In January 2022, NAE merged with the American Immigration Council to combine a broad suite of advocacy tools to better expand and protect the rights of immigrants, more fully ensure immigrants’ ability to succeed economically, and help make the communities they settle in more welcoming.

New research from New American Economy shows that immigrants in Montgomery County paid over $219 million in taxes and held over $562 million in spending power in 2019. The new report, New Americans in Montgomery County and the City of Dayton, was prepared in partnership with the City of Dayton Human Relations Council (HRC). 

The report also features profiles of four Montgomery County residents: Eugenie Kirenga, Juan Arias, Mohamed Al-Hamdani, and Yonathan Kebede. 

Between 2014 and 2019 the Montgomery County population decreased by 0.5 percent, while the immigrant population grew by 21.6 percent. Without growth in the immigrant population, the total population in Montgomery County would have decreased even more, by 1.3 percent. In 2019 alone, immigrants in Montgomery County held $562.4 million in spending power, and paid over $144 million in federal taxes and over $75 million in state and local taxes. Despite making up 4.8 percent of Montgomery County’s overall population, immigrants represent 8.3 percent of manufacturing workers, 8.2 percent of hospitality workers, and 7.7 percent of transportation and warehousing workers.

Key Findings:

• Immigrants are helping Montgomery County meet its labor force demands. ​​Although the foreign-born made up 4.8 percent of the county’s overall population, they represented 6.0 percent of its working-age population and 5.8 percent of its employed labor force. They represented 8 percent of food service workers, 7.7 percent of transportation and warehousing workers, and 6.1 percent of healthcare workers — all critical industries that have been essential during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Immigrants are helping Montgomery County meet its rising labor in STEM and key industries. Immigrants accounted for 10.9 percent of the county’s science technology, engineering, and math workers.
• Immigrant households support the federal safety net. The foreign-born contributed over $74 million to Social Security and over $19 million to Medicare in 2019. 
• Immigrants play a particularly significant role in Montgomery County as entrepreneurs.  In 2019, immigrants represented 7.1 percent of the business owners in Montgomery County in 2019, and about 1,100 immigrants worked for their own businesses and generated $38.9 million in business income.
• Immigrants in Montgomery County help create or preserve local manufacturing jobs. Immigrants strengthened the local job market by allowing companies to keep jobs on U.S. soil, helping preserve or create 1,200 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere by 2019.

The report was produced as part of NAE’s and Welcoming America’s Gateways for Growth Challenge, which includes tailored research on the local immigrant population.

Read the full press release here.