Immigrant Savings and Charity: Are They Better Than We Are?

The World Bank reports that U.S. immigrants save more money and give more to help others than the rest of us do.    - - Donna Poisl

FROM BOB HILDRETH

Let's face it: we judge. Our bosses judge us and we judge each other (and them). Even our children can tell us who is popular by first grade. So how do we judge immigrants? They are at the bottom of the barrel, right? Who wants to be a poor immigrant, especially an undocumented one? But maybe we are being hasty. What if immigrants are, in fact, better than us in several important ways?

Among the traits we recognize in a good citizen are prudence with money (saving it) as well as generosity with it. Turns out immigrants do better than us in both regards.

The World Bank estimates that immigrants living in the U.S. saved more than $120 billion in 2011 to send home to relatives living in poverty, of which about $25 billion is saved and sent by undocumented immigrants. Called remittances, these payments show not only that immigrants manage their money better than we do, but are also more generous.
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