For Hispanics, Poverty Is Relative

“The cat is out of the bag: The majority of Latino immigrants in the United States are poor. By one calculation, up to three-fifths are “working poor” or “lower middle class,” with annual incomes of less than $30,000.

The bad news seems worse when one considers that as Hispanics gained in the U.S. population, the share of Hispanics in poverty doubled, from 12 percent in 1980 to 25 percent in 2004. Recent immigrants fared worse. In 2006 the U.S. government drew the poverty line at $20,000 annually for a family of four, or a little more than $1,600 a month. But for those newly arrived from Latin America, the average monthly salary was $900, according to a report released last week by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).”

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