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Dear Friends and Neighbors:
Last fall, our office invited local businesses to participate in an Economic Impact Survey to better understand how new federal immigration and tariff changes are affecting Orange County’s business community. We had a larger-than-expected participation, which provided the needed data to reach valid findings.
This week, we were joined by the leadership and faculty from UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology, who analyzed the data, to present the survey findings.
Though not everyone is directly affected by immigration enforcement or tariff uncertainty, the survey did find that a majority of businesses looked negatively on these federal policies as causing disruption to their businesses and the economy.
Further, analysis conducted on available purchasing and foot traffic databases for the region found that during an 8-week period in the summer, when immigration enforcement was at its height, OC businesses lost 59 million dollars and that equated to lost sales tax revenue of $4.5 million. Click here to view all the key findings.
These federal policies, especially immigration enforcement, are often debated with great passion but little in the way of solid information. But all of us feel the impact of shifts in the economy, challenges in the labor force, and the strain placed on businesses whose success is undermined by uncertainty.
It is my hope that this research sheds light on the impacts of these policies in our county. That it does so dispassionately, in a language that we can all understand, and that it helps quantify how these policies impact us all in our daily lives, in the prices we pay for goods and services, and in the job market we face. You can view the presentation of the findings below.
 I want to thank all of the businesses that participated, and a special thanks to Dean Gould, Dr. Lester, and Raiven Greenberg from UCI's School of Social Ecology.
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