 0–5, 61 percent for ages 6–17) and WIC usage (35 percent) of any subgroup.

TABLE 1.

Share of Born-Citizen Children Who Were Low Income, Received Medicaid Benefits, Received Household SNAP Benefits, or Received WIC Benefits

Race/Ethnicity and Parent’s Nativity	<150% Poverty, Ages 0–5	<150% Poverty, Ages 6–17	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 0–5	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 6–17	SNAP Last Year, Ages 0–5	SNAP Last Year, Ages 6–17	WIC in Household, Ages 0–4, Last Month
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
1. Hispanic	0.44	0.42	0.5	0.47	0.25	0.22	0.25
2. Hispanic, mother born citizen	0.39	0.35	0.46	0.4	0.25	0.22	0.21
3. Hispanic, mother naturalized	0.37	0.34	0.44	0.38	0.19	0.19	0.25
4. Hispanic, mother noncitizen	0.58	0.57	0.63	0.61	0.28	0.24	0.35
5. Hispanic, mother not in household	0.45	0.45	0.62	0.51	0.25	0.21	0.28
6. Black non-Hispanic	0.47	0.42	0.48	0.43	0.37	0.31	0.25
7. White non-Hispanic	0.18	0.17	0.25	0.22	0.11	0.1	0.1
8. Other non-Hispanic	0.23	0.19	0.23	0.24	0.14	0.11	0.14
9. Race/ethnicity missing	0.39	0.25	0.35	0.34	0.14	0.09	0.1

NOTE: Authors’ tabulation from the 2019 CPS ASEC for calendar year 2018 for low-income, SNAP, and Medicaid participation. Tabulations for WIC are of being in a household with someone on WIC in the December 2016–2018 CPS Food Security Supplement. The Food Security Supplement assumes those without food insecurity with income above 185 percent of the poverty level are not on WIC, so we code them as 0 for participation. Sample is all children ages 0–17 in the CPS who were themselves born as citizens of the United States (ages 0–4 for WIC). Weights were used so that means will be representative of the population. Sample sizes for columns 1 and 5, for children ages 0–5 are 2,605, 1,654, 251, 700, 117, 1,618, 8,385, 1,248, and 72 for rows 1–9, respectively; and those for all columns for children ages 6–17 are 6,284, 3,370, 898, 2,016, 460, 3,805, 18,942, 2,546, and 153 for rows 1–9, respectively. Sample sizes for column 3 for children ages 0–5 are 2,553, 1,608, 244, 691, 115, 1,586, 8,167, 1,217, and 71 for rows 1–9 respectively; a small number of children aged 0 are not in the universe for this question. Medicaid last year is own Medicaid benefits, SNAP is any SNAP benefits in the household last year, and WIC in household is being in a household where someone received WIC benefits in the last month. Poverty measures use the official poverty thresholds.

Appendix Table A1, which restricts the sample to children whose mother did not complete high school, shows that compared with all children, children of mothers without a high school diploma are much more homogeneous in poverty levels across race/ethnicity and citizenship/naturalization status of the mother (Appendix Table A2 shows the same numbers for children of high school graduates). For both Medicaid and SNAP, Hispanic children of citizen mothers are about as likely to participate in these programs as Black non-Hispanic children, whereas Hispanic children of noncitizen mothers are less likely to do so. By contrast, WIC has higher levels of participation for Hispanic children of noncitizen mothers than for Hispanic children of citizen mothers.

Table 2 presents results of simple multivariate regressions comparing program participation for Hispanic children by the level of immigrant benefit restrictiveness (low, medium, high) and by whether the child’s parents were all born in the United States (odd-numbered columns) or whether at least one was born abroad (even-numbered columns). Each pair of columns with each panel shows results from a separate regression, with the dependent variable being the program use. The top panel shows results for mothers who did not complete high school, and the bottom panel shows results for mothers who are high school graduates with no college. Columns 1 and 2 present results from a single regression for Medicaid use last year; columns 3 and 4, for SNAP use last year; and columns 5 and 6, for WIC use for children under age five. Panel A shows the results for children with a mother who did not complete high school; panel B shows results for those with a high school graduate mother.

TABLE 2.

Participation in SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC, for Hispanic Children, by Parent Nativity and by Mother’s Education

	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 0–17, U.S.-Born Parents	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 0–17, Any Foreign-Born Parent	SNAP Last Year, Ages 0–17, U.S-Born Parents	SNAP Last Year, Ages 0–17, Any Foreign-Born Parent	WIC Last Month, Ages 0–4, U.S.-Born Parents	WIC Last Month, Ages 0–4, Any Foreign-Born Parent
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Panel A: Mother without high school diploma
Low-restriction state	0.75	0.70	0.51	0.28	0.37	0.44
Medium-restriction state	0.74	0.57	0.40	0.36	0.29	0.38
High-restriction state	0.68	0.58	0.38	0.27	0.35	0.32
Panel B: Mother completed high school, no college
Low-restriction state	0.54	0.59	0.32	0.21	0.21	0.36
Medium-restriction state	0.5	0.51	0.34	0.24	0.28	0.37
High-restriction state	0.52	0.63	0.18	0.23	0.26	0.33

NOTE: Authors’ tabulation from the 2019 CPS ASEC for calendar year 2018 for low-income, SNAP, and Medicaid participation. Tabulations for WIC are of being in a household with someone on WIC for those ages 0–4 in the December 2016–2018 CPS Food Security Supplement. The Food Security Supplement assumes those without food insecurity with income above 185 percent of the poverty level are not on WIC, so we code them as 0 for participation. Sample is all children ages 0–17 in the CPS with a high school graduate mother who were themselves born as U.S. citizens (ages 0–4 for WIC). Weights used to have resulting statistics be representative of the U.S. population. Medicaid last year is own Medicaid benefits, SNAP is any SNAP benefits received in the household last year, and WIC in household is defined as being in a household where someone reported getting WIC benefits last month. Columns 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 are each from a separate regression. variance/covariance matrix allows for arbitrary correlations within state. Panel A tests of the equality of coefficients by row for columns 1 and 2 (Medicaid) are rejected at the 1 percent level for states having a medium level of immigrant restrictions. Panel A tests of the equality of coefficients by row for columns 3 and 4 (SNAP) are rejected at the 1 percent level for states having a low level of immigrant restrictions. Panel B tests of the equality of coefficients by row for columns 5 and 6 (WIC) are rejected at the 1 percent level for states having a low level of immigrant restrictions. Sample size for regression for columns 1 and 2 of panel A is 2,249. Sample size for regression for columns 3 and 4 of panel A is 2,258. Sample size for regression reported in columns 5 and 6 of panel A is 522. Sample size for regression for columns 1 and 2 of panel A is 2,529. Sample size for regression for columns 3 and 4 of panel A is 2,547. Sample size for regression reported in columns 5 and 6 of panel A is 792.

For SNAP and Medicaid, the patterns are clear. First, participation levels tend to be higher in the states having less restrictive policies toward immigrants, with larger differences among children who have a parent born abroad. Second, participation levels are consistently higher for Hispanic children with two U.S.-born parents. Because samples are not all that large, we allow for typical state clustering to account for both the complex sample and the fact that the policy variables only vary at the state level (arbitrary correlation within state in the variance/covariance matrix). For Medicaid, the difference is statistically significant only for medium-restriction states; and for SNAP, only for the low-restriction states. For WIC, by contrast, participation does not substantially vary by state restrictiveness. WIC use is higher for children with a foreign-born parent residing in states with low or medium restriction levels and only slightly higher among this group in the high-restriction states, although the samples are small (522 observations for panel A and 792 for panel B). Patterns are somewhat similar for panel B.

For this analysis and the rest of the article, we primarily rely on our proxies for citizenship status (parent for survey data or mother born abroad for natality data and mother without high school diploma). We check for robustness by restricting the data to a sample with income under 150 percent of the supplemental poverty measure (reported in Appendix Table A3) and also validate our use of parental birth place and mother’s low level of education for predicting maternal citizenship status there (see Appendix Tables A3 and A4). We cannot validate the WIC findings with a sample conditioned on poverty but do so for SNAP and Medicaid. Findings are similar to those in Table 2.

Findings from birth records

Appendix Table A6 presents descriptive statistics for our full sample of resident mothers giving birth between 2011 and 2018. Hispanic births are a sizable fraction of all births, as U.S.-born and foreign-born Hispanic mothers account for 11.5 and 11.4 percent, respectively, of all live births during this period. These fractions are similar to those of U.S.-born Black mothers (12.1 percent) and all non-Hispanic foreign-born mothers, regardless of ethnicity (11.2 percent). Despite a recent downward trend in the total number of live births in the United States, the fraction of live births that are to all Hispanic mothers remained stable throughout our observation period (see Appendix Figure A2). Demographically, foreign-born Hispanic mothers, relative to Hispanic and non-Hispanic U.S.-born mothers, have lower educational attainment; 42 percent report not having a high school diploma. Foreign-born Hispanic mothers are also slightly older than the other groups examined and, relative to U.S.-born Hispanic mothers, are more likely to be married at the time of the birth. U.S.-born Hispanic mothers are comparable to U.S.-born Black mothers in terms of education, age, and parity; both groups lag behind U.S.-born white mothers in terms of schooling.

Medicaid serves as the primary health care coverage for more than half of all births to Hispanic mothers, with the program paying for a slightly higher fraction of births to foreign-born Hispanic mothers (58.6 percent) than to U.S.-born Hispanic mothers (56.4 percent). The majority of Hispanic mothers also reported receiving WIC during pregnancy, with foreign-born Hispanic mothers using the program more than U.S.-born Hispanic mothers. Use of Medicaid and WIC among Hispanic mothers was comparable to that of U.S.-born Black mothers, and higher than Medicaid or WIC use for U.S.-born white mothers or non-Hispanic foreign-born mothers.

Conditional on levels of education (Appendix Figure A3), WIC use varied little by race or ethnicity. Medicaid use, however, was substantially lower for foreign-born Hispanics than might be expected given their education level. Relative to U.S.-born Hispanic and Black mothers without a high school diploma, foreign-born Hispanic mothers were 15 to 20 percentage points less likely to have Medicaid pay for the birth. The relatively lower participation rate (observed across education levels) suggests possible unmet need for Medicaid among foreign-born Hispanic mothers.

To illustrate the geographic dispersion of the subpopulations studied in our analysis, we first present descriptive statistics of births to Hispanic mothers across U.S. states. Figure 3 displays the share of births by state, Hispanic ethnicity, and nativity, where the 45-degree line indicates equal representation of U.S.-born and foreign-born mothers. States that lie on the line are states where foreign- and U.S.-born mothers represent identical shares of births (i.e., New Hampshire). States above the line indicate an overrepresentation of foreign-born Hispanic mothers relative to U.S.-born Hispanic mothers. States below the line have relatively more U.S.-born Hispanic mothers. States with a relatively higher density of foreign-born Hispanic births (e.g., North Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey) can be considered “new destination states,” in contrast to states where Hispanic people have been present for multiple generations (“established Hispanic states”). We note that this interpretation is slightly different from that typically used in the literature on this topic, which considers new destination locations to be those to which new migrants come. By this metric of ours, relatively few states can be considered established Hispanic states, and they are clustered geographically in the West or Southwest. New destination states outnumber established Hispanic states and can be found in the east (e.g., Massachusetts), South (Alabama), and Midwest (Minnesota); see Lichter and Johnson (this volume) for more on the geographic dispersion and concentration of the Hispanic population.

FIGURE 3.

Aggregate Race/Ethnicity and Nativity Composition of Live Births by State, 2011–2018

NOTE: Ln scale utilized to aid visualization; axes still display actual shares.

To understand how WIC and Medicaid use intersects with geographic location, we contrast program receipt by educational attainment (our proxy for need) across states (Figure 4). As with the previous graph, the 45-degree line indicates identical participation between these two groups of mothers within a given state, with foreign-born Hispanic mothers on the vertical axis and U.S.-born Hispanic mothers on the horizontal axis. For both WIC (upper panel) and Medicaid (lower panel), the sample is color coded by education level. Mothers with less than a high school education are represented in red, those with a terminal high school diploma are in blue, and mothers with some college or more are in green. Each state contributes three observations, one for each education level.

FIGURE 4.

Average WIC and Medicaid Participation across States, 2011–2018, for Hispanic Mothers by Nativity and Education Level

NOTE: Each state contributes three observations, one for each education level.

As with WIC use on the national level (Appendix Figure A3), Figure 4 (upper panel) shows that WIC participation does not vary by nativity across states, as indicated by the clustering along the 45-degree line. Use of WIC also varies predictably by educational attainment, given its strong empirical relationship with poverty status (e.g., higher among those with lower education, which we have shown is highly correlated with being in poverty). We consider WIC a counterfactual that suggests possible unmet need in Medicaid, as only one state (Indiana) restricts WIC to citizens; otherwise, all immigrants are eligible for WIC. In contrast, differences by Medicaid use are striking and reveal that unmet need for Medicaid varies by state (Figure 4, lower panel). Both national and state-level results show that, within a given educational group, Medicaid pays for a higher share of births for U.S.-born Hispanic mothers than for foreign-born Hispanic mothers. These participation gaps differ across states, however, with some states (e.g., Kansas and New Hampshire) showing large participation discrepancies at every educational level. States that have large participation gaps among the least educated mothers (the group of mothers that likely have the highest need and are the most economically vulnerable) span geographies, and include new destination states (e.g., Iowa and Georgia) as well as established states for Hispanics (Texas and Florida). California and Arizona stand out, insofar as they are states with long-term Hispanic populations that have minimal differences in Medicaid use by nativity, conditional on education. Notably, though, unmet need was not concentrated in one particular geographic area; nor can it be easily categorized by recency of Hispanic migration.

Appendix Figure A4 provides the smoothed relation between state restrictiveness and WIC and Medicaid, presented separately by education level. State restrictiveness has little association with WIC use, as expected, given that most states do not impose restrictions on WIC. However, for Medicaid, increased restrictiveness has a substantial impact on the participation gap between foreign-born Hispanic mothers and their U.S.-born counterparts of equivalent educational attainment. Gaps in participation by foreign/U.S.-born status are largest for mothers without a high school diploma. These gaps are displayed in the three panels of Appendix Figure A5. Almost all the states in the most restrictive group fall below the 45-degree line, indicating that U.S.-born mothers are more likely than foreign-born mothers to use Medicaid. Notably, although gaps are largest for mothers without a high school diploma (shown in red), gaps exist at all education levels.

Discussion

Means-tested safety net programs in the United States are intended to establish a floor: a basic level of access to resources such as income, food, and health care below which children and their families should not fall. Participation in these programs among income-eligible Hispanic households with children has been historically low, and policy decisions that either exclude or discourage immigrant groups from participating in these programs may have had the unintended consequences of affecting uptake among eligible citizen children in Hispanic families. Consistent with this concern, we find that citizen Hispanic children with parents born abroad (CPS data) or with mothers born abroad (birth certificate data), relative to citizen Hispanic children with U.S.-born parents and to non-Hispanic children, are less likely to participate in Medicaid or SNAP, and participate at lower levels than might be predicted by their socioeconomic status. Yet these children are citizens and eligible for these programs. These descriptive results are consistent with causal estimates of the chilling effect of anti-immigrant policy on benefit use (Watson 2014) and suggest that recent U.S. restrictions aimed at immigrants have discouraged benefit use among citizen children as well.

Findings on differences in Medicaid uptake have ramifications for health care access, health care use, and health status (Pereira and Allen, this volume; Perreira, Allen, and Oberlander, this volume). Medicaid improves the health of its enrollees, mitigates the risk of adverse birth outcomes, and saves money through forgone medical costs (Bitler and Zavodny 2017). Yet many citizen Hispanic children are seemingly being denied access to the program, despite that they were born in the United States and would otherwise be entitled to participate if income eligible. Their differential participation based on the immigrant status of their parents raises important equity concerns as to how America treats its youth, and whether children can be denied access to benefits because of the choices or characteristics of their parents.

Differences in patterns related to WIC and Medicaid use speak both to unmet need and differences in eligibility rules. In a setting where WIC use for immigrants in most states is not restricted and other programs are, we would expect it to have more use, both because of a lack of chilling effects or fears and because of WIC being more attractive to families ineligible for SNAP. In fact, we can see in Appendix Figure A6 that WIC has increasingly become a Hispanic program over time. However, we have not explored eligibility for any of these programs in detail according to the program rules; this is an opportunity for future research.

The federalism that characterizes U.S. social safety net policy means that immigrant participation in Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested programs varies by state of residence. Indeed, we found that Medicaid participation while pregnant was lowest for foreign-born Hispanic mothers when they lived in states that imposed the most restrictions on immigrant benefit eligibility and use. These state-level choices regarding benefit eligibility reflect the deep partisan divide on immigrants and immigration and whether access to benefits should be defined relative to country of birth, citizenship status, or both. As long as the U.S. safety net continues to reflect divisions between the right and the Left, many Hispanic children—regardless of country of birth—will be at increased risk of poverty and economic deprivation.

Biographies

Marianne Bitler, a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, is an applied microeconomist who studies the safety net, economic demography, economics of education, and health economics. She is also a research affiliate of the NBER and a research fellow at IZA.

Lisa A. Gennetian, a professor of public policy at Duke University, is an applied economist whose research focuses on children and how policies and programs affect poverty, children’s experiences in poverty, and children’s development. She is a coinvestigator of the National Center for Research on Hispanic Families and Children.

Christina Gibson-Davis, a professor of public policy and sociology at Duke University, is a family demographer who studies the health and well-being of low-income families and their children. She concentrates on factors that determine familial and child flourishing, including economic and policy inputs and family structure.

Marcos A. Rangel, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke University, is a population economist whose research focuses on families’ decisions regarding health and education of their children. His work portrays how policy affects resource-deprived families in both developing and developed countries.

Appendix

FIGURE A1.

Citizenship Status by Age, for Hispanic Children

NOTE: Authors’ tabulations of the 2019 survey year CPS ASEC, using ASEC weights. Graph shows, by age, the percentage of Hispanic children who were born a citizen, were naturalized, and are noncitizens.

FIGURE A2.

Live Births Composition (Maternal Race-Ethnicity/Nativity Shares) per Year, 2011–2018

FIGURE A3.

WIC and Medicaid Participation by Maternal Education, Nativity, and Race/Ethnicity, 2011–2018

FIGURE A4.

Difference in WIC/Medicaid Participation between Foreign- and U.S.-Born Hispanic Mothers by State-Level Restrictiveness of Access to Public Programs (2011–2018), by Maternal Education Level (local polynomial regressions)

FIGURE A5.

Medicaid Participation (2011–2018) across States, for Hispanic Foreign-Born and U.S.-Born Mothers per Education Group, by State Restrictiveness

FIGURE A6.

WIC Participation

SOURCE: Data are from https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/participant-and-program-characteristics-2018-charts#1.

NOTE: Data represent total WIC participation by race/ethnicity across time from various U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Program Characteristics reports. Data are for the universe of WIC recipients for even years, collected in April.

TABLE A1.

Share of Born-Citizen Children, of Mothers without High School Diploma, Who Were Low Income, Received Medicaid Benefits, Received Household SNAP Benefits, or Received WIC Benefits

Race/Ethnicity and Parent’s Nativity	<150% Poverty, Ages 0–5	<150% Poverty, Ages 6–17	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 0–5	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 6–17	SNAP Last Year, Ages 0–5	SNAP Last Year, Ages 6–17	WIC in Household, Ages 0–4, Last Month
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
Hispanic	0.70	0.62	0.71	0.64	0.40	0.30	0.37
Hispanic, mother born citizen	0.80	0.64	0.81	0.72	0.46	0.41	0.35
Hispanic, mother naturalized	0.42	0.49	0.66	0.54	0.42	0.26	0.33
Hispanic, mother noncitizen	0.68	0.64	0.67	0.65	0.36	0.28	0.38
Black non-Hispanic	0.76	0.78	0.84	0.82	0.69	0.63	0.48
White non-Hispanic	0.61	0.56	0.64	0.54	0.36	0.30	0.28
Other non-Hispanic	0.73	0.53	0.64	0.59	0.59	0.36	0.42
Race/ethnicity missing	0.96	0.40	0.79	0.33	0.28	0.10	0.17

NOTE: Authors’ tabulation from the 2019 ASEC for calendar year 2018 for low income, SNAP, and Medicaid participation, and from the December 2016–2018 CPS for WIC. Tabulations for WIC are of being in a household with someone on WIC for those aged 0–4 in the December 2016–2018 CPS Food Security Supplement. The Food Security Supplement assumes those without food insecurity with income above 185 percent of poverty are not on WIC, so we code them to 0 for participation. Sample is all children aged 0–17 in the CPS without a high school diploma mother who were themselves born as citizens of the United States (aged 0–4 for WIC). Weights were used so that means will be population representative. Medicaid last year is own Medicaid, SNAP is any SNAP in household last year, WIC in household is being in a household where someone reported getting WIC last month, and less than 150 percent of poverty uses the official poverty thresholds. Sample size for columns 1 and 5 for children aged 0–5 are 530, 179, 46, 305, 147, 377, 46, and 18. Sample sizes for columns 2, 5, and 6 for children aged 6–17 are 1,728, 315, 274, 1,139, 301, 796, 1,133, and 26. Sample sizes for column 3, children aged 0–5 is 521, 176, 46, 299, 143, 368, 43, and 18; a small number of children are out of scope for this question. Sample sizes for column 7 are 522, 184, 36, 302, 163, 418, 102, and 12.

TABLE A2.

Share of Born-Citizen Children, with High School Graduate Mothers, Who Were Low Income, Received Medicaid Benefits, Received Household SNAP Benefits, or Received WIC Benefits

Race/Ethnicity & Parent’s Nativity	< 150% Poverty, Ages 0–5	<150% Poverty, Ages 6–17	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 0–5	Medicaid Last Year, Ages 6–17	SNAP Last Year, Ages 0–5	SNAP Last Year, Ages 6–17	WIC in Household, Ages 0–4, Last Month, Dec.
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)
Hispanic	0.49	0.47	0.58	0.53	0.28	0.25	0.29
Hispanic, mother born citizen	0.47	0.46	0.56	0.52	0.33	0.29	0.28
Hispanic, mother naturalized	0.49	0.38	0.47	0.45	0.19	0.21	0.21
Hispanic, mother noncitizen	0.54	0.53	0.65	0.58	0.22	0.22	0.35
Black non-Hispanic	0.68	0.6	0.6	0.56	0.49	0.44	0.34
White non-Hispanic	0.35	0.29	0.48	0.36	0.22	0.18	0.2
Other non-Hispanic	0.52	0.33	0.44	0.43	0.32	0.18	0.21
Race/ethnicity missing	0.21	0.32	0.53	0.51	0.05	0.27	0.25

NOTE: Author’s tabulation from the 2019 ASEC for calendar year 2018 for low income, SNAP, and Medicaid participation, and from the December 2016–2018 CPS for WIC. Tabulations for WIC are of being in a household with someone on WIC for those aged 0–4 in the December 2016–2018 CPS Food Security Supplement. The Food Security Supplement assumes those without food insecurity with income above 185 percent of poverty are not on WIC, so we code them to 0 for participation. Sample is all children aged 0–17 in the CPS with a high school graduate mother who were themselves born as citizens of the United States (aged 0–4 for WIC). Weights were used so that statistics will be population representative. Medicaid last year is own Medicaid, SNAP is any SNAP in household last year, WIC in household is being in a household where someone reported getting WIC last month, and less than 150 percent of poverty uses the official poverty thresholds.

TABLE A3.

Access to Safety Net Programs for Children (Ages 0–17) in Families under 150 Percent of Supplemental Poverty Measure

	Medicaid		SNAP
	U.S.-Born Parents	Foreign-Born Parent	U.S.-Born Parents	Foreign-Born Parent
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Low-restriction state	0.65	0.70	0.39	0.27a
Medium-restriction state	0.62	0.64	0.40	0.36
High-restriction state	0.70	0.66	0.37	0.31

NOTE: Regressions from 2019 ASEC for participation in Medicaid and SNAP among Hispanic-born children in families under 150 percent of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, by state immigration policy restrictiveness. Columns 1 and 2 represent results from a single regression, and columns 3 and 4 represent results from a single regression. The sample size for columns 1 and 2 is 4,344, and the sample size for columns 3 and 4 is 4,376. Child weights are used so that statistics are population representative and variance covariance matrices allowed to vary arbitrarily by state (clustered at the state level).

^a.The even-numbered column is different from the odd-numbered column at left for the same program at the 5 percent level.

TABLE A4.

Predicting Citizenship Status with Education Attainment, for Hispanic U.S.-Born Children with a Parent Born Abroad

	Children Ages 0–17	Children Ages 0–5	Children Ages 0–1
	(1)	(2)	(3)
Mother with less than high school education	0.30	0.28	0.33
Mother with high school education or more	0.65	0.57	0.51
Difference	−0.36 (0.02)	−0.29 (0.03)	−0.18 (0.05)
Difference (conditional on covariates)	−0.36 (0.02)	−0.30 (0.03)	−0.20 (0.04)
Observations	9,554	2,865	835

NOTE: Standard errors based on cluster robust adjustments are in parentheses. Covariates included are maternal age (indicators), child age (indicators), and state of residence. All estimations are weighted using CPS person sample weights. CPS data from 2016 to 2018 (December) are employed in the analyses. Sample includes all Hispanic born-citizen children of various ages with a mother in the household.

TABLE A5.

Predicting Being under 185 Percent of Official Poverty Level with Education Attainment, Hispanic U.S.-Born Children by Whether Any Parent Was Born Abroad

	Children Ages 0–17	Children Ages 0–5	Children Ages 0–1
	(1)	(2)	(3)
Panel A: At least one parent born abroad
Mother with less than high school education	0.69	0.73	0.78
Mother with high school education or more	0.55	0.58	0.57
Difference	0.14 (0.02)	0.15 (0.03)	0.21 (0.05)
Difference (conditional on covariates)	0.14 (0.02)	0.15 (0.04)	0.27 (0.07)
Observations	5,161	1,453	422
Panel B: No parent born abroad
Mother with less than high school education	0.67	0.69	0.72
Mother with high school education or more	0.41	0.43	0.46
Difference	0.27 (0.03)	0.26 (0.07)	0.26 (0.12)
Difference (conditional on covariates)	0.25 (0.04)	0.24 (0.05)	0.25 (0.12)
Observations	4,550	1,519	448

NOTE: Standard errors based on variance covariance matrices with arbitrary correlation within state in parentheses. Covariates included are maternal age (indicators), child age (indicators), and state of residence. All estimations are weighted using CPS sample person weights. CPS data from 2016 to 2018 (December) are employed in the analyses.

TABLE A6.

Descriptive Statistics by Maternal Race/Ethnicity and Maternal Nativity, United States Live-Births Registry 2011–2018 (averages shown as percentages)

	Hispanic Mother		Non-Hispanic White Mother	Non-Hispanic Black Mother	All Non-Hispanic Mothers
	U.S. Born	Foreign Born	U.S. Born	U.S. Born	Foreign Born
Maternal age
15 to 19	13.4	5.6	4.8	11.0	1.1
20 to 24	31.8	19.2	19.6	32.8	9.3
25 to 29	27.4	27.9	30.2	28.1	26.7
30 to 34	18.0	26.6	29.7	17.9	35.6
35 to 39	7.8	16.2	13.0	8.2	21.3
40 or older	1.6	4.6	2.7	1.9	6.0
Maternal education
Less than high school	18.9	42.1	7.6	15.5	8.8
High school only	31.8	27.4	20.6	33.2	15.8
Some college or more	45.2	24.6	66.7	45.5	66.6
Education not reported	4.2	5.9	5.1	5.8	8.8
Parity and partner/father information
First born	40.5	27.5	40.6	37.1	41.2
Any father info listed	83.5	86.4	87.4	62.8	89.0
Married	39.9	48.8	69.0	22.3	79.2
Marital status not reporteda	7.2	4.7	1.4	1.0	4.8
Participation in public programs
WIC	56.7	65.5	26.9	58.9	29.4
WIC status not reported	1.0	1.6	1.6	2.1	2.3
Medicaid	56.4	58.6	29.2	64.7	31.4
Medicaid status not reported	0.8	1.1	0.9	0.8	0.9
Observations (in 1,000s)	3,624.3	3,580.3	15,441.8	3,811.7	3,397.7
Percentage of all U.S. births	11.54	11.40	49.18	12.14	11.23
Average percentage of state-specific births	7.60	7.70	58.26	11.02	9.28

NOTE: Authors’ computation using Natality Detail Files. Mothers 15 and older only.

^a.California stopped recording marital status in 2017.