Press Release: Map The Impact of Immigration Across the Nation

New interactive 50-state maps shows the positive impact of immigration across industries all over United States.

The Partnership for a New American Economy today released a new interactive 50-state map (available here: http://maptheimpact.org) combining both economic and demographic data with individual stories of immigrants who are helping the US economy and creating American jobs. In California, immigrants founded more than one third of the state’s businesses; in Delaware, 64% of the engineering PhD graduates are foreign born; in Colorado, immigrant-owned businesses generate more than $1 billion per year for the state; in New York, foreign born seasonal workers supported 16,611 jobs that could not have existed otherwise. These are just a few examples of the myriad ways that immigrants are driving the US economy.

“This map shows how the impact of immigration extends beyond any one industry or region,” says John Feinblatt, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Chief Policy Adviser. “From farming in Georgia to entrepreneurship in California to STEM research in Illinois, the data demonstrate that no matter where you live, immigrants’ contributions have a substantial positive impact on economies. As we work our way out of the Great Recession, we need Washington to pass immigration reform and ensure our economic future.”

Data Points

Some examples from the 50-state map of how immigration impacts the economies of states across the country include:
• In Illinois, immigrants in science, technology, engineering, and math – or STEM – fields help make the state home to one of the most innovative universities in the country. The University of Illinois System is the seventh highest patent-producing university in the country and in 2011, more than 90 percent of their patents earned had at least one foreign born inventor. In 2010, licensing and royalty revenue from UI’s patents earned the state $15.2 million.
• Immigrant entrepreneurs in Ohio are creating jobs and wealth in the state. A study by the Partnership for a New American Economy found that immigrants or their children founded more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Six of those companies are in Ohio and today they employ almost 700,000 people and bring in more than $213 billion in annual revenue for the state.
• In Wisconsin, immigrants are vital to the dairy industry, which contributes $26.5 billion to the state’s economy each year. According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, immigrants make up more than 40 percent of this workforce, and according to the US Department of Agriculture, each of those jobs creates more than three additional jobs in related industries that could not exist otherwise.

Still, as many of the stories highlighted by the 50-state map make clear, many immigrants face significant obstacles to settling in the US, even when they prove they can add real economic value. Many are forced to deal with uncertainty while they wait years for visa approvals, stalling their plans to build or expand their businesses. Others are simply forced to go back, abandoning promising startups, or sapping American companies of the talent they need to compete in a global marketplace. The map helps show how current US immigration policies are choking job growth in each of the states, and how the job growth might improve if US immigration policy were more in line with our economic needs.

Additional Research on Immigration and American Job Creation

This website is the latest research from the Partnership for A New American Economy showing that immigrants help the economy grow and create new American jobs. Previous findings include:

• Immigrants in the United States have created $3.7 trillion in housing wealth, helping stabilize less desirable communities where home prices are declining or would otherwise have declined. (Interactive: The Impact of Immigration on the Housing Market, June 2013).
• Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. (The “New American” Fortune 500, June 2011).
• Every foreign-born STEM worker with an advanced degree from a US university creates 2.62 additional jobs for Americans (Immigration and American Jobs, December 2011).
• In 2011, at the top 10 patent-generating universities, 76 percent of all patents had a foreign-born inventor (Patent Pending, June 2012).
• Immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a business as the native born (Open for Business, August 2012).

About the Partnership for a New American Economy

The Partnership for a New American Economy brings together more than 500 Republican, Democratic and Independent mayors and business leaders who support immigration reforms that will help create jobs for Americans today. The Partnership’s members include mayors of more than 35 million people nationwide and business leaders of companies that generate more than $1.5 trillion and employ more than 4 million people across all sectors of the economy, from Agriculture to Aerospace, Hospitality to High Tech and Media to Manufacturing. Partnership members understand that immigration is essential to maintaining the productive, diverse and flexible workforce that America needs to ensure prosperity over the coming generations. Learn more at www.RenewOurEconomy.org.

CONTACT
Hanna Siegel, Partnership for a New American Economy
[email protected]