Economics of Immigration

In Indiana, there is no doubt that immigrant entrepreneurs and innovators play an important role. Immigrant entrepreneurs bring in additional revenue, create jobs, and contribute significantly to the state’s economy. Highly skilled immigrants are vital to the state’s innovation economy, and to the metropolitan areas within the state, helping to boost local economies. Furthermore, local government, business, and non-profit leaders recognize the importance of immigrants in their communities and support immigration through local “welcoming” and integration initiatives.

Immigrant entrepreneurs contribute significantly to Indiana’s economy.

• From 2006 to 2010, there were 11,995 new immigrant business owners in Indiana, and in 2010, 5.2 percent of all business owners in Indiana were foreign-born.

• In 2010, new immigrant business owners had total net business income of $721.6 million, which is 5.6 percent of all net business income in the state.

Highly skilled immigrants are vital to Indiana’s innovation economy.Read more...

Published On: Fri, Jul 19, 2013 | Download File

In Arkansas, there is no doubt that immigrant entrepreneurs and innovators play an important role. Immigrant entrepreneurs bring in additional revenue, create jobs, and contribute significantly to the state’s economy. Highly skilled immigrants are vital to the state’s innovation economy, and to the metropolitan areas within the state, helping to boost local economies. Furthermore, local government, business, and non-profit leaders recognize the importance of immigrants in their communities and support immigration through local “welcoming” and integration initiatives.

Immigrant entrepreneurs contribute significantly to Arkansas’ economy.

• From 2006 to 2010, there were 6,171 new immigrant business owners in Arkansas, and in 2010, 5 percent of all business owners in the state were foreign-born.

• In 2010, new immigrant business owners had total net business income of $286.7 million, which is 4.7 percent of all business income in the state.

• Arkansas had a 160 percent increase in Hispanic-owned businesses, growing from 2,094 businesses in 2002 to 5,457 in 2007, according to Census Bureau data.

Highly skilled immigrants are vital to Arkansas’ innovation economy.Read more...

Published On: Fri, Jul 19, 2013 | Download File

In Alabama, there is no doubt that immigrant entrepreneurs and innovators play an important role. Immigrant entrepreneurs bring in additional revenue, create jobs, and contribute significantly to the state’s economy. Highly skilled immigrants are vital to the state’s innovation economy, and to the metropolitan areas within the state, helping to boost local economies. Furthermore, local government, business, and non-profit leaders recognize the importance of immigrants in their communities and support immigration through local “welcoming” and integration initiatives.

Immigrant entrepreneurs contribute significantly to Alabama’s economy.

• From 2006 to 2010, there were 7,968 new immigrant business owners in Alabama, and in 2010, 4.6 percent of all business owners in the state were foreign-born.

• In 2010, new immigrant business owners had total net business income of $337.3 million, which is 3.4 percent of all net business income in the state.

• According to the Fiscal Policy Institute: “It is interesting to note that Alabama ranks toward the bottom of the list of immigrant share of population (3 percent) and labor force (4 percent), but is in the top half of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia (at 20th) in the ratio of foreign-born share of business owners to U.S.-born share. In Alabama, immigrant workers are 10 percent more likely than U.S.-born counterparts to be small business owners.”

Highly skilled immigrants are vital to Alabama’s innovation economy.Read more...

Published On: Fri, Jul 19, 2013 | Download File

In Ohio, there is no doubt that immigrant entrepreneurs and innovators play an important role. Immigrant entrepreneurs bring in additional revenue, create jobs, and contribute significantly to the state’s economy. Highly skilled immigrants are vital to the state’s innovation economy, and to the metropolitan areas within the state, helping to boost local economies. Furthermore, local government, business, and non-profit leaders recognize the importance of immigrants in their communities and support immigration through local “welcoming” and integration initiatives.

Immigrant entrepreneurs contribute significantly to Ohio’s economy.

• From 2006 to 2010, immigrants founded 20,768 businesses in Ohio, and in 2010, 6.7 percent of all business owners in Ohio were foreign-born.

• In 2010, new immigrant business owners had total net business income of $1.3 billion, which is 5.7 percent of all net business income in the state.

• Immigrant entrepreneurs have contributed to Ohio’s economy throughout the state’s history, founding such companies as Proctor & Gamble and Eaton Corporation. Other Ohio-based Fortune 500 companies had at least one immigrant or child of an immigrant co-founder, including Kroger, Limited Brands, Big Lots, and Owens-Illinois.

Highly skilled immigrants are vital to Ohio’s innovation economy.Read more...

Published On: Fri, Jul 19, 2013 | Download File

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the fiscal and economic effects of the Senate immigration reform bill (S. 744) would be overwhelmingly positive. If enacted, the bill would help reduce the federal budget deficit by approximately $1 trillion over 20 years, would boost the U.S. economy as whole without negatively affecting U.S. workers, and would greatly reduce future undocumented immigration. These are the conclusions laid out in three reports released in June and July 2013. On June 18, the CBO issued two reports on the version of S. 744 that was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 28. The first one analyzes (or “scores”) the fiscal impact of the bill over the next 20 years and the second one focuses on the impact that some aspects of the bill would have on the U.S. economy. On July 3, the CBO issued a revised score on the version of the bill that passed the Senate on June 27. This version includes the Corker-Hoeven “border surge” amendment, which calls for a significant increase in border-enforcement spending.

What is a CBO score and what are its main implications?

Nearly every bill that is approved by a full committee of either house of Congress is subject to a formal cost estimate by the CBO. The report produced as a result of this analysis is known as the CBO “score.” The purpose of this analysis is to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on a wide assortment of programs covered by the federal budget. In general, the CBO estimates what the net fiscal impact of a bill would be, considering both the costs and the benefits associated with its implementation.Read more...

Published On: Thu, Jun 20, 2013 | Download File

Contrary to the claims of critics, the immigration bill now winding its way through the Senate would not add to the ranks of the unemployed. In fact, both the legalization and “future flow” provisions of the bill would empower immigrant workers to spend more, invest more, and pay more in taxes—all of which would create new jobs. Put differently, employment is not a “zero sum” game in which workers compete for some fixed number of jobs. All workers are also consumers, taxpayers, and—in many cases—entrepreneurs who engage in job-creating economic activity every day.

Nevertheless, one of the most persistent myths about the economics of immigration is that every immigrant added to the U.S. labor force amounts to a job lost by a native-born worker, or that every job loss for a native-born worker is evidence that there is need for one less immigrant worker. However, this is not how labor-force dynamics work in the real world. The notion that unemployed natives could simply be “swapped” for employed immigrants is not economically valid. In reality, native workers and immigrant workers are not easily interchangeable. Even if unemployed native workers were willing to travel across the country or take jobs for which they are overqualified, that is hardly a long-term strategy for economic recovery.

There is no direct correlation between immigration and unemployment.Read more...

Published On: Wed, Jun 12, 2013 | Download File

By Jack Strauss

A comprehensive analysis of Census data from hundreds of U.S. metropolitan areas indicate that immigration from Latin America improves wages and job opportunities for African Americans. This analysis serves to dispel the common myth that African Americans are negatively impacted by the immigration of less-skilled workers from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. It is often assumed that Latino immigrants and African Americans are locked in ruinous competition for the same jobs, resulting in lower wages and higher unemployment rates for African Americans. In fact, Latino immigrants and African Americans fill complementary roles in the labor market—they are not simply substitutes for one another. In addition, cities which have suffered the effects of declining population are rejuvenated by an inflow of Latino immigrants who increase the labor force, tax base, consumer base, etc. To the extent that there really is a “black-brown” divide, it is rooted in politics and perception—not economics.Read more...

Published On: Wed, Jun 12, 2013 | Download File

How High-Skilled Immigrants Create Jobs and Help Build the U.S. Economy

With the U.S. economy still recovering, it may seem counterintuitive to believe that any industry would benefit from having more workers. But that is precisely the case when it comes to those industries which depend upon highly skilled workers. The United States has long faced a dilemma in this respect: the U.S. economy is, in general, absorbing more high-skilled professionals than the U.S. educational system produces or that are available in our workforce. That is one reason so many highly skilled workers in the United States are immigrants. For instance, in “STEM” occupations (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the foreign-born account for 26.1 percent of workers with PhDs and 17.7 percent of those with master’s degrees. However, arbitrary limits imposed by the U.S. immigration system, particularly the inadequate supply of green cards and H-1B visas, have restricted the ability of the U.S. to compete in the global battle for talent and ideas. Given that highly skilled professionals tend to create jobs through their innovative work, such limits are economically self-defeating.

High-skilled immigrant workers create new jobs.Read more...

Published On: Mon, May 13, 2013 | Download File

Innovation, Skilled Immigration, and H-1B Visas in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Although immigration policy is debated at the national level, its impact is most often felt in local and regional communities. This is certainly true for the H-1B program, which is routinely studied at the national level, but  cannot be fully  understood without driving down to examine the role of H-1B workers at the metropolitan and local levels. New research at this more specific level of analysis suggests that current H-1B policies must be made both flexible and nuanced. There is no “one size fits all” approach to the recruitment, hiring, and retention of high-skilled foreign workers.  As lawmakers consider changes to the H-1B program, including the creation of a High Skilled Jobs Demand Index, it is essential to remember that demand for H-1B workers in many metropolitan areas is high, varies by industry, and has ripple effects throughout a regional economy. Thus, predicting and calculating the need for H-1B workers requires an understanding of the dynamics at the metropolitan level.  

Metropolitan Area Demand for High-Skilled Workers is High, Especially in Innovation Industries

Innovation-intensive metropolitan areas tend to have higher rates of patenting, lower unemployment rates, and higher demand for high-skilled workers since patenting growth is correlated with job growth, population growth, and increases in educational attainment.Read more...

Published On: Mon, May 13, 2013 | Download File

The Important Economic Relationship of Mexico and the United States

Mexico is the United States’ third largest trading partner, after Canada and China, in terms of total trade in goods, while the U.S. is Mexico’s largest trading partner. As such, the economic ties of the U.S. and Mexico are significantly important to the economy and society in both countries. Further, the U.S.-Mexico border is not a static line drawn on a map, but a dynamic and ever-evolving place along which substantial daily interaction takes place. Yet the resounding refrain we repeatedly hear from some members of Congress is that building a 1,969-mile fence to separate us from one of our largest economic partners, and the eleventh largest economy in the world, is a key component to solving the issues presented by an outdated immigration system and a requirement that must be completed before moving forward with proposed immigration reforms. To be clear, there is a need for secure borders, but there is also a need for further streamlining and efficiently facilitating the daily cross-border flows of people, goods, and services important to the bi-national economic relationship of the United States and Mexico – an economic relationship the following facts highlight.

The United States and Mexico have an enormous trading partnershipRead more...

Published On: Thu, May 09, 2013 | Download File