Welfare usage by refugees increases in most categories

Your tax dollars:

Each year the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Dept. of Health and Human Services reports to Congress on the status of refugees in the US.  It is really a valuable resource for anyone wanting to understand more fully how this complex program which was a ‘brainchild’ of Senator Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and President Jimmy Carter works.

The most recent ORR Report to Congress is for FY 2006.  You can find it here.  I’ve told you about it before, but it bears repeating as our economy continues to go south.

Before I get to welfare usage by refugees,  a couple of things interested me right off the bat.   In 2006, BEFORE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS,  the US unemployment rate was 4.6% while refugee unemployment was 8.7 %.  Imagine what those numbers must be now if  US unemployment is approaching double-digits.

I also noticed that each of the Top Ten (volag) government contractors was given a rating called the ‘180th day self-sufficiency outcome’ which suggests to me that despite what our commenter, George Benedict, said yesterday, here, that there is some evaluation or comparison going on of the contractors and how successful they are in finding jobs for their “clients.”    Otherwise, why even have a ‘self-sufficiency outcome’ rating.  I’ve asked Mr. Benedict to write a guest post to explain his claim that the volags have no legal requirement or  financial or ratings incentive to get refugees employed quickly.   I’ll post it as soon as he sends it.

Welfare usage (from page 75) is up in all categories except one from 2001 until 2006.  Again in 2006 our economy was still humming.  Imagine what these numbers will look like for 2009.  Unfortunately we won’t see them published for several years!

Here are the categories:

Any type of Cash Assistance (this is the category that went down)

2001:  35.9%  (of refugees on cash assistance)

2006:   33.7%

Medicaid or RMA:

2001:  33%

2006:  44%

Food Stamps:

2001:  33.8%

2006:  54.9%

Public Housing:

2001:  10.2%

2006:  20.5%

Whew!  Look especially at Food Stamp usage, at that rate probably 3/4ths of all refugees entering the country are on food stamps now.  And, by the way, we are on track to admit 80,000 new refugees this year.   Importing all this poverty must make Cloward and Piven so proud (if they are still alive!), here and here.

Spread the love

Leave a Reply