The Transportation Behavior and Needs of Welfare Recipients
October 17, 2002
Evelyn Blumenberg
UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research
3250 Public Policy Building
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656
310-825-1803
310-206-5566
eblumenb@ucla.edu
Funded by a UCTC Year 12 Research Grant
As a result of the fundamental restructuring of the U.S. welfare system, millions of welfare recipients will enter the paid labor market over the next five years. In response, public agencies have had to establish programs to transition recipients into the labor market or else risk dramatic increases in poverty. While access to transportation affects welfare recipients’ ability to find and retain employment, relatively little is known about the relationship between transportation and welfare usage, particularly among ethnic and racial subgroups of the population. Therefore, this study examines the travel patterns of welfare recipients across racial and ethnic groups, focusing on the transportation issues facing Southeast Asians.
Southeast Asians and Transportation. With the passage of the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act in 1975, economic assistance to Southeast Asian refugees has been channeled through the welfare system. In 1975 750,000 Southeast Asian in the United States resettled in the United States. Many refugees in this first group of arrivals came from households with relatively high socioeconomic levels and, therefore, came to the U.S. with education and work experience. However, the second wave of refugees, commonly known as “boat people,” arrived in 1978 and 1979. These migrants came from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds and were less prepared to enter the U.S. workforce since they had, on average, limited education and professional work experience. More recently, from the years 1983 to 1999, over 1.6 million refugees have resettled in the United States; thirty-nine percent of these refugees sere Southeast Asian.
Arriving with limited skills and experience and with little English language proficiency, many Southeast Asian refugees have had difficulty entering the U.S. labor market, often living in poverty. Asian ethnic groups have poverty rates exceeding 50 percent. In the case of the Hmong population, the poverty rate is as high as 63 percent. Since refugee assistance is channeled through the welfare program, public assistance rates among Southeast Asians are also very high. According to figures from the 1990 census, over 70 percent of Cambodian, Hmong, and Laotian families receive some form of public assistance.
Little is known about the travel patterns and transportation needs of Southeast Asian welfare recipients and how they may differ from those of other ethnic and racial groups. There are reasons to expect that Southeast Asians would have great difficulty with their travel. A higher percentage of Southeast Asians adults have limited English-language skills making it difficult for them to take advantage of available services and benefits. Welfare recipients who speak Hmong or Vietnamese may find it difficult to navigate through systems where most of the information –staff, materials, and signage – is provided in an unfamiliar language. Moreover, Southeast Asian families tend to be large relative to the family size of other ethnic and racial groups. Therefore, adults in Southeast Asian households may be responsible for a greater number of household supporting trips.
The Study. To conduct the study, Hmong welfare recipients in Fresno County were over sampled in order to develop a sample of large enough to yield findings with a reasonable level of statistical significance. The sample from Fresno was then combined with survey data from Los Angeles. The project included obtaining access to confidential welfare administrative data from the Fresno County Department of Employment and Temporary Assistance, developing a survey instrument that was then translated into Hmong, conducting a literature review on the transportation issues facing Southeast Asians, and analyzing survey data by race and ethnicity for Fresno and Los Angeles.
Principal Findings. Consistent with the broader literature on Southeast Asians, the findings show that Southeast Asians tend to be more linguistically isolated than any other racial or ethnic group in the sample. Approximately 70 percent of Southeast Asians were non-English speakers compared to 40 percent of Hispanic respondents. Additionally, Southeast Asian respondents were more likely to have less than a high school education compared to all other ethnic or racial groups. Sixty-seven percent of all Southeast Asian respondents had less than a high school education. With respect to family size, the distribution of Southeast Asian households by number of children is bimodal. Thirty-five percent of Southeast Asian respondents live in families with only one child; this figure is similar to that of Non-Hispanic whites (35%) and much higher compared to Hispanic households (24%). However, compared to non-Hispanic White and African American families, Southeast Asians tend to have a higher percentage of families with three or more children, rivaling the percentage among Hispanic families. The percentage of respondents with three or more children is 47 percent among Hispanics, 45 percent among Southeast Asians, 36 percent among African Americans, and 27 percent among Non-Hispanic Whites.
A higher percentage of Southeast Asian respondents were working than any other ethnic or racial group. However, this finding may be due to the overrepresentation of Southeast Asian men in our sample. In terms of mode, over 90 percent of Southeast Asian respondents commute by automobile and 84 percent owned their automobiles; both of these percentages are much higher than for all other ethnic and racial groups in the sample, including Non-Hispanic whites. Therefore, unlimited access to automobiles among Southeast Asians is very high; sixty-two percent stated that they could use a vehicle whenever they needed. In contrast, only one-third of African American respondents reported unlimited access to automobiles and 58 percent reported no access to personal vehicles at all.
However, Southeast Asians are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to own old vehicles, vehicles that are more than 10 years old. Sixty-six percent of Southeast Asian respondents reported having an old car compared to 50 percent of non-Hispanic Whites, 38 percent of Hispanics, and 24 percent of African Americans. Therefore, although Southeast Asian families are more likely to have vehicles, they are also more likely to have automobiles that are old and in need of continual maintenance and repair.
A set of logistic models were used to predict two different outcomes measures for the four ethnic and racial groups represented in the sample – Southeast Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, and Non-Hispanic Whites. The first set of models predicts employment controlling for sex, English language proficiency, education, unlimited access to a personal vehicle, ability to borrow a vehicle, the age of the vehicle, and the county (either Fresno or Los Angeles County). Unlimited access to an automobile was a strong predictor of employment for each of the racial and ethnic groups. However, it is important to acknowledge the issue of causality. Having access to automobiles may increase the likelihood that welfare recipients find and retain employment. Conversely, employment may provide welfare recipients with the resources to purchase vehicles. Neither the age of the vehicle nor the relative ability to borrow a vehicle was a significant predictor of employment for any of the racial and ethnic groups. Respondents were also asked to rate their ease of travel. A second set of logistic models examines predictors of either easy or difficult travel. Among Southeast Asians the only significant predictor of ease was the age of the vehicle.
Recommendations and Conclusions. The study shows the variation in transportation patterns and behavior by race. Southeast Asian welfare recipients are more reliant on private vehicles than other racial and ethnic groups. More research needs to explain this finding. Southeast Asian welfare recipients may live in job-poor neighborhoods where cars are the only reasonable option for commute trips. Also, language difficulties may deter Southeast Asian welfare recipients from using public transit in cases where transit would be an effective option.
The findings from this research suggest the importance of auto maintenance and repair programs since older vehicles tend to break down more frequently than newer vehicles. The findings also suggest eliminating entirely or raising the vehicle asset limitation currently set at $4,650 in California. If Southeast Asian families were able to purchase more expensive vehicles, they, perhaps, would have fewer travel difficulties. Finally, programs must be established to help welfare recipients purchase new vehicles particularly in job-poor neighborhoods where commuting by transit may be difficult. In dense urban neighborhoods where transit may effectively link welfare recipients to employment opportunities, programs must be established to ensure that materials and signage is produced in the major languages of residents living in the adjacent communities.
References. The research reported here was used, in part, to produce the paper “En-gendering Effective Planning: Transportation Policy and Low-Income Women.” My talk for the 2003 Conference of the Transportation Research Board on the travel patterns of welfare recipients will also draw directly from this research. Finally, an additional paper on racial and ethnic differences in the travel patterns of welfare recipients is currently in progress.