Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Karina Fortuny on Economic and Social Impacts

This brief summarizes the contribution of immigrants to Maryland's workforce and trends in the workforce between 2000 and 2006. Maryland's immigrant workers are unusually highly educated and work in key skilled industries such as healthcare, information technology and the sciences. However, there are also large numbers of immigrant workers with low educational attainment and English proficiency—they largely work in construction, agriculture, and services. Education, English language, and job training programs if properly tailored to immigrants' and employers' needs could potentially raise the incomes of immigrant workers and increase their tax contributions to the state.

The paper explores the financial well-being and economic integration of immigrant groups compared with native-born minorities and whites in vulnerable urban neighborhoods. Among the main findings from the analysis is that immigrants and native minorities in the neighborhoods we examine face similar types of economic difficulties. However, after controlling for citizenship, English proficiency, educational attainment, and having a driver’s license and a reliable car, many of the economic disadvantages disappear for immigrant groups, but not for native-born minorities. These findings suggest that even in tough neighborhoods, the potential for economic integration of immigrants is strong.

This report hopes to fill some of the knowledge gaps in the current immigration debate by describing the unauthorized population nationally and in California and Los Angeles—the state and urban area with the largest numbers of these immigrants. Unauthorized immigrants numbered 2.45 million in California in 2004, representing almost one-quarter (24 percent) of the nation's total (10.3 million). There are about 1 million unauthorized immigrants in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, almost twice the number of any other metro area; the unauthorized are one-tenth of the area's population (10 million). The report presents findings about these populations, including their socio-economic characteristics, such as national origin, education, employment, and poverty.

As Congress debates the fate of more than 10 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, their impact on the U.S. low-skilled labor force is an important consideration. In 2005, immigrants overall represented more than a fifth of low-wage workers—those earning less than twice the minimum wage—and almost half of workers without a high school education. Unauthorized workers were nearly a tenth of low-wage workers and a quarter of low-skilled workers. The number of low-wage and low-skilled native-born workers fell between 2000 and 2005, due to improvements in their educational attainment but also due to decreasing labor force participation. This report, underwritten by the Hitachi Foundation, describes recent trends in the immigrant labor force and their implications for the U.S. economy.

In 2004 there were about 50,000 immigrants in the Louisville metropolitan area, representing 4.5 percent of the area’s population. Louisville, like other Southeastern cities, has a relatively small but rapidly growing foreign-born population. But Louisville’s immigrants are more diverse than elsewhere in the Southeast: higher shares are from African and Asian, and a lower share from Latin America. Louisville also has a lower share of undocumented immigrants and a higher share of refugees, due to a large and successful resettlement program. Louisville’s immigrants—which make up an increasing component of the labor force in sectors such as manufacturing, retail and health care—are also relatively well educated compared to the nationwide foreign-born population. This report, sponsored by the Louisville Metro Office for International Affairs, describes characteristics and trends in the city’s international population, and makes recommendations for the future successful integration.

The current great wave of immigration has led to a rapid rise in the share of U.S. children with immigrant parents, from 6 percent in 1970 to over 20 percent today. Three quarters of these children are Latino or Asian, and they are disproportionately low-income despite the high work effort of their parents. This report assesses how the changing demographics of the low-income child population are affecting child and family policies, drawing on findings from more than a dozen Assessing the New Federalism studies. Patterns and trends in child poverty, economic hardship, receipt of public benefits, health insurance coverage, and child care arrangements are discussed. The report includes recommendations for improving access to needed benefits and services for immigrants' children, and also discusses the implications of various immigration reform proposals pending in the U.S. Congress for their well being.

This report discusses the diversity of Connecticut's immigrants, their participation in the labor force, and their access to health care. Connecticut's economy is attracting large numbers of both high- and low-skilled immigrants. Some immigrants-especially Asians-are better educated and out-earn U.S.-born workers, while others--particularly Latinos--are poorer and earn much less. Over 40 percent of Latino non-citizens and a quarter of their children are uninsured. While HUSKY--the state's Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program--covers many immigrant parents and their children, confusion about eligibility and application barriers deter participation. The report offers recommendations to improve health care access for immigrants and their children.