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 Northeast Ohio paid over $1.5 billion in taxes and held $3.9 billion in spending power in 2019. The new report, New Americans in Northeast Ohio and Cuyahoga County, was prepared in partnership with Global Cleveland.

This report also features profiles of two Northeast Ohio residents: Su He and Sudhir Achar.

Between 2014 and 2019 the region’s population decreased by 0.4 percent, while the immigrant population grew by 7.3 percent. Without growth in the immigrant population, the total population in Northeast Ohio would have decreased even more, by 0.8 percent. In 2019 alone, immigrants in Northeast Ohio held $3.9 billion in spending power, and paid $1 billion in federal taxes and $520.8 million in state and local taxes. Despite making up 5.7 percent of the region’s overall population, immigrants represent 15.9 percent of agriculture and forestry workers, 8.7 percent of manufacturing workers, and 7.2 percent of education workers.

Key Findings

• Immigrants play a particularly significant role in Northeast Ohio as they are bringing much-needed talent. In 2019, 40.8 percent of immigrants aged 25 and above held at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 30.5 percent of the U.S.-born population in the region. 21.4 percent of immigrants held an advanced degree, compared with 11.3 percent of the U.S.-born population in the region.

• Immigrant households support the federal safety net. The foreign-born in Northeast Ohio contributed over $482 million to Social Security and over $133 million to Medicare in 2019.

• Immigrants play a particularly significant role in the region’s entrepreneurs. Immigrants represented 8.1 percent of the business owners in Northeast Ohio in 2019. About 8,300 immigrant entrepreneurs generated $204.8 million in business income.

• Immigrants in Northeast Ohio 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 7,200 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.