New York Economy Gets Most Help From Immigrants, Study Finds

NEW YORK, NY — New York's economy gets a bigger boost from immigrants than any other state despite President Donald Trump's efforts to limit immigration, a study published Tuesday says.

The state has the nation's third-largest immigrant population but ranks first in terms of the economic impact of immigration, the personal finance website WalletHub found.

New York gets the nation's second-largest benefit from highly skilled immigrants and the third-largest benefit from the size of its immigrant workforce and its international student population, the study says. The overall socioeconomic impact of immigrants in the state ranks fourth in the nation.

Some 27.5 percent of New York's workers were born in foreign countries, the third-largest share in the nation. The state particularly benefits from its large populations of international students and skilled workers from other countries, WalletHub found.

Foreign-born people make up 30.6 percent of the state's workforce in science, technology, engineering and math fields, a share that's tied for the largest in the nation, the study says.

International students are responsible for creating 0.61 percent of the state's jobs, the study says, a proportion also tied for first in the nation despite its small size.

Immigrants or their children founded about 59 percent of New York's Fortune 500 companies (No. 8 in the nation), and about 22 percent of those companies' CEOs come from foreign countries (No. 4 in the nation).

New York is also home to 507 immigrants with H1-B visas per 100,000 people, the 10th-highest number in the nation. The U.S. gives those visas to people coming to the U.S. for a job in so-called specialty fields such as the sciences, law and business.

WalletHub's study draws on U.S. Census data as well as figures from other government agencies, education groups and immigration advocacy groups.

Some academic studies have shown that immigration, particularly illegal immigration, depresses wages for low-skill American workers. The Trump administration cited that argument last year as it has moved to slow immigration and prioritize the entry of skilled workers.

But the argument obscures the broader impacts immigrants have on each states' economy, and the fact that many are pursuing higher-education degrees, experts told WalletHub. While immigrants may decrease wages in some fields, they also benefit employers and consumers by bringing down costs, said John S.W. Park, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"To simplify this dynamic, and to blame those low-wage immigrants, is to miss that essential point for self-serving reasons," Park told WalletHub. "It's to deny the extent to which we're dependent on these folks and their labor."

(Lead image: The sun sets behind the Statue of Liberty on Jan. 23. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)