Partnership for a New American Economy

Bloomberg
June 14, 2012

Immigrants own almost one of every five of the small businesses in the U.S., accounting for more than their share of the nation’s total population, according to a report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.

The study released today found that immigrants own 18 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 people working for them, while U.S. residents born outside the country account for 13 percent of the nation’s population, based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey.

The number of small businesses climbed to 4.9 million in 2010, a 58 percent increase from 3.1 million in 1990, when immigrants owned 12 percent of such companies, the Fiscal Policy Institute found. They were responsible for 538,551 new small businesses during the two decades, or about one-third of the total created in that period, the Latham, New York-based research organization reported.

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