New Americans in the Bay State

The Political and Economic Power of Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in Massachusetts.

Immigrants and their children are growing shares of Massachusetts’s population and electorate.

• The foreign-born share of Massachusetts’s population rose from 9.5% in 1990 [1], to 12.2% in 2000 [1], to 14.4% in 2008 [2], according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Massachusetts was home to 937,200 immigrants in 2008 [2], which is more than the total population of San Francisco, California [3].

• 49.0% of immigrants (or 459,123 people) in Massachusetts were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2008 [2]—meaning that they are eligible to vote.

• 12.7% (or 403,915) of registered voters in Massachusetts were “New Americans”—naturalized citizens or the U.S.-born children of immigrants who were raised during the current era of immigration from Latin America and Asia which began in 1965—according to an analysis of 2006 Census Bureau data by Rob Paral & Associates [4].

Roughly 1 in 7 Bay Staters are Latino or Asian—and they vote.

• The Latino share of Massachusetts’s population grew from 4.8% in 1990 [5], to 6.8% in 2000 [5], to 8.6% (or 558,825 people) in 2008 [2].  The Asian share of the population grew from 2.4% in 1990 [6], to 3.8% in 2000 [6], to 5.0% (or 324,898 people) in 2008 [2], according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

• Latinos accounted for 2.5% (or 77,000) of Massachusetts voters in the 2008 elections, and Asians 2.5% (76,000), according to the U.S. Census Bureau [7].

• In Massachusetts, more than four in five (or 86% of) children in immigrant families were U.S. citizens in 2007 [8], according to the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at the University of Albany.

Latino and Asian entrepreneurs and consumers add tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to the Massachusetts economy.

• The 2009 purchasing power of Asians in Massachusetts totaled $12.7 billion—an increase of 494.8% since 1990.  Latino buying power totaled $12.4 billion—an increase of 381.5% since 1990, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth [9] at the University of Georgia.

• Massachusetts’s 18,081 Asian-owned [10] businesses had sales and receipts of $5.0 billion and employed 37,193 people in 2002, the last year for which data is available.  The state’s 15,933 Latino-owned [11] businesses had sales and receipts of $2.1 billion and employed 15,319 people in 2002, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners.

Immigrants are integral to Massachusetts’s economy as workers and taxpayers.

• Immigrants comprised 17.3% of the state’s workforce in 2008 [2] (or 626,751 workers), according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

• Immigrants accounted for 16% of total economic output in the Boston metropolitan area as of 2007, according to a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute [12].  In fact, “immigrants contribute to the economy in direct relation to their share of the population.  The economy of metro areas grows in tandem with the immigrant share of the labor force.”

• Immigrant-headed households in Massachusetts paid $1.2 billion in state income taxes in 2005 [13], according to a report by the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

• Immigrant-headed households in Massachusetts paid $346 million in sales and excise taxes in 2006 [13] and nearly $1.1 billion in local property taxes in 2007 [13], according to the same study.

• Unauthorized immigrants comprised 4.3% of the state’s workforce (or 140,000 workers) in 2008 [14], according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

• If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Massachusetts, the state would lose $12.0 billion in economic activity, $5.3 billion in gross state product, and approximately 55,467 jobs, even accounting for adequate market adjustment time, according to a report by the Perryman Group [15].

Immigrants are integral to Massachusetts’s economy as students.

• Massachusetts’s 33,838 foreign students contributed $1.1 billion to the state’s economy in tuition, fees, and living expenses for the 2008-2009 academic year, according to the NAFSA: Association of International Educators [16].

Immigrants excel educationally.

• The number of immigrants in Massachusetts with a college degree increased by 44.4% between 2000 and 2008, according to data [17] from the Migration Policy Institute.

• In Massachusetts, 80.0% of all children between the ages of 5 and 17 in families that spoke a language other than English at home also spoke English “very well” as of 2008 [17].

UPDATED: JULY 2010

Published On: Wed, Jan 20, 2010 | Download File [18]