How have Somali American employment and welfare rates changed since 2010?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
Employment among Somali Americans appears to have risen since 2010, with working‑age employment and labor‑force participation estimates moving from the roughly mid‑40s/50s in localized 2010 snapshots toward rates around the high‑60s/low‑70s in more recent surveys, while reported reliance on means‑tested public benefits remains high—especially in Minnesota—according to competing data sources and policy analyses [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Early baseline: low employment and high inactivity around 2010
Census and community snapshots around 2010 showed many Somali residents initially struggled to access the labor market: Minnesota figures cited from the 2010 period reported 47% employed, 13% unemployed and 40% economically inactive, painting a community with substantial labor‑market detachment at that time [1]. National survey windows shortly after — 2011–2015 — placed working‑age Somali American employment near 58%, with self‑employment small but present, suggesting improvement beyond the local 2010 Minnesota baseline but still below full integration [1].
2. The arc since 2010: rising participation and employment rates
More recent compilations point to continued gains: analyses cited in 2024–25 estimate labor‑force participation or employment rates for Somalis in the U.S. and Minnesota around the high‑60s to about 70% (for example, a 70% labor‑force figure and a 70.4% Minnesota employment rate are reported in aggregated World Data summaries) and Zip Atlas lists a labor‑force participation figure around 69.2% [2] [5]. Those figures suggest a notable rise from the localized 2010 Minnesota employment snapshot and align with broader narratives of adaptation, concentration in sectors like food processing and health care, and increasing entrepreneurship among refugees over time [2].
3. Welfare usage: consistently elevated and politically charged
Multiple sources document high consumption of means‑tested programs by Somali households, particularly in Minnesota: the Center for Immigration Studies and summaries cited by FactCheck report studies that found about 81% of Somali immigrant households in Minnesota consumed some form of welfare, with half or more using SNAP and a large majority using Medicaid; CIS also reported 27% of Somali households receiving cash welfare and very high rates for food and medical benefits in its analyses [3] [4]. Advocacy, policy and opinion pieces amplify these findings but often frame them with differing agendas — some as evidence of adaptation lags and poverty, others as proof of policy failure or fraud — and this politicization affects how the numbers are used in public debate [3] [6] [7].
4. Interpreting trends: measurement, selection and political context matter
The available sources point to upward movement in employment and participation since 2010 but also show persistently high welfare uptake; however, comparisons are complicated by inconsistent definitions (who counts as “Somali,” what benefits are included under “welfare,” and household versus individual measures) and by differing methodologies across government surveys, advocacy reports and secondary aggregators [1] [3] [2]. Some analysts attribute improvements to economic opportunity and adaptation, while critics contend recent immigration waves or community networks skew averages; simultaneously, reporting of welfare fraud and high‑profile investigative accounts have injected political motives into the conversation, which can inflate perceptions beyond what the data alone show [2] [7] [6].
5. Bottom line and limits of the record
The record assembled from these sources supports a direct conclusion: Somali American employment and labor‑force participation have increased since about 2010, moving from lower midrange employment and substantial inactivity to employment/participation estimates around the high‑60s to 70% in more recent analyses, yet the community continues to show comparatively high use of means‑tested programs—especially in Minnesota—according to CIS and related reports [1] [2] [3] [4]. Available reporting does not provide a single standardized longitudinal series that cleanly tracks the same metrics for the same population from 2010 to 2025, so definitive trend magnitudes depend on which dataset and definition one privileges; the political orientation of some sources (both pro‑ and anti‑immigration) should be weighed when interpreting welfare figures [3] [7] [6].