Oregon immigrants pay billions in taxes
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Oregon's more than 404,000 immigrants paid $5.6 billion in taxes in 2023, per a recent analysis, with undocumented immigrants contributing nearly $700 million to that total.
Why it matters: The numbers underscore how immigrants, both documented and otherwise, contribute to the Oregon economy and government services, even as the Trump administration looks to increase mass detention and deportation.
How it works: These figures come from a recent report by the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, and are based on 2023 census data.
- The report has a wealth of other data about immigrants' economic contributions, including their spending power, housing wealth and more.
Zoom in: Oregon's immigrant households earned roughly $20 billion in 2023, per the analysis, and paid nearly $14,000 per person in annual taxes.
- They make up more than 30% of the agricultural workforce, 21% of manufacturing workers and nearly 20% of those working in transportation and warehousing.
- The taxes they paid contributed nearly $2 billion to Social Security and more than $500 million to Medicare.
Zoom out: Nationwide, the country's 47.8 million immigrants paid nearly $652 billion in taxes in 2023.
- Immigrants in Washington, D.C., paid the highest rate — around $27,000 per immigrant — while South Dakota had the lowest at around $5,700.
Between the lines: Oregon is home to nearly 100,000 undocumented immigrants, making up about a quarter of the total immigrant population.
- Many of them pay federal, state and local taxes, even though they are not eligible for many government benefits.
What they're saying: Richard C. Auxier, a principal policy associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, told the Oregon Capital Chronicle that numerous laws prevent undocumented immigrants from accessing government benefits.
- "They get a lot of political attention," he said. "At the end of the day, they're just normal people paying normal taxes."