Immigrant Daily

Immigrants (Legal and Undocumented) Contribute $700 Billion to U.S. Economy

The Center for American Progress has come out with some interesting facts and figures on contributions made and likely to be made by the Immigrants in the United States. According to it, the immigrants in the United States contribute $80,000 more per capita in taxes then they consume in government services. They are also engines of job creation. For example, immigrants are significantly more likely to be engaged in entrepreneurial activity than native-born Americans and finally, immigrants – legal and undocumented alike – are estimated to generate approximately $700 billion in economic activity or 5.4 percent of the country’s GDP – a figure that outdistances the GDP contribution of all but four states in the union.
The Center for American Progress has strongly felt that there is a need of comprehensive immigration reform which should be a vehicle for creating more permanent legal immigration into the United States by individuals from across the socioeconomic spectrum. Doing this, according to the Center, would not only conform to the American traditional values but it is an economic imperative.
The Center also opined that the current immigration system which classifies visas primarily into two, based upon ‘education’ and ‘family’ is too narrow and forces us into a false choice between highly educated and family based forms of immigration. Hence, the Center for American Progress has mooted the idea of comprehensive reforms in American Immigration System that would lessen the availability of choices for those seeking to immigrate to the U.S.