The reports of immigrants providing the economic backbone in the U.S. keep on coming in. The latest, released earlier this week by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, states that in New York City immigrants represent 43 percent of workforce and $215 billion in economic activity.

Neighborhoods such as Chinatown, Flushing, Washington Heights, Coney
Island, Elmhurst and Corona are examples of vitality spurred by successful
immigrants, according to the report. Immigrants have been a major factor
in New York City’s most recent period of economic growth, and the report
notes that between 2000 and 2008 the number of immigrant workers increased
by 68 percent, wages paid to immigrant workers rose by 39 percent, and
immigrant contribution to the gross city product increased by 61 percent.

The DiNapoli report also found: Between 1970 and 2008, the City’s immigrant population more than doubled, to 3 million. In 2008, immigrants were 36.4 percent of the City population, but 43
percent of the workforce.
The median household income of New York City’s foreign born population
nearly doubled to $45,000 in 2007 from $23,900 in 1990, a growth rate that
outpaced inflation.
The number of immigrants owning homes in New York City doubled between
1991 and 2008, and foreign born residents accounted for 60 percent of all
homeowners in 2008.
Foreign born workers made up 46 percent of the City’s physicians and
surgeons, 55 percent of its registered nurses, and 87 percent of the
City’s taxi drivers and chauffeurs.

Looking more deeply at the report, which you can by clicking here to read the PDF version, my own neighborhood of Corona, Queen is 70% immigrant with most of the immigrants hailing from Ecuador, China, and Mexico.

What the report doesn’t do is differentiate between documented and undocumented immigrants, and in part I am grateful for that, another part of me has her hearts broken over it. While the report paints a rosy picture of the economic situation of immigrants in NYC overall, I can tell you that in my neighborhood of Corona and in the neighboring hoods of Elmhurst and Jackson Heights the number of homeless immigrants is rising.