The Heterogeneities of Immigrant Poverty in the U.S.

Abstract Immigrants are now more than one-fifth of the poor in the U.S. Yet, despite some valuable literature, immigrant poverty remains arguably understudied. This study builds on the larger literatures on immigrant attainment and poverty, and the smaller literature on immigrant poverty. Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we provide an improved descriptive demographic portrait of immigrant poverty from 1993 to 2023, across 51 states (including D.C.), and within 2019–2023 ( N = 760,026). There is considerable heterogeneity over time. After declining for several decades, immigrant poverty increased substantially in recent years. Immigrant poverty also varies enormously across states. States’ immigrant poverty rates are moderately negatively correlated with states’ immigrant share of the population and strongly positively correlated with states’ non-immigrant poverty. There are large heterogeneities by nation of origin as well. While immigrants from India have among the lowest poverty of any group in the U.S., Honduran immigrant poverty is 6–7 times higher. While especially being a non-citizen immigrant increases poverty, heterogeneities in immigrant poverty are driven more by the major risks of poverty than the immigrant characteristics of being a citizen, years of residence, or mixed status households. That said, heterogeneities by nation of origin are explained by varying mixes of risks, immigrant characteristics and educational selectivity. Ultimately, we demonstrate immigrant poverty is not one coherent phenomenon. Indeed, the heterogeneities within immigrant poverty are perhaps even more important than the heterogeneities in poverty between immigrants and non-immigrants.