New research from  New American Economy shows that immigrants held 7.3 percent of all spending power in the Lubbock Metro Area. The report, New Americans in Lubbock, was prepared in partnership with the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce. 

In addition to their financial contributions, which included paying $107.8 million in federal taxes and $46.7 million in state and local taxes, the report highlights how immigrants fill crucial workforce gaps. Although the foreign-born population made up 6.4 percent of the metro area’s overall population, they represented 8.3 percent of its working-age population. 

Immigrants in the Lubbock Metro Area also helped strengthen the local job market by helping to preserve or create 900 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere by 2019.

Key Findings: 

• Immigrants are driving population growth. Between 2014 and 2019, the population in the metro area increased by 5.8 percent, and the immigrant population increased by 13.8 percent. Growth in the foreign-born population accounted for 14.2 percent of the overall population growth during that period.
• Immigrants play an outsize role in entrepreneurship. Despite making up 6.4 percent of the overall population, immigrants made up 7.7 percent of the entrepreneurs in the metro area in 2019. 
• Immigrants are helping the metro area meet its growing labor needs. Immigrants had an outsize impact on key industries vital to the economic stability of the Lubbock Metro Area. Despite making up 6.4 percent of the overall population, immigrants accounted for 26.7 percent of general services workers, 16.3 percent of construction workers, and 11.6 percent of education workers.

The report is based on NAE’s analysis of microdata from 5-year samples of the American Community Survey from 2014 and 2019 and figures refer to the Lubbock Metropolitan Area. Click here to read the full report, New Americans in Lubbock.

To read the press release, click here.