For one reason or another, I have been writing and thinking a lot about population growth lately. An important contributor to population growth in Ohio over the past ten years has been international immigration, which also happens to be on my mind a lot these days.
According to American Community Survey responses, Ohio’s population grew by about 290,000 from 2014 to 2024, an increase of only about 2.5% over that time period. At the same time, Ohio’s foreign-born population grew by 170,000 from a baseline of 480,000, a 36% increase. This means that three out of every five people added to Ohio’s population over the last 10 years was born in another country.
This matters because new people in the state have an impact on the economy. These new residents are buying products in stores and are working in companies. The American Immigration Council estimates that foreign-born residents spend $20 billion in Ohio every year and fill hundreds of jobs, particularly in the transportation and warehousing; manufacturing; and professional, scientific, administrative, and waste services industries.
Foreign-born workers are key to Ohio’s medical, tech, and higher education industries, with more than 1 in 5 Ohio doctors, 1 in 5 Ohio software developers, and about 1 in 6 Ohio college instructors born outside the United States.
Foreign-born Ohio residents are also starting businesses. According to the American Immigration Council, 5.1% of Ohio residents were born in another country, but 8.2% of its entrepreneurs were. This matters because new and small businesses make up a disproportionate amount of job creation in the economy, meaning that foreign-born residents are driving job creation in the state.
Foreign-born residents also contribute to the tax base in Ohio. The council estimates immigrants contribute $2.5 billion in state and local taxes per year. That is enough to fund Ohio’s departments serving agriculture, children and youth, developmental disabilities, health, public safety, and transportation, and still have $100 million left over.
All this is not limited to documented immigrants. The council found Ohio’s 120,000 undocumented immigrants spend about $2.6 billion in the state every year and pay about $740 million in taxes every year.
And because they exist, all of this could be in trouble.
Due to aggressive deportation, enforcement policy, and rhetoric by policymakers at the federal level, net immigration into the United States dropped from 2.7 million in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last week. The report says this number will drop to about 300,000 in 2026 if current trends continue. The bureau estimated that the U.S. foreign-born population dropped by 1.5 million from January to June 2025. The bureau also said the country might see more people moving out of the United States than moving into it within the next few years.
Ohio is already set to lose population by mid-century. If Ohio has trends like the rest of the country, loss of immigrants will cause Ohio’s population to drop more quickly than previously expected among a segment of the population that is younger, more entrepreneurial, and more likely to fill jobs than the population as a whole.
So for those of you who want fewer workers, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, inventors, doctors, educators, tech workers, and consumers, raise a glass and rejoice. You are getting just what you wanted.
This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.