New research released by the American Immigration Council—in partnership with the Greater Medina Chamber of Commerce, and Ohio Business for Immigration Solutions (OBIS) shows that immigrants contributed $0.9 billion to the Medina region’s GDP in 2019.

"New Americans in Medina" highlights how immigrants fill crucial workforce gaps in addition to their financial contributions in the Medina, Ohio region, which included paying $105.1 million in federal taxes and $63.1 million in state and local taxes in 2019. Although immigrants made up 2.5% of the region’s overall population in 2019, they represented 2.7% of its working-age population.

Key findings include:

• Immigrants are bringing much-needed talent. In 2019, 40.6% of immigrants in the Medina region aged 25 and older held at least a bachelor’s degree and 18.7% held an advanced degree (a master’s, professional, or doctoral degree).
  
  

• Immigrants are filling critical workforce gaps. Although immigrants made up 2.5% of the region’s overall population, they represented 7.3% of STEM workers, 3.6% of professional service workers, and 3.4% of all workers in the manufacturing industry in 2019.
  
  

• Immigrants foster an entrepreneurial spirit. In 2019, despite making up 2.5% of the Medina region’s overall population, 3.3% of immigrants were entrepreneurs. In the region, immigrants were 33% more likely to be entrepreneurs than their U.S.-born counterparts.
  
  

• Immigrants help create or preserve local manufacturing jobs. In the Medina region, immigrants strengthened the local job market by allowing companies to keep jobs on U.S. soil, helping preserve or create 900 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere by 2019.