Immigrants Keep On Innovating To Keep The Country Going

Small Business Saturday, observed this year on November 29, recognizes the small businesses that are the heart and soul of the American economy. They employ nearly half of all American workers and make up 43.5% of the nation’s GDP, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Since the late 1990’s, small businesses have accounted for between 43.5% and 50.7% of the United States’ gross domestic output (GDP), which equates to trillions of dollars of economic activity.”

And, immigrant-led small businesses have been critical to this massive economic output, because without the skills and entrepreneurial spirit of immigrant business owners, our national economy would be stagnant, local communities would be less vibrant, and Americans less able to experience and enjoy the essential contributions of diverse cultures. Just look at the facts.

Immigrants are natural-born entrepreneurs: Immigrants outpace U.S.-born Americans when it comes to starting a small business, accounting for 30% of all small-business growth. But it’s not just small businesses: foreign-born entrepreneurs are more likely to start companies at all scales, according to one 2022 study from top economists. “Co-authored by an MIT economist, the study finds that, per capita, immigrants are about 80 percent more likely to found a firm, compared to U.S.-born citizens,” MIT News reported in 2022. Altogether, immigrants make up one in five business owners, the New American Economy said in 2019.
Immigrants are job creators, employing millions of American workers: Immigrants are job-stealers? Pfft. Immigrant-led businesses employed nearly eight million Americans, according to further data from the New American Economy. Additionally, the 2022 study cited by MIT News further found that “immigration to the U.S. is associated with a net gain in job availability, contrary to the common perception that immigrants fill jobs that U.S.-born workers would otherwise have.” The study authors say the findings “suggest that immigrants act more as ‘job creators’ than ‘job takers’ and that non-U.S. born founders play outsized roles in U.S. high-growth entrepreneurship.” This likely stems from immigrants creating their own businesses after encountering road blocks in their own job searches. Relatedly, creating a long-overdue pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would add 200,000 new jobs to the economy, as well as “increase Americans’ income by $791 billion and generate $184 billion in additional state and local and federal tax revenue from currently undocumented immigrants,” FWD.us said in a 2020 report.
Immigrant-led businesses have been essential to our economic success: Immigrant entrepreneurs have been a critical component of our nation’s economic growth, boasting $1.3 trillion in total sales, said the New American Economy. But on a more macro level, immigrant entrepreneurs have been credited with revitalizing neighborhoods, in particular in rural areas, by reversing population declines and boosting local economies by opening stores that keep main streets alive, the Center for American Progress said in 2018. “New Caribbean restaurants and food trucks have opened across south Springfield where once abandoned neighborhoods are now bustling with residents,” The Guardian previously reported on Haitian immigrants who now call southwestern Ohio home. “They are entrepreneurs, they want to innovate,” Casey Rollins, executive director of the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Springfield chapter, told The Guardian. “They just work excessively once they are eligible.” In Dayton, Ohio, Dayton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Christina Mendez doubled down, saying “you have to have culture … if you don’t have the things that stand up a culture, then people don’t want to live, work or stay here long-term.”
You can’t have continued economic success without immigrant contributors: The federal government’s projections of future GDP growth will be “unrealistic” under its own immigration policies, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. “If the number of work hours falls because the labor force shrinks, this essentially translates one-for-one into slower aggregate growth,” wrote economist and co-author Josh Bivens. “Policymakers who do not want to see the pace of GDP growth shrink relative to the past history of U.S. growth really only have one option: allowing larger flows of immigration.” Previous research has found that undocumented immigrants contributed an astounding $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Immigrant households overall paid $524.7 billion in total taxes in 2021, “a slight increase since 2019,” Immigration Impact said in 2023. Their contributions benefit all Americans: “Through their tax payments, immigrants play an outsized role in supporting public services like schools and police departments as well as social safety net programs, such as food stamps,” Immigration Impact continued.

Among these immigrant entrepreneurs and contributors are Venezuelan immigrants and Indiana residents Daniela Avila Urdaneta and Anthony Rojas, who transformed an old school bus into Plátanos Venezuelan Food, a mobile restaurant that serves meals of savory shredded beef, rice, beans, fried plantains, and other delights to Hoosiers. Delinec Fernández, another Venezuelan immigrant who also now calls Indiana her home, operates the state’s first Venezuelan bakery just steps away. Sweet Deli Venezuelan Bakery got its start as a way to bring in some income during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Today, the bakery serves not only as a cultural bridge but also as an economic engine,” BORGEN Magazine reported.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, graphic designer Derrick Li struggled to find work in the field after arriving in the United States from China, the San Francisco Examiner reported in June. “A friend helped him find classes at the Charity Culture Services Center where he learned how to bartend which led him to a successful career as a bartender and owner of Blind Pig Speakeasy Lounge,” said the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development and SFGovTV. Today, he’s not only a top-ranking bartender, he owns and operates Blind Pig Speakeasy Lounge.

While the backgrounds and immigration stories of these individuals vary, a common theme unites them: a drive to create community and an unfailing belief in the American Dream. “We wanted Venezuelans to have a space that feels like home,” Fernández said, “but we also wanted to prove that small immigrant businesses can strengthen the local economy.” And when immigrants succeed, America succeeds.