KVIG Informative

Nearly a quarter of everyone working in Nevada was born somewhere else. Their spending power alone accounts for roughly a fifth of every dollar circulating in the state.

Immigrants make up 26% of Nevada’s total labor force and contribute an estimated $24 billion to the state’s economy annually in personal income, according to an analysis published by FWD.us, a national nonprofit organization that researches immigration’s economic impact.

That $24 billion in immigrant personal income accounts for nearly one in five dollars of total spending power across the entire state, according to the organization’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and American Community Survey data.

Donate

Donate

The contribution isn’t evenly spread across industries. Immigrants make up 40% of Nevada’s construction workforce, 34% of leisure and hospitality workers, and 30% of the state’s agriculture workforce, according to the FWD.us analysis. Manufacturing and transportation and utilities each draw 27% of their workforce from immigrant workers, and business services draw 24%.

The reliance runs even deeper in specific trades within those broader industries. Immigrants make up 56% of Nevada’s building services workforce, 52% of landscaping services, 47% of taxi services and 30% of food and beverage services, according to the analysis.

The data doesn’t distinguish between documented and undocumented workers in most of its industry breakdowns, reflecting how deeply integrated immigrant labor is across Nevada’s economy regardless of legal status.

Donate

Donate

Nevada’s tourism-driven economy depends heavily on the leisure and hospitality sector specifically — the same sector where more than a third of the workforce is foreign-born, and the same sector Nevada’s casino resorts and convention business rely on to keep running.

A quarter of Nevada’s paychecks and a fifth of its spending power trace back to workers who weren’t born here. Whatever policy debates play out in Carson City or Washington over the coming year, that math doesn’t change based on who’s talking about it.