Sharp Decline in Income for Non-Citizen Immigrant Households, 2006-2007
The current economic slowdown has taken a far greater toll on non-citizen immigrants than it has on the United States population as a whole.
Due mainly to a slump in the construction industry, the unemployment rate for Hispanics in the U.S. rose to 6.5% in the first quarter of 2008, well above the 4.7% rate for all non-Hispanics.
The vast majority of undocumented migrants from Mexico were gainfully employed before they left for the United States. Thus, failure to find work at home does not seem to be the primary reason that the estimated 6.3 million undocumented migrants from Mexico have come to the U.S.
Hispanic workers enjoyed significant gains in employment in 2004. But the concentration of Latinos in relatively low-skill occupations contributed to reduced earnings for them for the second year in a row.
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