3. Globally-Oriented Communities

Minnesota’s foreign-born residents are a significant and growing economic force, contributing as employers, workers, consumers, and taxpayers. Studies have concluded that the economic benefits of immigration to the region outweighed the costs by a ratio of about 2 to 1.

The success of immigrant entrepreneurs is important to the long term success of their communities. Businesses can help immigrants integrate into the community, contribute to economic growth, create social solidarity within the immigrant community, and provide upward mobility for the second generation. Immigrants and diverse businesses can spearhead economic development as employers, consumers, taxpayers, and workers.

Employers

• Immigrants and the children of immigrants founded 45 percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies, amassing $6.1 trillion in annual revenue in 2018. Placing these figures within the context of the foreign-born population of the United States averaging 10.5 percent since 1850, means immigrant entrepreneurs are overrepresented on the list of founders of Fortune 500 companies.
• From an employment standpoint, immigrant-owned businesses accounted for approximately 6.1 percent of business owners in the Minneapolis/St. Paul/Bloomington metropolitan area, which spans Minnesota and Wisconsin and 24,144 immigrant business owners accounted for 8 percent of all self-employed Minnesota residents in 2015 and generated $489.1 million in business income.
• Immigrant-owned businesses employed over 53,000 people.

Consumers and Taxpayers

• Across the US, immigrants have collectively added $3.7 trillion to US housing wealth, stabilizing neighborhoods that have gone into decline.
• Minnesotans in immigrant-led households had $11.5 billion in spending power (after-tax income) and paid $4.3 billion in taxes.
• Both urban and rural areas benefit from the economic development spurred by immigrants. The taxes paid by undocumented workers, the industries that employ them, and those who provide input products to those industry sums to over a $1 billion a year.

Workers

• Most of Minnesota’s foreign-born residents are working-age adults between the ages of 18 and 65 who counterbalance the trend of Minnesota’s general population toward a higher proportion of older adults who are not of working age. 303,078 immigrant workers comprised 10 percent of the labor force in 2015.
• In terms of education and skills, immigrant workers are concentrated at the very-low and very-high skill ends of the spectrum: 25.8 percent of the state’s foreign-born adults lack a high school degree (compared to just 5.2 percent of native-born adults), while 32.8 percent hold a 4-year college, graduate, or professional degree (compared to 34.9 percent of the native born population). The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce reports that many of the state’s low-skill immigrants are currently working labor-intensive, low-paying jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, and a variety of service industries. The Chamber is concerned that without an expanded immigrant labor force, key industries will be unable to find the workers they need. Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development also projected that the industries expected to see the most growth between 2006 and 2016 would be concentrated in both high-skill and low-skill fields.

• Learn about your community’s global connections.
• Visit immigrant and minority businesses and connect with the owners.
• Provide easy and affordable access to an international airport.
• Take advantage of opportunities to transform places into global gateways, such as ethnic food markets.
• Create spaces for diverse businesses to flourish.