New Americans in the Harrisonburg MSA
New research from New American Economy shows that immigrant households in the Harrisonburg metro area earned over $257 million in 2016 and contributed $37.9 million to federal taxes and $19.8 million to state and local taxes. The report was prepared in partnership with the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce, City of Harrisonburg, and James Madison University.
In addition to their financial contributions, New Americans in the Harrisonburg MSA shows the foreign-born population’s contributions to the Harrisonburg workforce, as well as their role in staving off population decline. One in 10 immigrants are entrepreneurs, and foreign-born individuals are 12.6 percent more likely than their U.S.-born counterparts to start a business. And without 73 percent growth in the region’s immigrant population between 2011 and 2016, Harrisonburg would have seen the overall population decline by nearly a full percentage point instead of increasing by over 3 percent.
New American Economy. (2018). New Americans in the Harrisonburg MSA. Retrieved from https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/G4G_Harrisonburg_V6_Final.pdf