What are the contributions of other races and ethnicities in MN. Number please. They say Somali contribute $500milliom, 67mill in tax
Executive summary
KSTP and other local outlets report an estimate that Somali Minnesotans generate about $500 million in annual income and pay roughly $67 million in state and local taxes, figures attributed to economist Bruce Corrie [1]. Reporting and commentary around those numbers sit inside a broader debate about immigrant economic contributions, fraud investigations, and how to measure group-level economic impact; sources document both the contribution claims and the contemporaneous fraud probes and critiques [1] [2] [3].
1. Numbers being quoted: source and scope
The $500 million in income and $67 million in state and local taxes for Somali Minnesotans appear in KSTP’s coverage and are credited to Concordia economist Bruce Corrie’s estimates [1]. That KSTP story frames the figures as a direct rebuttal to political attacks on Somalis’ economic role in Minnesota [1]. Other outlets and opinion sites have echoed those same numbers when discussing the local debate [4] [5].
2. What the figures claim — and what they don’t show
The quoted figures describe annual income generated and an annual tax payment estimate for a single community; the reporting does not present a full cost-benefit analysis (e.g., public service use, per-capita fiscal impact, remittances, or long-term economic multipliers) in the pieces that publish the numbers [1]. Available sources do not mention a detailed methodology for how Corrie calculated the $500 million and $67 million [1]. Critics point out that headline totals can be misleading without per-capita context or comparisons to state averages [6] [4].
3. Wider context: immigrants and Minnesota’s economy
Independent policy and business sources document that immigration and “New Americans” are central to Minnesota’s recent population and workforce growth — immigration accounted for most net gains in 2020–2024 and New Americans are important to sectors with labor shortages, such as health care and food processing [7] [6]. These broader studies show immigrant contributions at the state level but do not break out precise dollar totals by a single ethnic group in the way the Corrie estimate does [7].
4. Competing narratives: crime, fraud and political framing
Simultaneously, reporting documents large fraud investigations in Minnesota’s social-services programs in which many defendants have been identified as members of the Somali community; federal prosecutors say schemes under investigation involve over $1 billion and dozens of convictions, and national officials have opened probes into whether funds reached Al-Shabaab — all of which has been seized on by critics to question Somali contributions [2] [8] [9]. Other outlets and local commentators warn that linking the entire Somali community to criminal cases is an overbroad generalization and that right-wing reporting has amplified such links without sufficient evidence about wider community culpability [10] [3].
5. Methodological questions and skeptical reactions
Commentators and local columnists have challenged the math and interpretation of the KSTP/Corrie numbers, arguing per-capita comparisons and state averages change the meaning of the totals and that media consumers should see the figures as partial rather than definitive [4] [5]. Independent critiques call for transparency on inputs — population used, income sources, tax-rate assumptions, and whether gross income or value-added was measured — none of which the cited local report fully lays out [1] [4].
6. What other racial and ethnic contribution numbers exist in reporting
State- and nonprofit-level studies examine economic activity of broader racial groups: an economic simulation credited to ALANA/IMPLAN estimates Black workers generated $58 billion in goods and services in Minnesota as a reference point in sectoral modeling, and Minnesota Chamber and other reports detail the aggregate role of immigrants/New Americans without isolating every ethnicity into single-dollar totals [11] [7]. These larger studies use different methods and operate at much larger scales than the $500M/$67M Somali estimate [11] [7].
7. Takeaway — numbers matter, but so does transparency
The $500 million and $67 million figures are cited in local reporting and used politically to defend Somali Minnesotans’ economic role [1]. At the same time, large fraud prosecutions and federal probes are driving a competing narrative that complicates public perception [2] [8]. Readers should treat the Corrie numbers as a community-level estimate reported by KSTP, seek the underlying methodology (not provided in current reporting) before treating them as definitive, and weigh them alongside state-level studies that document immigrant and racial-group economic contributions in broader terms [1] [7] [11].
Limitations: this analysis relies solely on the supplied sources; the Corrie estimate’s full methodology is not included in those sources and therefore cannot be independently verified here [1].