Immigrants play critical role to Michigan’s growth: Report

By Arun Kumar

Immigrants contributed 67.8 billion, or 9.9 percent, to the state’s GDP in 2022

Immigrants including those from India play a crucial role in Michigan’s population growth, labor force, business creation, and consumer spending power, according to new report released by the American Immigration Council.

Over the past decade, Michigan’s immigrant population grew by more than 87,000 Michigan residents, accounting for 57.7 % of the state’s population growth, says the report released in partnership with the Michigan Global Talent Coalition.

As of 2022 there were over 687,000 New Americans in Michigan, making up 6.9% of the state’s population. Immigrants represented 8.4% of Michigan’s working age population and employed labor force.

The top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (13% of immigrants), India (11%), Iraq (10%), China (5%), and Canada (5%) in 2020.

In 2022 alone, immigrants in the state held $23.1 billion in spending power, paid $5.5 billion in federal taxes, and paid $2.6 billion in state and local taxes.

In that same year, immigrants were 24.1% more likely to be of working age than their US-born counterparts, allowing them to actively participate in the labor force and contribute to the economy as taxpayers and consumers.

The report was released at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s 2024 Mackinac Policy Conference, which gathers the state’s business, economic, political and community leaders to discuss critical issues under the theme of “Bridging the Future Together.”

“The findings of this report document the value and importance of immigration and immigrants’ economic contributions to Michigan,” stated Jeremy Robbins, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council.

“The fact that immigration is responsible for the majority of Michigan’s population growth is typical for states across the Midwest and Northeast and much of the country. We hope policymakers and business leaders can use this data to properly contextualize hiring, talent attraction and retention, workforce development, and economic development in public policy decisions,” Robbins added.

“This report emphasizes prior research and reports centering on Michigan’s population challenges. A Michigan population strategy without an immigration strategy is akin to developing a Michigan economic strategy that would ignore automobiles, manufacturing and agriculture,” said Steve Tobocman, Executive Director of Global Detroit, a member organization of the Michigan Global Talent Coalition.

“Immigration has been the single biggest driver of population growth in Michigan for 30 years, and all of the prior research on this topic acknowledges that reality. It’s absolutely imperative for policy leaders to invest in what has proven to be our strongest asset in fighting population loss and economic stagnation–our immigrant workforce. The data doesn’t lie,” he emphasized.

Key findings:
Immigrants are crucial to addressing Michigan’s population challenges. In 2023, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer created the nation’s first Chief Growth Officer within state government to focus efforts to grow Michigan’s population, economy, and reputation as the best place to live, work, raise a family, and start a business. The Governor also commissioned the Growing Michigan Together Council to tackle these issues and set the state up for long-term success.

Contributions of New Americans in Michigan shows that immigrants are vital to this work and were the source of 57.7% of the state’s population growth over the last decade.

Immigrants are helping the state meet crucial labor force demands. In 2022, immigrants represented 18.6% of Michigan’s workers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, despite only comprising 6.9% of the state’s total population.

Immigrants comprised 28.2% of all the software developers and 24.3% of the mechanical engineers working in Michigan.

Immigrants launch businesses that create jobs and contribute to our economy. In 2022, there were 46,200 immigrant entrepreneurs whose businesses generated $1.4 billion in business income.

The report profiles two of those entrepreneurs: Manish Senta owner of TekWissen, an IT consulting and staffing firm in Ann Arbor and Bing Goei, owner of Eastern Floral in Grand Rapids.