Stung by their election defeat, Republicans are eager to try to woo Hispanic voters, arguing that once their party puts immigration reform behind them, the ethnic group will be open to the GOP’s conservative message.
But an analysis of economic and social data suggests that even outside of immigration, native-born Hispanics, who make up the vast majority of such voters in the U.S., have far higher rates of welfare use, single-parent households and low tax liabilities — all factors that usually indicate a better fit with the Democratic Party than with Republicans.
One in 5 households headed by U.S.-born Hispanics are in poverty, compared with just 10 percent of non-Hispanic U.S.-born white households, and 40 percent of the Hispanic households use at least one major welfare program — twice the rate of white households.
They are only half as likely to be self-employed, and 50 percent of their households with children are single-mother homes, compared with just 29 percent of native-born white homes.