UCLA

The geography of immigrant settlement has shifted dramatically over the last 30 years, with immigrants increasingly migrating to a number of “new destinations”. Latino immigrants are the largest immigrant group in the United States and their economic outcomes in these new destinations have been a topic of particular scholarly concern. Past studies at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level have largely focused on measures of poverty and employment to find that Latino immigrants generally fare worse in new destinations relative to “traditional destinations” like Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. Unexplored in the current literature is whether the use of different outcome variables like homeownership, rent-burden, and nominal income would yield a different story of the economic well-being of Latino immigrants in new destinations. In this study, I explore Latino immigrant economic well-being across five dimensions. While my results support previous findings regarding poverty, I find that Latino immigrants have better employment outcomes, higher nominal income, less rent-burden, and higher rates of homeownership. The results point to the need to consider a variety of outcomes in assessing Latino immigrant economic well-being.