Immigrants produced 5% of income in Arkansas, more likely to be entrepreneurial, study says

Legal immigrants make up 4.8% of Arkansas’ population but compose 6.6% of its entrepreneurs and earned $3.2 billion in income in 2014, according to a newly released study by the Partnership for a New American Economy.

The study, “The Contributions of New Americans in Arkansas,” found that 8,102 immigrants in Arkansas are self-employed, generating $139.3 million in business income in 2014 and employing 17,367 Arkansans in 2007, excluding those working at large, publicly owned firms.

The study found that immigrant-led households in Arkansas earned $3.2 billion in 2014, almost 5% of all income earned that year. Immigrants had $2.3 billon in spending power, meaning net income after taxes. They contributed $291.1 million in state and local taxes  and paid $614.4 million in federal taxes, including $87.5 million to Medicare and $324.7 million to Social Security, the study said.

The Partnership says it is composed of more than 500 Republican, Democratic and independent mayors and business leaders who support immigration reform. The group is launching a Reason for Reform campaign.

The study references a report by the Kauffman Foundation that found immigrants in 2015 were almost twice as likely to start a business as people born in America. About one in 10 American workers at private firms are employed at companies founded by immigrants.

Arkansas today is home to more than 143,000 immigrants, or 5% of the population, compared to 13% nationally, though the immigrant population is growing faster in Arkansas (7.9%) than nationally (5.8%), the study said. While immigrants compose 5% of the state’s population, they compose 7% of its employees.

The study found that the percentage of Arkansans who are immigrants has increased significantly in recent years, from 1.1% in 1990, when only 25,000 immigrants lived here, to 4.8% in 2014. Between 2010 and 2014, while the native-born population was growing 1.2 percent, the foreign-born population grew 7.9%. Meanwhile, 41,000 immigrants, or 28.6% of the immigrant population, have become naturalized citizens. That rate is much lower than the national rate of 47%. However, 50,666 immigrants, or 50% of Arkansas’ non-citizen population, are eligible to become citizens, the study said.

The study said that while 41.8% of the native-born population in Arkansas worked in 2014, 61.8% of immigrants were working. Immigrants are more likely to be working age (74.2%) than the native population (49.%) – a gap that’s larger than the national average. Immigrants are 2.2 times more likely to have less than a high school education but 43.1% more likely to hold a graduate degree. Foreign-born workers composed 21.5% of the state’s physicians and surgeons and 10.6% of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) employees.

In Arkansas, about 5,000 international students are studying using temporary visas. While those students represent only 3.4% of all the state’s college students, they composed roughly one in five Arkansas students earning a STEM master’s degree in 2014, and 46.6% of those earning a STEM doctorate. However, many of them struggle to remain in the country once they graduate.

In addition, the study estimates that Arkansas is home to 69,368 undocumented immigrants and 3,444 undocumented entrepreneurs. In 2014, about 6.2% of the state’s working-age undocumented immigrants were self-employed. Undocumented immigrants earned $918 million in income in 2014, the study estimated, and paid $8 million in state and local taxes and $65.6 million in federal taxes.