Publications on Characteristics & Trends

While most evidence suggests that immigration has had a modest negative effect on black employment, especially for those without a high school diploma, changes in immigration law will probably not improve job prospects for young blacks, Senior Fellow Harry Holzer told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He offered six suggestions for policymakers looking to improve outcomes for young African Americans, such as improving their early work experience and occupational training with high-quality career and technical education.

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.

Arkansas, which had the 4th fastest growing immigrant population and fastest growing Latino population of any state between 2000 and 2005, is the subject of this series of reports. Volume 1 provides detailed demographic information about the foreign-born in Arkansas and compares immigrants to natives on a wide variety of quality-of-life measures. It profiles immigrants' countries of birth, legal status, educational attainment, poverty, homeownership, employment, and the primary industries in which they are employed. Volume 2 assesses immigrants' impacts on the Arkansas economy, in terms of consumer spending, tax contributions, fiscal costs, and the savings that businesses and consumers realize by using immigrant labor. An executive summary is also included.

The Hispanic population in Arkansas grew 48 percent between 2000 and 2005, faster than that of any other state, says an Urban Institute study of Arkansas’s immigrants.