While the West Indian migrants aren't the success story of two decades ago, welfare usage is lower than it is among Dominican immigrants. Median household incomes are higher, and home ownership much higher.
Reasons for this. A higher % of migrants with high school completion, far higher female involvement in the labor force (many are nurses), and of course arriving not only speaking English, but having a better understanding of the Anglo American work culture.
An interesting comparison will be comparing Haitian and Dominican immigrants into NYC. BOTH arriving with English language deficiencies.
32% of Haitians are home owners, whereas only 7% of Dominicans are.
Only 20% of Haitians arrive without high school education, whereas 45% of Dominicans do (this being the key factor for Dominicans, as they are among the least educated immigrants into NYC).
19% of Haitians have at least a college degree, whereas only 13% of Dominicans do (indications are that this is higher than among non Immigrants blacks and Puerto Ricans in NYC). Related to this 20% of Dominican kids fail to graduate high school whereas only 6% of Haitians are in this category.
33% of Dominicans live in poverty whereas only 17% of Haitians do.
The median household income in 2011 for Haitians was $49k, whereas it was only $25k for Dominicans.
Haitians also had higher English proficiency than did Dominicans, with over 50% speaking it "very well" compared to just 30% of Dominicans.
Interestingly enough less than 10% of Dominicans were on public assistance. While this was way above average for all groups in NYC, it puts a lie to the myth that most Dominicans in NYC are on welfare. I don't know if food stamps is included in this.
The big determining fact in success appears to be educational levels. Even though Haitians arrive with English language deficiencies, they only slightly under perform Jamaicans in terms of their socio economic status. In fact both Haitians and Jamaicans are MORE likely to be home owners, and have HIGHER median household incomes than immigrants on the whole, even though they are slightly LESS educated than the average immigrant.
So the second determining factor is female involvement in the labor force and their success in earning decent incomes. BOTH Haitian and Jamaican females perform quite well as immigrants in the labor force, both in terms of their employment, and in terms of what they earn. Dominican females much less so. I don't know if there is some thing cultural there.
Wow, that was a great post. Actual comparisons that would give proper perspective of the issue being discussed. Don't think I've ever seen that on DR1.
I think there are major cultural issues in the DR that are more extreme in the DR than anywhere else. When living in FL there were many Haitians, and they in general seemed to have a great work ethic, and I never felt any scamming in any interaction with them. It is an immigrant population that is working hard to achieve success, even though it may not have been the riches they expected initially.
That last point is important. Dominicans resolutions to problems is to ignore them and blame the person pointing out the truth then dealing with the actual problem at hand, whether it be education (basic literacy), crime and MURDERS, work ethic, or anything, you will always just get the scam response that it is everywhere.
Maybe because Haitians are the under class in the DR, it gives Dominicans some sort of superiority complex and just think pretending to know or do things is the way to be successful, rather than actually learning or doing. There is something uniquely backwards with Dominican culture even in comparison to lesser economic countries.
Solution: Do not spread this mindset, it is a disease.