New research from New American Economy shows that immigrant households in Contra Costa County, CA earned nearly $13.4 billion and paid over $3.9 billion in taxes in 2017.
The report, New Americans in Contra Costa County, shows the outsize impact immigrants have on Contra Costa County’s economy and workforce. Although the foreign-born made up 25.5% of the county’s overall population, they represented 31.3% of its working-age population, 31.6% of its employed labor force, and 42.9% of its STEM workers in 2016.
Because of the role immigrants play in the workforce helping companies keep jobs on U.S. soil, the brief estimates that immigrants living in the county helped create or preserve 13,442 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere.
The brief also found that in 2017, 33.5% of entrepreneurs in the county were immigrants despite immigrants only making up 25.5% of the county’s population. That year, they generated $589.2M in business income.
