Friday, January 15, 2010
New York: City of Immigrants
Legal migrants fill 43% of jobs in city
Legal immigrants make up 43 percent of the total work force in New York City and account for more than $200 billion, or 32 percent, of the city's economic activity, a new report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli shows.
The report found a 68 percent increase in legal immigrants in the city's work force from 2000 to 2008...
The report also showed that the nearly 2 million legal immigrants in the work force are living the American dream, with a standard of living that has been rising over the years.
The median household income of New York City's foreign-born population nearly doubled to $45,000 in 2007, from $23,900 in 1990, a growth rate that outpaced inflation.
The number of immigrants owning homes in New York City doubled between 1991 and 2008, and foreign-born residents accounted for 60 percent of all homeowners in 2008...
Immigrants to the city came from an astounding 148 different countries. Fifty-two percent of them are from just 10 countries, the report found...
The 10 countries from which the largest number of immigrants hailed, in order of percentage, were the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico, Guyana, Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Russia and Korea.
Queens and Brooklyn have the highest concentrations of immigrant residents, 47 percent and 37 percent, respectively ... In Queens, immigrants make up more than half of the work force -- a larger share than in any other borough -- while in Brooklyn, the makeup is 48 percent.
The 10 neighborhoods with the largest immigrant populations had stronger economic growth than the rest of the city form 2000 to 2007, according to the report.
During that period, the work force in those neighborhoods grew by 8.2 percent, compared to a work-force growth in the rest of the city of just 0.9 percent.
"New York City remains a beacon of hope and opportunity for immigrants from every nation," said DiNapoli.
The report noted that the number of immigrants in the city's population peaked at 41 percent in 1910 and dropped to a low of just 18 percent in 1970.
Several separate studies have estimated the number of illegal immigrants in the city at 500,000, many of whom are employed off the books. [NY Post]
link, posted at 12:05 AM
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