I live in an area that is 95% hispanic. Our unemployment rate is always in the double digits. About 9 out of 10 people use food stamps here. The government pays over 75% of ALL the health care here. We even got preferential treatment from the Republicans by putting a BILLION in the medicare bill for our hospitals. Yeah, they sit on the couches here too and collect welfare but they watch the novellas. The teenagers don't like to work either so many of them join gangs. The drop out rate in school is pretty high here.
It looks like there is not too much difference in any part of the country anymore.
Personally, I think the welfare culture is behind it. Welfare was knocked back a bit, but only a bit; it is still available to all too many people, legal and illegal, to encourage a useless, parasitical life. Of course, go into the projects or those neighborhoods, and you see Escalades, plasma TV's, etc. Most of these things are bought with money come by through these gangs.
When my police officer family member gets called to one of these places, she says the cops all stand around gaping at these things that they (the cops) could never dream of affording on their own salaries. Yet the thugs - of all colors and ethnic backgrounds - don't seem to have any trouble getting them, and of course mommy-on-welfare never seems to wonder where her kid got money for an Escalade.