To evaluate this claim, we divide the population into two mutually exclusive
groups—those who live in families headed by an individual who was born in the
United States and those who live in families headed by an individual who was born
abroad. We use data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (Census)
rather than the Current Population Survey, because the CPS does not include
information on country of birth prior to 1993. Table 5 shows that between 1959
and 1999, the poverty rate among U.S. natives fell by almost 50 percent, from
20.6 percent to 12.4 percent, whereas poverty among the foreign born increased by
3 percentage points. The year 1959 is probably a poor starting point, however, since