Latinos Less Likely To Receive Unemployment Benefits

By Roque Planas, Huffington Post Latino Voices

Even as rightwing pundits like Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly paint the Latino community as over-reliant on government, a new study highlights that Hispanics often do not receive enough of the benefits they are entitled to.

Latinos are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to apply for unemployment insurance benefits or to receive them once they apply, according to the study published in the Monthly Labor Review and publicized in a briefing by the National Employment Law Project.

Based on the 2005 supplement of the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households, the study by Alix Gould-Werth and Luke Shaefer of the University of Michigan found that only 34 percent of Latinos applied for unemployment benefits, compared to 49.5 percent of non-hispanic whites. Of those who applied, 56.8 percent of Hispanic applicants received benefits, versus 70.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

Latinos were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to say they didn’t know they were eligible for benefits or that they didn’t know how to apply. Some 5.1 percent of Hispanic immigrants cited language as a barrier to apply…

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This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.

[Photo By Jennifer Smits]

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