Immigrants as a Percentage of the Total U.S. Population and of the U.S. Civilian Labor Force, 1970 to 2011
Immigrants as a Percentage of the Total U.S. Population and of the U.S. Civilian Labor Force, 1970 to 2011
The term "foreign born" (or “immigrants”) refers to people residing in the United States who were not US citizens at birth. The foreign-born population includes naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, certain legal non-immigrants (e.g., refugees and persons on student or work visas), and persons illegally residing in the United States. The civilian labor force includes all civilians age 16 and older who were classified as employed or unemployed during the reference week of the survey or census.
The 2010 and 2011 data are from the 2010 and 2011 American Community Survey accessed via the American FactFinder. The 1970 to 2000 data are from the Decennial Censuses and were downloaded from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). Steven Ruggles, Matthew Sobek, Trent Alexander, Catherine A. Fitch, Ronald Goeken, Patricia Kelly Hall, Miriam King, and Chad Ronnander. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Population Center [producer and distributor], 2008.)