Without immigration, Bucks County would have lost about 6,400 residents between 2020 and 2025. Instead, the county actually grew by 1,276 people over that span, according to a new study examining how foreign-born residents have reshaped population and economic trends across Greater Philadelphia.
The findings come from “Building Collective Prosperity: Immigrant Impact in the Philadelphia Region,” the second edition of a regional study from The Welcoming Center, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that works to strengthen communities by creating opportunities for immigrants of all backgrounds, education levels, and skills. The report was released Tuesday at an event and panel discussion at WHYY in Center City, as The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported. The launch was presented alongside research partners from the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia and featured panelists from Wharton and the City's Office of Immigrant Affairs, according to the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia.
The study examined population changes and growth across Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester, and Bucks counties, comparing some regional findings with Pennsylvania as a whole, and it included immigrants regardless of immigration status. Its scope covered investment, innovation, spending power, and labor. The core conclusion, per the Inquirer's reporting: immigration stopped or slowed population decline across the Philadelphia region, with Delaware County also on track to have shrunk without immigrant population growth between 2020 and 2025. Chester and Montgomery counties, meanwhile, grew more than they otherwise would have over that same period because of immigration.
A Region's Growth, By the Numbers
The stakes extend beyond five counties. Immigrants are responsible for almost the entire growth of Pennsylvania's population since 1990, per the study findings relayed by the Inquirer. Anuj Gupta, addressing the broader implications of the findings, said that “managing decline is not a posture you should elect to aim for,” according to the Inquirer's reporting.
Those local dynamics mirror a statewide pattern. Pennsylvania saw a 35% increase in its foreign-born population share between 2010 and 2022, with immigrant households generating $34.2 billion in spending power statewide, according to American Immigration Council data cited by Technical.ly. In the five-county Philadelphia region specifically, foreign-born households retain more than $20 billion — $20.64 billion precisely — in post-tax spending power each year, per The Welcoming Center's report as detailed by WHYY.
Tax Dollars and Home Equity
Immigrant-headed households in the five-county region contributed nearly $9 billion in total state and federal taxes in 2024, WHYY reported. Foreign-born homeowners across Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties now pay more than $700 million annually in local property taxes, a 90% increase since 2015, the outlet's report noted.
That tax growth tracks a shift in homeownership patterns within the city itself. The gap between native-born and foreign-born Philadelphia residents in homeownership has nearly closed, with both groups now owning homes at a rate of nearly 52%, according to the study findings reported by the Inquirer. Across the five-county region, immigrant households have built nearly $60 billion in home equity, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2015. In the surrounding suburban counties, foreign-born households also hold higher median incomes than their native-born counterparts, per the study findings cited by WHYY.
STEM Jobs and a Shifting Visa Picture
Immigrants make up more than 20% of the STEM workforce across Philadelphia and its surrounding Pennsylvania suburban counties, exceeding the statewide average of 16%, WHYY's report found. In Chester County, almost one in three STEM workers is an immigrant, even though immigrants make up only about one in eight workers in the county overall, per the Inquirer's reporting on the study.
The pipeline feeding those roles, however, shows signs of strain. Philadelphia and Chester County together account for two-thirds of the region's H-1B certified positions, a temporary, employer-sponsored visa category concentrated in computing and technology. H-1B certifications declined from 2025 to 2026 in every regional county except Delaware, where they increased by two over that period, according to the study findings relayed by the Inquirer.
A Longer-Running Civic Commitment
The report lands against a backdrop of formal municipal engagement with immigrant communities. Philadelphia earned a “Certified Welcoming” designation from Welcoming America in February 2023, scoring 92 out of 100 points to become the largest U.S. municipality to hold the credential, according to the City of Philadelphia Office of Immigrant Affairs. Foreign-born workers also accounted for roughly one-third of Philadelphia's total labor force growth between 2010 and 2022, largely because immigrants are more likely than U.S.-born residents to be of prime working age, a September 2024 report from The Pew Charitable Trusts found.
Hoodline has covered related threads in the region's immigrant story this year, from light boxes honoring Italian Market history to federal debates over a proposed South Jersey detention site. Just Tuesday, Hoodline also reported on seven Philly Latin restaurants teaming up at Bok Bar to fund healthcare access for uninsured immigrants in South Philadelphia — another sign of how the region's immigrant economy and civic life continue to intersect with policy questions playing out at both the local and federal level.
