Although annual income average of the Dominicans residents in the USA have been among the lowest of all racial and ethnic groups examined in a recent study, the situation has improved over the past.
This is reflected in a increase gradual of average amount they send in remittances to the Dominican Republic.
The average income from the workers Dominicans full time increased from $38,685 in 1999 to $40,976 in 2009 and then to $46,325 in 2019according to study “Dominicans in the United States: A Socioeconomic Profile 2022”, published by the City University of New York (CUNYfor acronyms in English).
This means a growth rate average annual growth rate of 0.6% per year in the 2000s and 1.3% per year in the 2010s, both higher than average wage growth during these periods in the United States as a whole, the analysis indicates.
Evolution of remittances
According to the statistics of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, for 2010, the average family remittances that were sent from the United States to Quisqueya was $199.8 by formal transaction. The following years until 2016, the amount fluctuated between 191.8 and 203.9 dollars.
However, as of 2017 the amount average has gone increasing. That year he went up to 205.9 dollars and in the next 211although it went down to 209 dollars in 2019.
But the following year, in the 2020 pandemic, it rebounded to 244.5 dollars and in 2021 to 270.9. This is explained because from March 2020 to September 2021, the United States Government had a help scheme implemented as a result of the economic crisis generated by the pandemic of COVID-19.
Due to the above, the 2022 average has been reduced to 260.7 dollars, but it is still higher than before the pandemic.
In the first nine months of 2022the remittances received reached a figure of 7,309.4 million dollars, reported the Central Bank. He noted that this amount exceeds 2,016.5 million dollars to those sent in the first nine months of 2019, the period before the start of the pandemic.
Workforce Distribution
The rate of labor participation of Dominicans in the United States went from being substantially lower than the general figures for the US population in 2000 to increasing by 2019, positioning itself in 74.4% in men and 64.7% in women, it is highlighted in the CUNY study.
The document shows that for the pre-pandemic 2019the distribution of the Dominican labor force in the United States it was not very different from that of the general population.
Close to half of the Quisqueyans in that country were in the service sector and 23.2% in the trade wholesale and retail.
The 10.2% I was in the sector Transport, communications and public services, and the rest in Manufacturing; Finance, insurance and real estate; Building; Public administration; and Agriculture, mining, fishing and forestry.
Although the Dominicans had a overrepresentation in the service sectorthey were strongly underrepresented between occupations managers and professionalswho represented 21.9% of all Dominicans in the labor force, compared to 38.1% in the general population of the United States, in 2019.
The CUNY study highlights that the Dominican population in the United States has grown faster than the rest of the country, going from 1,041,910 in 2000 to 1,537,558 in 2010 and 2,216,258 in 2020, being the fifth largest Hispanic/Latino group in that nation.
From the number to 2020, some 935,261 were born in the United States and 1,280,997 outside the country.
