DuPage Policy Journal: “Report shows economic impact of immigrants in Illinois’ District 6”

New American Economy, a New York-based group that advocates for immigration reform, released a report Tuesday detailing the impact immigrants have on the economy, job creation and filling the skills gap nationwide and within Illinois’ District 6.

The data include details of how District 6 has benefited from the growing immigrant population. The report also details immigrants in the workforce, their voting power, tax contributions, spending and home ownership.

Illinois’ 6th Congressional District includes Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties. The immigrant population in the area is 103,520, which is about 14.3 percent of the total population.

Many immigrants in the district are working age at over 72 percent, and there are at least 3,181 immigrant entrepreneurs in the area.

On a national scale, immigrants in the workforce are over 17 percent more likely than their native counterparts to hold a graduate degree. Additionally, they are also more likely to not have a bachelor’s degree. As a result, they can hold positions in the workforce from the lowest to the highest ends of the spectrum, which may otherwise go unfulfilled, hurting local business owners or causing them to relocate.

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