Charts of the week: Fortune 500 companies, ‘marrying down,’ and young people out of school

Click on the links or on the charts to go to the full research.

OVER 40 PERCENT OF FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES WERE FOUNDED BY AMERICAN IMMIGRANT FAMILIES

As Congress struggles with immigration issues, new research from Ian Hathaway, nonresident senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program, demonstrates the outsized role immigrants play in economic growth and job creation. Analyzing data from the Center for American Entrepreneurship, Hathaway notes that “43 percent of companies in the 2017 Fortune 500 were founded or co-founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant, and among the top 35, that share is 57 percent.”

MORE COLLEGE DEGREES WILL NOT CLOSE PERSISTENT RACE GAPS

Richard Reeves and Katherine Guyot, experts from Center on Children and Families, explore a number of reasons why college education alone cannot close stubborn economic gaps between black and white households. They find that black women with a bachelor’s degree are less likely to get married, and when they do, are less likely to marry a man with a degree in which case any improvement to their individual economic position does not translate into equivalent gains at the household level.

40 PERCENT OF 18-24 YEAR-OLDS ARE NOT IN SCHOOL AND DO NOT HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE 

In their analysis of regional labor markets and workforce development, Martha Ross and Nicole Bateman find that nearly 40 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds are not in school and do not have a college degree. These young people, who are more likely to be unemployed, are typically concentrated in regions that are already struggling economically. Other metropolitan areas that are technology hubs like Boston and San Francisco attract well-educated labor pools and have significantly lower shares of young people not in school.