Immigrants in Long Island, NY are pulling their weight in the economy
The Long Island railroad at the Bethpage station in Long Island, NY, where about a third of all immigrants are Hispanic (Getty Images)
By MARIANA CRISTANCHO-AHN
Channel: Economics, Immigration
The economic contributions of immigrants in Long Island, NY are proportional to their number, according to a recent study from the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI).
The study, named “New Americans on Long Island: A Vital Sixth of the Economy,” used data from the 2009 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau. Among some of its findings, the study shows that immigrants, documented and undocumented, make up 16% of Long Island’s population, and they account for 17% of the economic output.
“I believe it’s time to turn the page regarding the immigration debate in Long Island,” said David Dyssegaard Kallick, researcher at the FPI and lead author of the study, according to an article in Impremedia’s Diario La Prensa. “People believe they know everything they need to know about immigration when they drive through a place where there are day laborers. There are 462,000 immigrants in Long Island and [day laborers] are a small fraction of them.”
About a third of all immigrants in Long Island are Hispanic. Hispanics from Central America have emerged as the biggest group of new immigrants in Long Island. Immigrants from El Salvador were the largest immigrant group, increasing their ranks by 27% to nearly 56,000 between 2000 and 2009. After El Salvador, the largest immigrant groups are from India, Italy, Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
Source: The Wall Street Journal.
El Salvador’s civil war during the 1980s and early 1990s fueled a wave of immigration, according to Patrick Young, an attorney with the Central America Refugee Center.
“There is almost no village on Long Island that doesn’t have a small population of Salvadorans,” he said.
According to the report the economic contributions of the immigrants in Long Island are driven by three factors.
First, immigrants are far more widely spread across the economic spectrum. More than half (54% ) of the immigrants in Long Island work in white collar jobs, while the other half work in blue-collar jobs, low-wage service jobs, farming, fishing, or forestry occupations.
Second, immigrants are more likely to be in prime working age (16 to 64 years old) compared to their U.S. born counterparts. This is true throughout the United States, according to the study.
Third, immigrants are more entrepreneurial than those born in the United States. About 22% of all the small businesses located in Long Island are owned by immigrants.“Of the 53,000 small businesses located on Long Island, 15,000 are owned by immigrants, generating profits of $804 million or 16% of the small business profits,” according to the report.
Some experts praise the report.
“I think the report debunks the popular stereotypes of Long Island immigrants,” said Pearl Kamer, chief economist of the Long Island Association. Much of the political discussion around immigration on Long Island focuses on illegal immigration and ignores contributions made by foreign-born residents, she added.
But others criticize it. “It doesn’t … determine the costs of services that immigrants use in the economy,” said Seth Forman, of the Long Island Regional Planning Council. The report also doesn’t distinguish between new immigrants and those who arrived in the country decades ago, Mr. Forman said. “I think that most people are concerned about present day immigration,” he added.
