Immigrants and the Economy: Contribution of Immigrant Workers to the Country's 25 Largest Metropolitan Areas
This report highlights the contributions of immigrant workers in the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. It broadens a growing understanding that immigrant workers make important economic contributions to the U.S. and to their local economies. Immigrants are likely to be of prime working age, work in occupations across the economic spectrum and contribute robustly to economic growth in each of the 25 metropolitan areas studied and in the U.S. as a whole.
In the 25 largest metro areas of the U.S. combined, immigrants account for 20 percent of economic output and 20 percent of the population. The same basic relationship holds true, with slight variation, for each of the 25 areas, from metro Pittsburgh, where immigrants represent three percent of population and four percent of GDP, to metro Miami, where immigrants make up 37 percent of the population and 38 percent of GDP. This report also looks at the wide range of occupations held by immigrants and other reasons immigrant economic contribution is so consistently strong with a special focus on the five largest metro areas in the East.
Fiscal Policy Institute. (2009). Immigrants and the Economy: Contribution of Immigrant Workers to the Country's 25 Largest Metropolitan Areas with a special focus on the five largest metro areas in the East. New York: Fiscal Policy Institute.