- Fact Sheet
New Americans in Greater Salem
Published
New research from the American Immigration Council shows that immigrants in Greater Salem paid over $200 million in taxes and held over $536 million in spending power in 2019. The new report, New Americans in Greater Salem, was prepared in partnership with The Welcome Immigrant Network (WIN) and the City of Salem.
The report also features two profiles of community members: Carmen Tejeda, Darguin Fortuna, Laurier Hamidou Tabayi, and Wangari Fahari.
Between 2014 and 2019, the population of Greater Salem—including Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, and Salem, Massachusetts—increased by 2.6 percent and the immigrant population grew by 2.7 percent. During this same period, 10.5 percent of total population growth in the county was attributable to immigrants. In 2019 alone, immigrants in the county held $536.9 million in spending power, paid $144.9 million in federal taxes, and paid $64.3 million in state and local taxes.
The report was produced as part of the Council’s and Welcoming America’s Gateways for Growth Challenge, which includes tailored research on the local immigrant population.
For more information, see our press release.
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Immigrants are helping the region meet its labor force demands. In 2019, immigrants made up 10.0 percent of the county’s population but accounted for 11.4 percent of its employed labor force.
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Immigrants are helping the Greater Salem region meet its rising labor needs in key industries. While making up 10.0 percent of the region’s overall population in 2019, immigrants represented 19.8 percent of manufacturing workers, 18.3 percent of STEM workers, 15.3 percent of construction workers, and 13.5 percent of health care and social assistance workers.
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Immigrants in Greater Salem 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 800 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise been eliminated or moved elsewhere by 2019.
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Immigrants play a significant role in the region as entrepreneurs. Immigrants represented 14.3 percent of business owners in Greater Salem in 2019. Approximately 1,400 immigrant entrepreneurs generated $41.5 million in business income for Greater Salem.
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Immigrants support the federal safety net. Immigrants contributed $70.1 million to Social Security and $20.0 million to Medicare in Greater Salem in 2019.