Study: Immigrant earnings lowest in R.I.

BOSTON – Male immigrants working full-time in Rhode Island were paid 67 cents for every $1 earned by the state’s native male workers in 2006, according to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

In 2006, the median annual earnings for workers ages 16 and older who were employed full-time and year-round was $32,805 for male immigrants, or only 67 percent of the $48,847 earned by male native citizens, the study found. Male immigrants’ total earnings were also far less here than in the next-lowest state, Connecticut, where immigrant men had median annual earnings of $41,269.

In addition, the study found that annual earnings for female immigrants totaled $25,637 in Rhode Island, or 70 percent of the $36,797 earned by female natives in the state. That also was the lowest amount in any New England state. (The next-lowest figure was in Vermont, where female immigrants had median annual earnings of $27,983.)

Unlike male immigrants, female ones are less likely than their native peers to hold a job, the study said.

For both men and women, the ratio of immigrant to native earnings was lower in Rhode Island than the regional and national median, as well.

The study, which was conducted by Antoniya Owens, a research associate at the Fed and a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, found wide disparities in immigrant-native earnings ratios in the six New England states.

Across New England as a whole, the median male immigrant worker earned $40,635, or 80 percent of the $50,794 earned by male natives, while the median female immigrant earned $32,000, or 81 percent of the $39,619 earned by female natives.

Nationwide, the median male immigrant earned 70 percent of a male native’s wages, while female immigrants earned 84 percent of their native counterparts.

In Vermont, for example, male immigrants earned a median of $42,114, slightly more than male natives, who earned $40,030. (Female natives earned more than their immigrant counterparts in every New England state.) That is likely due to the larger number of immigrants in northern states who hail from Canada, which gives them language and educational advantages, Owens said.

In Massachusetts, male immigrants earned a median wage of $41,406, or 76 percent of the $54,339 earned by the median male native.

Owens noted that low birth rates and inward migration meant that New England was more reliant than other places on immigrants to bolster its labor force. From 1990 to 2000, New England added 181,000 immigrant workers even as it lost 1,700 native workers. From 2000 to 2006, the region added 253,900 immigrant workers and 183,400 native workers.

“Large numbers of well-trained working-age immigrants can replenish the regional work force and can fill the increasingly specialized positions offered by local employers, including those vacated by retiring baby boomers,” Owens wrote.