Now we’re going even further: Through these past ten years, we have gathered invaluable data and insights from people’s financial lives. With a vast dataset on how people manage to survive and thrive under the most difficult circumstances, we are turning our research insights into actionable lessons for the field.
We’re celebrating this holiday season by sharing some insights that stood out to us.
We hope you enjoy MAF’s 12 Data Points of Christmas:
Being responsive is one of the major goals of our organization and our R&D team. After a successful DACA renewal fee assistance program, we surveyed clients to identify ways in which we could continue to provide the best support. There’s existing research on DACA recipients’ family and employment situations, as well as the benefits of DACA. We wanted to add to this discourse by learning more about our community’s hopes and dreams for the future.
That’s why we asked a three-part open-ended question: “If you had a pathway to U.S. citizenship, what would be your personal, financial, and career aspirations?”
We invited respondents to fill in aspirations in each of these three categories and 350 individuals (~80% of total respondents) replied. We systematically coded the text they inputted into themes, and assigned codes to 96% of the responses. In the end, we coded 46 different hopes and dreams people shared. This process helped us to see the diversity of the community we serve in a whole new way. Check out this infographic for a summary of our learnings.
The top 10 aspirations of DACA recipients:
Theme 1: DACA recipients aspire to support their families and communities
Although we didn’t provide respondents with pre-selected options to choose from, we saw high convergence in responses. Giving back and helping others were key themes that emerged from these responses. Respondents talked about their aspirations to further support their families (46%), enter a helping profession (43%), and give back to their community (23%). This is especially significant given our prior findings that almost all respondents already support their families and their communities in some way. One respondent shared with us:
“My personal aspiration is to one day be so stable in life and be able to help not only my family back in Guatemala but also many of the children who are trying to get away from all the violence in our country. Give education to many of the children who can’t financially afford to go to school.” -21 year old, Arizona
Theme 2: DACA recipients are trying to create a sense of stability in their lives
Security was a frequent theme, with 46% of respondents saying that they hope to increase their financial stability and 30% saying they would want to worry less and lead a happy life. The top four ways DACA recipients want to create a sense of stability: 1) Pursue or complete education (39%), 2) Buy a home (33%), 3) Get a better quality job (33%) or 4) Own their own business (18%). One respondent told us:
“I want my family to not have to worry about being deported and going back to a place we haven’t been to in over 13 years. I also want my community to not always have to be in fear or speaking up for themselves in case of retaliation.” -20 year old, California
This data is helping us understand the motivations and aspirations inspiring a large segment of the community we serve. It’s helping us develop new products specifically designed to help our clients work toward their aspirations, including:
A webinar series to help clients explore options for self-employment, as a way to improve job security and career prospects.
*Coming soon* – We’re building a financial coaching app, which includes content geared towards helping people build their family’s financial stability.
Expanding this data group to include all loan clients: we’re now asking all clients to share financial aspirations – that way, we can keep a pulse on what matters to them today, and in the future.
To hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients and their families, a DACA permit represents hope. Hope for jobs, for family security, for a future worth fighting for. The threat of losing DACA has placed young people in a vulnerable financial position that’s keeping them and their families up at night. We asked DACA recipients across the nation: “Currently, what are your family’s top financial concerns?” 433* DACA recipients answered. Here’s what they said:
58% of DACA recipients worry about not being able to work
As demonstrated in MAF’s Hierarchy of Financial Needs, a stable income is the foundation of financial security. Income is essential to realizing your economic potential. Yet 58% of DACA recipients we surveyed are worried about not being able to work because of their legal status and 57% are worried about their family’s ability to cover basic living expenses. Maintaining economic stability is a top concern for them.
Here are the top areas of concern DACA recipients identified:
DACA recipients value opportunities to secure stable, quality employment
DACA recipients shared many different concerns with us openly through the survey about their education or how they might lose their jobs. We also heard from survey respondents that many of them are turning to self-employment as a means of supporting themselves.
With increasing ICE raids and mixed-status families being separated, DACA recipients have a lot to worry about. Yet we continue to see their resilience and creativity. This data helped MAF realize we can help DACA recipients secure stable, quality employment by providing programmatic support around starting their own businesses and working for themselves.
*For this particular question, respondents selected up to 13 answers that applied to them.
In “DACA=Better jobs, stable families,” we explored the impact that DACA has on job opportunities and family security. With a work permit and the ability to get education, it’s no surprise that DACA recipients are able to get better quality jobs and have a greater sense of belonging in the U.S. We wanted to dig deeper into the realities inside homes and living rooms across the country:
What roles do people with DACA often play in their families?
What impact does DACA have on their families?
So we asked DACA clients: “In the past 6 months, have you supported your family financially or helped them access resources in any of the following ways?” We provided nine options and an invitation to select all that applied. We received 431 responses clients, including one that indicated the respondent did not help support their family.
97% of DACA recipients said they support their family – most often by helping pay for household expenses
Nearly all of DACA recipients said they were helping their family financially or get access resources. The most common type of support? 74% contribute to household bills and other regular monthly expenses. Among many other sources of financial support, DACA recipients often also supported their family in non-financial ways. For example, 44% of respondents said they drove family members who don’t have a driver’s license.
The Multiplier effect: DACA recipients frequently open doors for their family members
As you can see below, DACA recipients described in their own words how much their families relied on them – for finances, transportation and more. We heard from recipients that DACA allowed them to access resources to support other members of their family and network. That in fact, DACA has a multiplicative effect: providing one person with protections and work permits impacts everyone they support financially and otherwise.
Our takeaway: personal financial security is not just about the individual. It’s closely linked to the financial security of your family, friends and community
This research shows us that there’s a very powerful social and familial network effect with DACA. When we research the effect a government program or immigration status has on one person, we also must think about the family. Especially when so many of our families are mixed status, better governmental protection and even an intermediate status like DACA can have a very positive effects on entire family networks. At MAF, this is leading us to think more about how we can support families in growing their collective financial wellness. Because engaging and leveraging your social network is an important and viable strategy for managing financial lives.
$460 billion. That’s the estimated value that DACA recipients add to our GDP. In addition to the well-known economic impacts to our country, there is a good amount of research about the positive benefits the DACA program has provided to its 790,000 DACA recipients and their families. MAF was humbled to have the opportunity to help over thousands of DACA recipients with fee assistance grants to make sure cost didn’t stand in the way of protection. We know DACA is crucial but we wanted to hear about it directly from our clients. We invited them in a survey to:
Explain how DACA helped them (442 responses)
Share stories about how DACA helped them, their family or their community. (363 responses)
Share stories about how the administration’s announcement to end DACA had an impact on them, their family or their community. (379 responses)
60%+ said DACA helped them get better quality jobs
DACA has been instrumental in helping our clients access better professional opportunities, from getting better quality jobs to pursuing career goals and educational opportunities. DACA recipients said they found jobs with better pay and improved working conditions, opened businesses or had fulfilling long-term career opportunities. For example, one client, a 20-year old from Texas, told us how DACA enabled her to get a social security number, opening the door to a career in nursing. “DACA has helped me pursue my nursing career. I participated in a CNA program in high school, but after I graduated I was unable to take my test because I did not have a Social Security Number. After being qualified for DACA, I was able to get my CNA license, work as a CNA, and now continue college classes working towards becoming a RN.” – 20 year old, Texas
64% said DACA helped them better support their families
With a median of 4 people to a household, better jobs and educational opportunities mean more stable families. “I am the eldest of four children. My father worked odd jobs just to make sure we were stable. After I received DACA, I graduated high school, I got the chance to go to college, and now I have a well paying job to be able to help my father sustain our family. We went from barely getting by to having what we need to a little more and all thanks to DACA.” – 20 year old, California
48% said DACA gave them a greater sense of belonging to the U.S.
It’s no surprise that DACA recipients experience life in the U.S. as both insiders and outsiders – integrated into society to a certain degree but not able to have the same opportunities and privileges as their peers. Receiving legal and workforce protection often helped unlock dreams and goals. “DACA gave me more confidence in myself. It showed me that the opportunities are right there, all I have to do is work hard and thrive for what I want to become. DACA is an ally to the undocumented students. Not only do I feel safe with DACA but it also gave me a lot of strength on not giving up,“ – 19 year old, California
With the threat of losing DACA, clients are very worried about losing everything in their home and having to start over
Hundreds wrote responses about how tangible their losses would be: loss of financial stability, employment, education, peace of mind, or a sense of confidence and belonging. People are worried about how they’d struggle to adapt to culture and learn the language of their country of birth, if they had to leave.
Still, many voiced resilience and positivity, expressing confidence in the strength of their communities and certainty that they could find opportunity in what lies ahead, like this 24 year old from California:
“Speaking of all the 800,000 dreams and DACA applicants, we’re not afraid. We don’t give up this easily. We represent the future of this country. We are the U.S. and we are helping this first world nation succeed economically and financially. We’ve worked so hard to be where we stand at this moment. Our parents left everything behind for us to have a better future, a better education, a better life. The decision [to rescind DACA] has made us stronger than ever and it has given us the tool to not stop reaching our goals.”
