Businesses Owned By Immigrants On The Rise
Wed, Jul 25 9:02 AM
A new report sheds light on an aspect of immigration that isn't always been taken into consideration: business owners. The Fiscal Policy Institute's Immigration Research Initiative shows that one in six small business owners in the United States is an immigrant.
The source reported that immigrant business owners make up 18 percent of the country's population, a considerably high figure when compared to the fact that small businesses make up 30 percent of the United States' economy.
According to the EGPNews, James Parrott, chief economist and deputy director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, said that the types of businesses that immigrants own range from healthcare facilities to grocery stores and car dealerships.
One area in the country that has seen a boom in small businesses owned by immigrants is Metro Orlando. According to the Immigration Research Initiative, the number of immigrant-owned small businesses in Metro Orlando has risen 13 percent since 1990, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The report shows that in 2007, businesses owned by immigrants were responsible for employing 35 million people in the United States.
Many experts agree that these numbers may help U.S. born individuals look past stereotypes of immigrant residents. The figures may even prompt change in the policies surrounding green cards and U.S. visas in the future.
"People often seem to have the misimpression that immigrants are taking jobs from U.S.-born workers,'' David Dyssegaard Kallick a senior fellow for the Fiscal Policy Institute, told the Sentinel, "and are puzzled by economic research that consistently shows that that's not the case for most workers."
