New Americans in Detroit

While recent Census reports show continued population loss for the city, an NAE & Global Detroit report highlights that immigrants, who have added over 4,000 new residents to the city between 2010 and 2014 (a 12.1 percent rate of growth), are helping the city to stop its population decline.

The newly-released data snapshot notes that while immigrant residents account for only 5.6 percent of the city’s residents, they make an outsize contribution to the local economy through their high rates of entrepreneurship, large tax contributions, and spending power.

“The data released today affirms the work that Global Detroit, as well as that of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, the Detroit City Council, and others, have done to develop programs, policies, and strategies that pioneer the inclusion of immigrants in Detroit’s neighborhoods and recovery,” notes Steve Tobocman, Executive Director of Global Detroit. “Detroit is an early pioneer in the rapidly emerging field of immigrant community and economic development and the data released today suggests that our efforts are paying dividends in population growth, business creation, and jobs.”

The report, New Americans in Detroit, finds:

• In 2014, immigrant-owned businesses in Detroit generated $15.5 million in business income. There are 1,397 immigrants who are self-employed in Detroit, representing 14.8 percent of self-employed population, more than twice their share of the population.
• Because of the role immigrants play in the workforce helping companies keep jobs on U.S. soil, immigrants living in Detroit in 2014 helped create or preserve 1,768 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere.
• In 2014, immigrants in Detroit paid $92.4 million in federal taxes, and $53.7 million in state and local taxes. They also held $489.8million in remaining spending power.
• Foreign-born residents of Detroit also support federal social programs, and in 2014, they contributed more than $67.2 million to Social Security and almost $17.6 million to Medicare.
• Foreign-born residents tend to have slightly higher educational levels than U.S.-born citizens in Detroit. If the metro area retains one-half of its international students who graduate with bachelor’s degrees or higher, 549 local jobs will be created within six years, and increasing its population by 6,157 people within the next 50 years.

Read the full report here.