I don’t know how many times lately I’ve seen stories like this one (especially as the push is on for Congress to get the amnesty bill done), but frankly the premise that immigrants are growing businesses faster and with more success than Americans makes no sense to me.
How does a Somali with a small grocery or African trinket shop in Portland stay afloat? Is it done with extensive government supported help like micro-loans, or other special loans? Is there a little money-transfer operation going on in the back room? I can definitely see how immigrant-owned and managed convenience stores survive by tapping into the lucrative fraud of the Food Stamp program.
But, has someone done a study to back-up this oft-repeated claim that immigrants run stores/restaurants better and with more economic success than Americans?
Here is the story that got me wondering about this again, from the Bangor Daily News (emphasis mine):
PORTLAND, Maine — As the rest of Maine’s business community struggled through the Great Recession and its recovery, one sector of the local economy remained relatively unscathed and could, with the proper support, provide the state with a much-needed economic boost, according to experts.
Maine’s immigrant-owned businesses — situated mostly in the retail and food-service sectors — were for the most part insulated from the effects of the recession because their communities serve as a dedicated customer base, one that continued to grow throughout the recession, according to Charles Colgan, a professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service. Maine’s foreign-born population has grown by 16.5 percent in the last 11 years, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
“They may have played a larger role in the business sector over the last few years than you would think, given the size of the stores and businesses,” Colgan said.
Though hard data isn’t available, Colgan suspects that immigrant-owned businesses in southern Maine’s retail sector are faring better than the state’s retail sector as a whole. He estimates that perhaps half of the newly established small retail businesses in Portland over the last few years may be immigrant-owned.
Immigrant-owned businesses also hold untapped potential that, given the right tools and a concerted effort, could help the state bounce back from the recent economic slump, according to Claude Rwaganje, founder of Community Financial Literacy in Portland.
There is lots more, read it all.
Rwaganje’s Community Financial Literacy is a modest operation taking in about $110,000 annually (Form 990 here). Rwaganje takes home about half of that in salary and benefits. Funds come from these donors.
Apparently the Portland Chamber of Commerce is interested in doing a study, but I sure would like to know if anyone (without a political bias!) has done a study of this sort. Please let me know if you know of such a study!
For new readers: We have dozens and dozens of posts about Maine. Just type ‘Maine’ into our search function. But, a 2009 post continues to be one of our most-read posts over the years—-Maine the welfare magnet.