Half of California's undocumented immigrants are impoverished: study

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - About half of California's undocumented immigrants are poor enough to qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's insurance program for its poorest residents, according to a new report.

The study by the Public Policy Institute of California comes amid ongoing discussion in the most populous U.S. state over how to pay for healthcare for the estimated 60 percent of undocumented immigrants who do not have insurance.

The report estimates that as many as three million undocumented immigrants live in California, of whom 51 percent are impoverished.

A new law set to take effect next year that would allow the children of some undocumented immigrants to apply for Medi-Cal if their families make less annually than $33,500, or 138 percent of the federal poverty level of about $24,000 per year for a family of four.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/half-californias-undocumented-immigrants-impoverished-study-011738431.html

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1. Thanks to many cheapskate illegal employers.

I wish "illegal employers" were a widespread term like the many buzzwords out there from right wing talk radio. Those illegal employers I talk about are often in the service industry or agriculture. They'll hire anyone desperate for work regardless of legal status and pay cash under the table to evade taxes. They abuse their workers, threatening to report them to ICE if they do anything other than blind obedience.