{"id":301278,"date":"2026-10-07T03:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T03:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/301278\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T03:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T03:16:08","slug":"new-report-details-the-impact-immigrants-have-on-philadelphias-population-and-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/301278\/","title":{"rendered":"New report details the impact immigrants have on Philadelphia\u2019s population and economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

How important has immigration been to Southeastern Pennsylvania\u2019s economic dynamism, prosperity and workforce? An updated report<\/a> released this week by The Welcoming Center \u2013 a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that provides job resources for immigrants \u2013 answers this question by quantifying new Americans\u2019 impact \u2013 through the $724 million in property taxes that immigrant homeowners paid in 2024, for example, and their $60 billion in home equity.<\/p>\n

Other key numbers in the \u201cBuilding Collective Prosperity\u201d report hint at a sobering possible future: Without immigration, Philadelphia\u2019s population would have decreased by nearly 90,000 since 2020. Since \u201cwe have effectively stopped legal immigration to this country,\u201d the region\u2019s population \u2013 and, by extension, its workforce and overall economic dynamism \u2013 may be in peril, said Welcoming Center President and CEO Anuj Gupta.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur collective prosperity \u2026 is inextricably tied to immigration, and that\u2019s for better or worse,\u201d Gupta told City & State on Tuesday. \u201cWhen you eyeball all the trajectories, economic and population, that the region has gone through over the last 15 years, the only reason we are still a large regional economy and that we are competitive with other regions is because of our emergence as an immigrant destination \u2013 which we were not 25 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gupta noted that immigration in the five-county Greater Philadelphia region peaked \u201cmuch later\u201d than in comparable cities like New York, and newcomers\u2019 impact has contributed substantially to the area\u2019s recent vitality. \u201cBuilding Collective Prosperity\u201d is based on research by University of Pennsylvania Wharton School Professor Zeke Hernandez, identifying five main areas of immigrant contributions: taxes, innovation, talent, consumption and investment.<\/p>\n

Outside the city proper, according to the report, the region\u2019s immigrant households out-earn native-born households, with higher workforce participation and higher median income. Throughout the region, immigrant households have nearly closed what for years was a homeownership gap with the native-born \u2013 and those households now boast an estimated $21 billion in collective spending power.<\/p>\n

Much of that wealth comes from lucrative jobs in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) sector, a cornerstone of Philadelphia\u2019s economy. According to the report, immigrants make up 16% of the commonwealth\u2019s STEM workforce, nearly double their share of the population; in Chester County, nearly one-third of STEM workers are immigrants, although they constitute only 12% of the county\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n

With federal actions having effectively halted the flow of immigrants, Gupta warned that Southeastern Pennsylvania could face a shortage of STEM and other workers \u2013 especially since the commonwealth as a whole is rapidly aging, with declining birthrates and a projected population decline.<\/a> He pointed out that while some places are able to bolster their numbers through reverse migration, that is not a realistic strategy for a state \u201cwhere it\u2019s cold a quarter of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the (PA Chamber) and our whole economic development ecosystem is focused on promoting growth in life sciences, promoting growth in advanced manufacturing,\u201d Gupta said. \u201cYou can\u2019t do those without STEM professionals \u2013 and we don\u2019t have enough STEM professionals that we are educating in this country to fill all those positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will either have to choose another region to base your business in, or just go out of business altogether \u2026 To the extent data is available, you\u2019re going to start to see some very concerning trends going in the wrong direction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that only Congress can substantially alter the current trajectory around immigration. Since 2025, immigration levels have plunged, and thousands of residents \u2013 many of them holding legal status \u2013 have been detained or deported by federal agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a long reverberation to this, and it will reach crisis levels in a lot of communities,\u201d said Gupta. \u201cI believe that that crisis may be enough to finally get the U.S. Congress to act and create an immigration system that meets the needs of the United States in this century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gupta praised the City of Philadelphia for its welcoming stance toward newcomers, noting that it has an official designation as a Welcoming City \u2013 meaning it meets certain metrics around inclusivity.<\/p>\n

He also said that state legislators from both parties have been \u201cmuch more clear-eyed on this issue\u201d than their federal counterparts, providing critical support to The Welcoming Center as it expands immigrant job training into Scranton, Kennett Square and, potentially, Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

One of those is state Rep. Joe Picozzi, a Philadelphia Republican who told City & State that the organization is \u201camazing, and a huge ROI (return on investment) for Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How important has immigration been to Southeastern Pennsylvania\u2019s economic dynamism, prosperity and workforce? An updated report released this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-301278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}