Abstract
In 1996 Congress enacted legislation which, among other things, substantially cut off Supplemental Security Income payments and food stamps for present and future legal alien residents of the United States, and made it much harder for them to qualify for Medicaid. For low-income elderly immigrants, who constituted more than two-thirds of aliens on SSI, the adverse and potential impacts were substantial in terms of economic hardship and access to health care. In the months that followed, their plight received significant attention from the media and state and local politicians who now had greater economic and social responsibilities thrust upon them. One year later, Congress restored SSI benefits only for aliens who been receiving them before August 22, 1996 and made it easier for them to qualify for Medicaid. Food stamp benefits, however, were not restored. The limited scope of this restoration of benefits means that many of today's older immigrants, as well as those in the future, will be faced with serious problems in meeting their basic income and health care needs.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Public Law No. 104-93: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
Friedland RB, Pankaj V: Welfare Reform and Elderly Immigrants. Washington, D.C.: National Academy on Aging; 1997
Congressional Budget Office, Congress of the United States: The Economic and Budget Outlook: Fiscal Years 1998–2007. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1997:29
Binstock RH: The aged as scapegoat. Gerontologist 1983; 23:136-143
Kalish RA: The new ageism and the failure models: A polemic. Gerontologist 1979; 19:398-407
Neugarten BL: The old and the young in modern societies. Am Behav Sci 1970; 14:13-24
Binstock RH: Public policies on aging in the 21st century. Stanford Law and Policy Rev 1998; 9(2):311-328
Public Law No. 105-33: The Balanced Budget Act of 1997
Office of Research, Evaluation and Statistics, Social Security Administration: SSI 10-Percent Sample File, December 1996
Kolande JE: Nutrition. In: Vitt LA, Siegenthaler JK, eds. Encyclopedia of Financial Gerontology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press; 1996:393-395
U.S. General Accounting Office: Welfare Reform: State and Local Responses to Restricting Food Stamp Benefits. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1997:GAO/RCED-98-41, December
Fix ME, Tumlin K: Welfare Reform and the Devolution of Immigrant Policy. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute; 1997
Congressional Budget Office, Congress of the United States: Federal Budgetary Implications of H.R. 3734, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1996
See, e.g., National Conference of State Legislatures: Summary of changes in immigrants' access to benefits. Immigrant Policy News: The State-Local Report 1996; 3(3):12-13
See, e.g., Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition: Training on Immigrants & the New Welfare Law. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition; 1996
Dugger CW: New alliances and attitudes on aid. New York Times 1997; August 1:A13
State Health Watch: States gear up for cuts of SSI benefits to immigrants. State Health Watch 1997; April:5-6
Siegenthaler JK: Supplemental Security Income. In: Vitt LA, Siegenthaler JK, eds. Encyclopedia of Financial Gerontology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press; 1996:474-478
Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, Social Security Administration: Social Security at a glance. Soc Sec Bull 1996; 59(4):unpaginated inside back cover
Meyer DR, Bartolomei-Hill S: The adequacy of Supplemental Security Income benefits for aged individuals and couples. Gerontologist 1994; 34:161-172
Lamison-White L: Poverty in the United States, 1996. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P60-198. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1997
Ruggles P: Drawing the Line: Alternative Poverty Measures and Their Implications for Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press; 1990
Binstock RH: Public policies and minority elders. In: Wykle ML, Ford AB, eds. Serving Minority Elders in the 21st Century. New York: Springer Publishing Company; in press
Levit KR, Lazenby HC, Braden BR, Cowan CA, McDonnell PA, et al.: National health expenditures, 1995. Health Care Fin Rev 1996; 18(1):175-214
Swarns RL: Confused by law, nursing homes bar legal immigrants. New York Times 1997; April 20:1
Also see U.S. General Accounting Office: Medicaid: Early implications of welfare reform for beneficiaries and states. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988; GAO/HEHS-98-6, February
Robert SA, House JS: Socioeconomic status and health over the life course. In: Abeles RP, Gift HC, Ory MG, eds. Aging and the Quality of Life. New York: Springer Publishing Company; 1994:253-274
Kiyak HA, Hooyman NR: Minority and socioeconomic status: Impact on quality of life in aging. In: Abeles RP, Gift HC, Ory MG, eds. Aging and the Quality of Life. New York: Springer Publishing Company; 1994:295-315
Trabert G: Health status and medical care accessibility of single, homeless persons. Gesundheitswesen 1997; 59:378-386
Stronks K, van de Mheen H, Looman CW, Makenback JP: The importance of psychosocial stressors for socioeconomic inequalities in perceived health. Soc Sci Med 1998; 46:611-623
Angel RJ, Angel JL: Who Will Care for Us?: Long-Term Care in Multicultural America. New York: New York University Press; 1997
Walker AR, Segal I: Health/ill-health transition in less privileged populations: What does the future hold? J R Coll Physicians Lond 1997; 31:392-395
Murphy HBM: Migration, culture and mental health. Psychol Med 1997; 7:677-684
Birren JE, Renner VJ: Concepts and issues of mental health and aging. In: Birren JE, Renner VJ, eds. Handbook of Mental Health and Aging. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1980:3-33
Lee MS, Crittenden KS, Yu E: Social support and depression among elderly Korean immigrants in the United States. Int J Aging Hum Dev 1996; 42:313-327
Bartman BA, Rosen MJ, Bradham DD, Weismann J, Hochberg M, et al.: Relationship between health status and utility measures in older claudicants. Qual Life Res 1998; 7:67-73
Kanowski S: Age-dependent epidemiology of depression. Gerontology 1994; 40(suppl. 1):1-4
New York Times: Florida sues to save legal immigrants' benefits. 1997; April 27:18
Interpreter Releases: States' early response to welfare reform reveals variety, confusion. 1996; 73:1431-1433
Compare Himmelfarb R: Catastrophic Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press; 1995
Ojito M: A record backlog to get citizenship stymies 2 million. New York Times 1998; April 20:1
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Binstock, R.H., Jean-Baptiste, R. Elderly Immigrants and the Saga of Welfare Reform. Journal of Immigrant Health 1, 31–40 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022636130104
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022636130104