New research from New American Economy, New Americans in Waco, shows that immigrants held 8.8 percent of all spending power in the Waco Metro Area. 

In addition to their financial contributions, which included paying $72.5 million in federal taxes and $48.8 million in state and local taxes, the report highlights how immigrants fill crucial workforce gaps. Although the foreign-born population made up 8.7 percent of the metro area’s overall population, they represented 11.9 percent of its working-age population. 

Immigrants in the Waco Metro Area also helped strengthen the local job market by helping to preserve or create 1,100 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 4.6 percent, and the immigrant population increased by 7.9 percent. Growth in the foreign-born population accounted for 14.5 percent of the overall population growth during that period.
• Immigrants play an outsize role in entrepreneurship. Despite making up 8.7 percent of the overall population, immigrants made up 14.4 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 Waco Metro Area. Despite making up 8.7 percent of the overall population, immigrants accounted for 37 percent of construction workers, 17.4 percent of manufacturing workers, and 14.9 percent of hospitality 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 Waco Metropolitan Area. Click here to read the full report, New Americans in Waco.

To read the press release, click here.