Immigrants in the Hudson Valley contribute more to the region”™s economy than their percentage share of the overall population here, according to a recent report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.
The region”™s foreign-born residents are younger as a group than their U.S.-born neighbors, making them robust contributors to the economy in their prime working years, according to the report by FPI, a nonpartisan research and education organization on state economic issues based in Albany.
Part of the FPI”™s Immigration Research Initiative, the report uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau”™s yearly American Community Survey and other federal sources to track immigrant occupations and earnings in a 15-county region that extends from the Albany area south to Westchester County.
Immigrants, both legally documented and undocumented arrivals, make up 13 percent of the region”™s population and account for 16 percent of its total economic output. That amounts to an immigrant economic contribution ratio of 1.21, higher than the national average of 1.12 and the 1.0 ratio for New York City, where foreign-born residents contribute to the economy in exact proportion to their share of the population.
Compared with the country”™s 25 largest metropolitan areas, the economic output of immigrants in the Hudson Valley is exceeded only by Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis.
Immigrants hold a wide range of jobs in the region, a main reason for their strong economic contribution, according to FPI analysts. Foreign-born residents make up 19 percent of the region”™s professional work force, such as doctors and engineers, 18 percent of all registered nurses, pharmacists and health therapists and 14 percent of workers in executive, managerial and administrative positions.
The report found 45 percent of immigrant workers in the region hold lower-paying blue-collar and service jobs. Immigrants make up about 35 percent of the region”™s labor force for private household and personal service work and about the same percentage for jobs in farming, forestry and agriculture, including gardening.
At the high end of earnings, immigrants are more likely than U.S.-born workers to be in professional specialties and health care occupations. At the low earnings end, they are far more likely than U.S.-born workers to work as machine operators, construction laborers, guards, cleaning and building services workers and food preparation workers.
The region”™s immigrants are very diverse with respect to countries of origin, researchers found. Mexicans, the largest group, make up only 9 percent of all immigrants in the Hudson Valley. They are followed by natives of Italy and Jamaica, each representing 6 percent of the region”™s immigrants; India and the Dominican Republic, 5 percent each; Guatemala, 4 percent, and Ecuador and Haiti, each representing 3 percent of the region”™s immigrants.
Undocumented immigrants make up about 20 percent of the foreign-born population in Westchester County and on Long Island, compared with about 16 percent statewide, the Pew Hispanic Center has estimated.
The FPI report noted that economic growth and growth in the share of immigrants in the work force “go hand in hand” in U.S. labor markets. Immigration, though, does not cause that economic growth.
