The Fiscal Policy Institute and the Center for American Progress released a report that analyzes how four key refugee groups—Bosnians, Burmese, Hmong, and Somalis—in the United States are doing on key indicators of integration, such as wages, labor market participation, business ownership, English language ability, and citizenship. As the United States and other countries wrestle with how to handle the sharp rise in the number of people around the globe displaced by conflict and persecution, the long-term experiences of the four groups studied in this report should provide grounds for encouragement.
The methodology developed for this report allows for a rare analysis of how refugee groups integrate in the long run. The report finds that over time, refugees integrate well into their new communities. For example, after being in the United States for 10 years, refugees are in many regards similar to their U.S.-born neighbors, with similar rates of labor force participation and business ownership; the large majority have learned to speak English after being in the country for 10 years and have become naturalized U.S. citizens after being in the country for 20 years.
Missouri’s appropriations bill for higher education includes instructions that would leave immigrants who have been granted deferred action in the position of having to pay a much higher tuition rate at state colleges. For every student this discourages from going to community college, the student loses $7,000 in potential earnings and the state and local governments lose $630 in potential tax contributions. For those who don’t get a bachelor’s degree, it costs the typical student $21,000 per year in potential earnings, and costs the state and localities $1,890 per year in tax revenues.
Gradually raising the New York State minimum wage from its current level of $9/hour to $15/hour by 2019 in New York City and mid-2021 in the rest of the state would give a much needed raise to 1.1 million immigrant workers. In all, there are 3.2 million New York workers who will benefit from the phased-in wage increase, which would on average increase wages by $4,900 per year. These numbers reflect the workers who would gain once a phased-in minimum wage is fully in place. Setting a wage floor at $15/hour will disproportionately benefit immigrants, who are more likely to be in lower-wage jobs than their U.S.-born counterparts. Forty-three percent of all immigrants working in the state would get a raise, as would 36 percent of all workers.
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There are 526,000 immigrants living on Long Island, making up 18 percent of the region’s population and 20 percent of the economic output of Long Islanders. Half of immigrants overall (51 percent) work in white-collar jobs, the study found, and the large majority (61 percent) live in families earning over $80,000 a year. Immigrants represent significant numbers of the people in more highly paid jobs such as professionals (23 percent), technicians (24 percent), and registered nurses pharmacists and health therapists (23 percent), as well as significant numbers in less well-paid jobs such as construction laborers (32 percent), food preparation services workers (33 percent), and sales clerks and cashiers (21 percent).
The report also includes tabulations of a Migration Policy Institute analysis estimating the number of unauthorized immigrants on Long Island to be 98,000—48,000 in Nassau and 50,000 in Suffolk. The analysis shows that a quarter of unauthorized immigrants work in construction and the other three quarters work in jobs from food services to retail to child care and more.
This report updates our 2011 report, New Americans on Long Island: A Vital Sixth of the Economy.