9 ways Immigrants Build Our Economy

Immigration has always been a common phenomenon worldwide through the course of history due to several reasons. Wars, famine, invasions, work opportunities have always been some of the common factors for immigration. Immigrants have crossed the international borders long back and eventually became part of the new country. Here the essay help on same, continue to affect the culinary or socio-economic factors of the country, thus directly making an impact on the economy.

International students contribute significantly to American universities, and their entrepreneurial zeal, innovative abilities, and spending power benefit the American economy. They spend billions of dollars as consumers, frequently pay higher tuition rates, which subsidize domestic students keeping tuition costs down, support local businesses, and have gone on to found companies like Google, Yahoo!, and Trulia, employing hundreds of thousands of Americans. In fact, during the 2018-2019 academic year, international students studying in the U.S. contributed $41 billion and supported 458,290 jobs to the economy. International students are pursuing degrees in many sectors including in the science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM fields.

On that note, let us see how immigrants can help build and strengthen the economy.

Immigrants start businesses

The USA is a country founded by immigrants many centuries ago. According to the Small Business Administration, 18 per cent of all small business owners in the United States are immigrants. According to SBA, it has also been observed that it is 30 per cent more likely that immigrants will start a business than non-immigrants.

Immigrant-owned businesses create jobs for native workers

As per the research conducted by the Fiscal Policy Institute, it has been observed that all the immigrant-owned small businesses created employment opportunities for an estimated more than 4 million people in 2007 only. The recent studies have only validated that claim as the net estimate of funds injected into only the American economy by these small businesses are more than $775 billion annually. Worldwide this amount is more than a few hundred trillion dollars.

Immigrants create their own jobs

According to the U.S. Department of Labour, 7.5 per cent of the immigrants are self-employed, whereas only 6.6 per cent of the native Americans are pursuing business. According to National Immigration Forum, there were approximately 3 million immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. in 2014. They owned 16.1 per cent of the country’s five million businesses in 2015. In 2016, almost 40 per cent of firms featured in the Fortune 500 list had at least one immigrant or the child of an immigrant as the founder. These companies created jobs for almost 19 million immigrants, generating $4.8 trillion in revenue in the process.

Immigrants develop cutting-edge technologies, and companies

Immigrants have founded some of the major public U.S. companies that are leaders in the tech industry. This list includes Google, Amazon, eBay, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, and Intel. Surprisingly, all these companies were founded by first or second-generation immigrants. Some of the examples of immigrant-founded companies are –

• Apple founder Steve Jobs is the son of a Syrian immigrant
• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a second-generation Cuban immigrant
• Google founder Sergey Brin immigrated from Russia
• Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin is also an immigrant from Brazil
• Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube, also has part German and part Bangladeshi heritage

Immigrants without college degrees are more entrepreneurial

Most immigrant business owners don’t possess a traditional college degree. There were an estimated 2 million immigrant entrepreneurs in the USA without a bachelor’s degree. Yet almost 25-30% of those entrepreneurs owned various businesses in real estate and landscaping and other innovative businesses.

Immigrants are more meritorious

We have seen numerous times in history how immigrants have made their mark in academics. Most eminent mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, physicists and even inventors are immigrants. Their huge contribution is patenting and improving society and economy is noteworthy.

Immigrants boost demand for local consumer goods

The resurgence of Latinos and Asians, being mostly immigrants, boosts the demand for local consumer goods. With more jobs and opportunities,  their purchasing power is also rising. Not to mention, these communities have been the founders of many consumer brands and their net worth is estimated to hit trillion dollars in the coming years. Check this image to see the impact of Asians and Latinos in boosting the economy.

Migration contributes to spur economic growth

International migration affects economic growth both directly and indirectly. None can debate that when migration happens, it expands the workforce. So, the aggregate GDP is also expected to grow. However, the situation gets murkier when one needs to calculate the per capita GDP growth. However, that cannot undermine the fact that immigrants are a vital cog for economic growth.

Migrants contribute more to taxes and social contributions

Immigrants are neither a burden to the public fund nor are a threat to fiscal policies. In most countries, barring the countries with a large number of senior immigrants, migrants usually make more social contributions and pay more taxes than they get as government benefits. This implies that they directly contribute more to the financing of public infrastructure than the most native-born. Contrary to common public belief, even the less-educated immigrants have a better fiscal position than their native peers. When immigrants remain in an unfavorable fiscal position, that is not because they have a greater dependence on social benefits. Rather it is because they usually have a lower wage scale, and thus their contribution is less.

Parting Thoughts

Immigrants play an increasingly important role in business creation and job creation in many countries. Their hardships and struggles make the immigrants more entrepreneurial, even without any college degrees. Businesses started by immigrants definitely provide for themselves and their families but also help to revitalize neighborhoods, cities, and countries through economic decline. Mass deportation would force a nearly $8 trillion hit to the economy over the next 14 years and jeopardize our housing market. Further, it would take 20 years, and cost U.S. taxpayers between $400 to $600 billion.

Every visionary and leader across countries are hence resorting to attracting immigrants to their countries. The world has finally seen past the stigma of branding someone as a “refugee” and is now promoting immigrant entrepreneurship because that will benefit everyone in the country and economy.