started 28 percent of new U.S. businesses in 2011.
2
In 2005, over half of new tech startups in
Silicon Valley had at least one immigrant founder.
3
As the United States faces the prospect of slowing population growth, immigrants are likely to
play an even more important role in the American economy. The Census Bureau predicts that, by
2030, the overall working age (18-64) population will drop to approximately 57 percent of the
total population.
4
At the same time, the vast majority (78 percent) of immigrants will be working
age.
5
Foreign-born workers and their children are expected to account for a significant
percentage of the net growth in the labor force.
6
As the Baby Boom generation reaches
retirement age, immigrants will play a critical role in ensuring that our nation’s labor force needs
are met.
Immigrants work in diverse industries and occupations, and are disproportionately represented
in agriculture, construction, food services, and information technology. They are agricultural
laborers, domestic workers, and cabdrivers, as well as health care workers, computer software
engineers, doctors, and scientists.
7
This diversity has strong effects on economic growth, as
immigrant and U.S. workers often specialize in different tasks and occupations. A study by
Giovanni Peri of the University of California, Davis found that this occupational specialization by
immigrants and nonimmigrants increases the productivity of all workers—immigrant and U.S.
workers alike.
8
These gains in productivity have implications for earnings, since task specialization
by immigrants can have positive effects on the wages of both immigrant and U.S. workers.
9
Many high skilled workers in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are
also immigrants, and research shows that highly-skilled immigrants make outsized contributions
to research and innovation. One study reported that 26 percent of all U.S.-based Nobel laureates
over the past 50 years were foreign-born.
10
2
Partnership for a New American Economy. 2011. “Open for Business: How Immigrants are Driving Small Business
Creation in the United States.” http://www.renewoureconomy.org/sites/all/themes/pnae/openforbusiness.pdf
.
3
Wadhwa, Vivek, AnnaLee Saxenian, Ben A. Rissing, and Gary Gereffi. 2007. “America’s New Immigrant
Entrepreneurs: Part I.” Duke Science, Technology & Innovation Paper 23.
4
Ortman, Jennifer M., Victoria A. Velkoff, and Howard Hogan. “An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United
States.” The U.S. Census Bureau. Washington, DC. May 2014.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p25-
1140.pdf.
5
Calculated from 2013 American Community Survey data.
6
B. Lindsay Lowell, Julia Gelatt, and Jeanne Batalova, “Immigrants and Labor Force Trends: The Future, Past and
Present,” Migration Policy Institute: Insight 17. 2006.
7
Singer, Audrey. 2012. “Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force.” Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
8
Peri, Giovanni. 2012. “The Effect of Immigration on Productivity: Evidence from U.S. States.” Review of Economics
and Statistics 94, no. 1: 348–58.
9
Peri, Giovanni, and Chad Sparber. 2009. “Task Specialization, Immigration and Wages.” American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics 1, no. 3: 135–69.
10
Wasmer, Etienne, Peter Fredriksson, Ana Lamo, Julián Messina, and Giovanni Peri. 2007. “The Macroeconomics of
Education in Europe.” In Education and Training in Europe, edited by G. Brunello, P. Garibaldi, and E. Wasmer, 1–20.
New York: Oxford University Press.
9