Taxes and Spending Power
The contributions immigrants make as both taxpayers and consumers are indispensable to the U.S. economy. Nationally, immigrants earned $1.3 trillion in 2014 and contributed $105 billion in state and local taxes and almost $224 billion in federal taxes. This left them with nearly $927 billion in spending power, which they frequently used to purchase goods and services, stimulate local business activity, and create jobs in the broader U.S. economy.
Entrepreneur from New Zealand Creates Jobs while Helping Americans Give Back
When Dale Nirvani Pfeifer stumbled upon a Facebook post about an Afghan teacher trying to build a school for girls, she immediately felt compelled to give. Yet it took a good half hour to hunt down the website and navigate the donation form. “How many… Read More
Long-Time HR Manager Could Lose Own Job Without DACA Fix
As the human resources manager for a Greensboro, North Carolina, company, Laura Garduño García has had to tell many job applicants that she cannot hired them if they are unauthorized to work in the United States. But there’s a twist: While she has lived in North Carolina for the past… Read More
Utah Is Begging for Workers Then ‘Making Them Hide in the Shadows,’ Says Senior Citizen Activist
Dee Rowland remembers when she first realized how large the Hispanic immigrant population in Utah really was. “We started having masses in Spanish, and people just came out of the woodwork,” Rowland says. “We just didn’t realize how many people were here until they started filling our churches.” Rowland is… Read More
Immigrants Bring Creative and Economic Capital
To Dominican Republic native Pamela Gomez, the reason immigrants help the economy is a no-brainer. “We are so creative, and we come with cultural and economic capital, with so many different understandings,” she says. Gomez, a graduate student in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of South Florida,… Read More
Los Angeles Daily News: Immigrants fueled LA economy to tune of $232.9 billion in 2014
A new report finds that immigrants in Los Angeles County contributed $232.9 billion to the region’s economy, nearly 35.7 percent of the area’s economic output. The report, “New Americans in Los Angeles,” breaks down immigrant contributions to the city of L.A. and to the county, providing a “snapshot” on a… Read More
New Report Shows Immigrant Contributions to Fargo-Moorhead Area Advance the Economy
New Report Shows Immigrant Contributions to Fargo-Moorhead Area Advance the Economy Fargo, ND – New American Economy has released new research showing that the 10,663 foreign-born residents of the Fargo-Moorhead metro area make significant contributions to the region’s economy through millions of dollars in tax contributions and… Read More
Small Farm Town in Central Illinois Embraces Immigrants and Prospers
In the aftermath of a state budget crisis, Tim Flavin’s government-funded immigration and minority service group, Mi Raza, almost had to shut down. But the Arcola, Illinois, organization stayed open thanks to a generous outpouring from the very community it served. Immigrants who took classes at Mi Raza donated to… Read More
Send Mexicans Back? ‘That’s Going To Be Difficult on Them and Us,’ Says Texas Real Estate Developer
As the CEO/Principal of Villa Realty Group in The Woodlands, an upscale master-planned community in Houston, longtime Republican Roy Villarreal, Jr. makes his living developing commercial properties with partners — and most of those partners are Mexicans, to whom he has sold a number of million-dollar homes. “These guys enjoy… Read More
Member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Committee Says It’s Time to Legalize Undocumented Immigrants
For nearly all his life, Mario Rodriguez has been a champion of the Hispanic immigrant community: He’s in support of legalizing the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. He speaks out against deportation, which he says breaks up families and causes… Read More
Texas Mayor: America Can’t Turn its Back on Immigrants ‘We Invited’ Here ‘Through Our Conduct’
Austin, Texas, is known for being one of the most creative, innovative cities in the United States. It’s why Steve Adler is so proud to be the city’s mayor — and he knows that to maintain the city’s vibrancy it needs to celebrate its immigrant residents. In Austin,… Read More
Household Income of Immigrants
In 2014, more than 72 percent of foreign-born population in the United States was working-aged, compared to less than half of U.S.-born residents. This reality allowed immigrants to earn well over a trillion dollars of income in 2014—a greater amount than their portion of the U.S. population overall.
Tax Contributions
A notable portion of the income earned by immigrants each year funnels directly back to our government in the form of tax revenues. In some states, immigrants contribute more than one out of every four tax dollars paid by local residents each year—supporting taxpayer-funded services like public schools and police departments.
States Where Immigrants Contributed the Largest Share of Total Tax Revenues, 2014
Spending Power
Spending power is the disposable income left to households after deducting their annual tax contributions. The $9.3 billion in total spending power held by immigrant led households in 2014 allowed them to hold considerable power as consumers. By spending on goods and services, immigrants strengthen the U.S. economy and provide jobs to American workers as well as the businesses dependent upon paying customers.
Foreign-Born Population’s Amount and Share of Spending Power by State, 2014
Medicare and Social Security
Our Social Security and Medicare programs are already facing serious financial challenges—a pattern expected to worsen as large numbers of Baby Boomers retire and leave the workforce altogether. While the United States had roughly 16 workers paying into our entitlement programs for every one retiree in 1950, that number is projected to drop to just two workers for every retiree by 2035.1 Immigrants are already playing an important role supplementing our entitlement programs: One NAE study found that between 1996 and 2011 immigrants contributed $182.4 billion more to Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund—the core trust fund in the program—than was expended on their care.
Sources:
1 “10 Truths About America’s Entitlement Programs, Address by R. Bruce Josten Executive Vice President of Government Affairs U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accessed September 21, 2016. Available online.
Bolstering the Housing Market
By purchasing homes in neighborhoods formerly in decline, immigrants in recent decades have had a positive impact on U.S. housing values overall. From 2000 to 2010, each of the 40 million immigrants in the United States added, on average, 11.6 cents to the value of a home in their local county. That seems small, but it adds up. In fact, it resulted in immigrants growing U.S. housing wealth by $3.7 trillion during that period.2 Immigrants are also expected to play a key role buying up homes as baby boomers downsize in the coming years: Almost 30 percent of American homeowners were older than age 65 in 2014.
Sources:
2 Jacob Vigdor, “Immigration and the Revival of American Cities,” New American Economy, 2013 Available online.
Immigrant Subgroups
Regardless of where the immigrants came from, they contribute a tremendous amount of money to the U.S. economy as taxpayers and consumers. In this section, we show the amount earned and contributed in taxes by different ethnic and national origin groups within the foreign-born population.
Taxes & Spending Power of Major Immigrant Subgroups
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Make a direct impact on the lives of immigrants.
