By Karen Aho, Robin Lundh, and Anna Shepperson
This year, as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to deport millions of immigrants, it’s important to understand the contributions that immigrants make to our economy and social wellbeing.
The American Immigration Council’s annual analysis of the American Community Survey, which updates national and state-level data from the Council’s Map the Impact tool, finds that in 2023 one out of every seven Americans—47.8 million people—were immigrants. That’s a 6.8% increase from 2018.
While immigrants comprised 14.3% of the population in 2023, they accounted for almost two-fifths of the country’s five-year population growth. That’s because the U.S.-born population, suffering from low fertility rates and an aging populace, grew at a rate of just 1.7%. This shows just how vital immigrants are to the U.S. population.
In fact, without immigrants, the populations of New York, Connecticut, and Maryland would have declined, and those of California, Illinois, Louisiana, and West Virginia would have decreased by an even larger margin. When states lose residents, they risk losing political representation, government funding, and workers and taxpayers—all crucial to a healthy economy.
Immigrants help offset the graying of America
America is facing an aging crisis. The number of Americans over the age of 65 is expected to reach 80 million by 2040, a 30% increase in just 20 years, with the number of those over age 84 expected to more than double during the same period, to 15 million.
Meanwhile, the share of working-age Americans needed to support them has been declining, particularly among the U.S.-born. The share of the U.S.-born who were between the ages of 16 and 64 dropped from 61.7% in 2018 to 60.9% in 2023. By contrast, in 2023, 77.1% of immigrants, or 36.9 million people, were between the ages of 16 and 64.
As more Americans elect to age at home, home healthcare aides are already in critically short supply. By 2032, the United States is expected to be short 4.6 million home care workers, leaving millions of Americans without the vital care they need. Without immigrants, the situation would be far more dire.
Immigrants comprised 28.4% of the nation’s health aides (including home health aides, nursing assistants, and more) and 15.9% of its nurses in 2023. Already strained by staffing shortages, some states are bracing for worse if immigrant workers are deported. In Hawaii, the immigrant share of health aides increased from 41.4% in 2018 to 50.9% in 2023. In Georgia, the immigrant share of nurses rose from 10.9% to 15.7%.
Immigrant tax contributions
Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, help businesses fill positions vacated by retirees, and their taxes help fund the government social programs upon which those retirees depend.
In 2023, 24.7% of immigrants were undocumented, and 89.4% of undocumented immigrants were between the ages of 16 and 64. They comprised 4.9% of the U.S. labor force, and more than 5% of the labor force in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Texas, and Washington
Undocumented immigrants in essential industries
Undocumented immigrant workers play an outsize role in essential industries—think food and housing—that are plagued by workforce shortages.
In agriculture, for example, where labor shortages continually jeopardize production, undocumented workers comprised 15.1% of the total workforce in 2023 and much of the physically arduous jobs, such as graders and sorters (37.0% are undocumented) and miscellaneous agricultural workers, including crop workers (28.9% are undocumented).
The construction industry, which will need nearly half a million new workers this year to meet demand, already relies on 1.6 million undocumented immigrant workers—14.1% of its workforce in 2023.
With the majority of restaurants and hotels continuing to report staffing shortages, the hospitality industry employed 1.1 million undocumented immigrants, constituting 7.6% of its workforce.
Contributions of refugees and TPS holders
While it’s undocumented immigrants who are now targeted with mass deportation, refugees and people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) are also being ensnared in the Trump administration’s indiscriminate attacks.
On his first day in office, President Trump tried to halt refugee admissions through an executive order. Weeks later, the Department of Homeland Security announced the revocation of TPS deportation protection for Haitians and Venezuelans. Just as with undocumented immigrants, these efforts ignore the significant contributions these individuals make to the U.S. economy and their communities.
In 2023, refugees comprised 4.6% of the immigrant population. Of these 2.2 million refugees, most had been here for many years; 85.5% were naturalized citizens. While refugees and asylees typically cost the federal government money during the first months of resettlement, their economic contributions ultimately generate tens of billions of dollars in tax revenues at all levels of government, more than making up for those early expenditures. In 2023, refugees paid $31.2 billion in combined federal, state, and local taxes, and held $83.8 billion in spending power, money they spend on housing, food, and supplies in their communities.
The same is true for TPS holders, who have temporary protection to stay and work in the United States while their homeland is considered unsafe to return to due to natural disaster or armed conflict. Analyzing just the 2023 estimates of all eligible TPS holders reveals the significant contributions this group makes.
Of the 696,900 TPS holders in the United States that year, 95.5% were employed. They paid $5.2 billion in taxes and held $16.9 billion in spending power. About one-third of all TPS holders lived in Florida, followed by Texas, California, and New York. In Florida alone, TPS holders paid $485.9 million in state and local taxes, money that helps fund education, infrastructure, and other vital services.
Threatening “the outsider” may stoke the crowds or even win votes, but deporting immigrants and restricting immigration in general—in addition to being obscenely expensive to the taxpayer—does nothing to help the average American worried about the price of eggs or the ability to care for a loved one. As this and years of independent research has affirmed, not only do immigrants have lower crime rates than the U.S.-born, but they are also essential to providing the food, housing, and healthcare that all Americans need.
FILED UNDER: population growth, taxes
