Somali American's Are the Most Self-Reliant Group in America: Highest Performance in the Self-Support Index in Minnesota at 84%

[Idilinaa]

Love to hear our people doing well. The question is why is the data on Somalis so contradictory? We need our own statistics organization to get proper data on both the diaspora and Somalia as a whole.

The economist Vali Jamal, in the late 1980s, was the first, as far as I’m aware, to notice that much of the data produced about Somalis was inaccurate. It didn’t reflect economic realities on the ground and often contradicted background data.

This is because Somalis are organized economically in an unconventional way, which renders many macroeconomic indicators misleading. We are a trade based society, with goods, people, services, and money moving across borders. Our economic organization is cooperative, and there are no clear-cut divisions along occupational lines, most families are multi-occupational.

Jamal also found that Somalis typically have multiple supplementary income sources beyond their salaries. These may come from trade, service activities, small businesses funded from personal savings, or secondary employment. They would even share income across diverse and sporadic sources among family, relatives or friends. So they had supplemental wage or non-wage incomes that allowed them to enjoy higher expenditures.

I completely agree, while most societies have specialized institutions for collecting economic data, Somalis need to build our own tools and methods to gather data that accurately reflects our societal dynamics. We cannot simply borrow approaches from other countries and assume they apply to us.

 

[Achromade]

To put it simply, if Somalis really had low median incomes, then maintaining long term independence from assistance would be impossible.

Households that can’t cover basic needs , rent, food, healthcare, and transportation , inevitably fall back into aid programs, which would lower their SSI scores. If Somali households truly earned around $40K (barely above the poverty line for a family of four), they couldn’t sustain an 85–90% self-support rate. That level of income leaves almost no margin for emergencies or living costs, especially in places like Minnesota or Ohio.

On top of that they wouldn't be able to be sending $3,800 per person annually, it's impossible. That would imply that they would have a lot disposable income, they also wouldn't be able to make re-investments either.

Since Somalis maintain the highest SSI across all racial and ethnic groups, it logically follows that their real incomes and productivity are higher than the reported median figures suggest , especially once you account for underreported self-employment, informal trade, and multiple earners within each household.

In reality, maintaining long-term independence from assistance means most Somali households are likely earning closer to $65K or higher, even if not fully captured in official statistics.

My main point was more so what the SSI stratifies for. I don't deny that the Somali SSI is true, or Somalis do have a higher employment than what is led on; however because SSI is not representative of the overall population but the subset of that population who are aid recipients, you can't compare it across different ethnic groups as an implicit measure of wealth since the reasons as to why these people are stratified to receive aid is different.

For Somalis and other migrant groups that initially resettled aid reception is near universal and represents closer to the average person. For Whites, Blacks and Native Americans this stratifies closer to a chronically disadvantaged group that might suffer from long term employment.

You're taking the SSI values at face value and extrapolating that as a proxy for wealth, despite the contradictory data on median household income, home ownership and educational attainment. Even if we assume that Somali income is deflated (which is accurate imo), from informal streams of income, I don't think this would explain a 50-100% increase. I'm skeptical that SSI represents "hidden wealth" to the extent that you're implying.

 

[Achromade]

My main point was more so what the SSI stratifies for. I don't deny that the Somali SSI is true, or Somalis do have a higher employment than what is led on; however because SSI is not representative of the overall population but the subset of that population who are aid recipients, you can't compare it across different ethnic groups as an implicit measure of wealth since the reasons as to why these people are stratified to receive aid is different.

For Somalis and other migrant groups that initially resettled aid reception is near universal and represents closer to the average person. For Whites, Blacks and Native Americans this stratifies closer to a chronically disadvantaged group that might suffer from long term employment.

You're taking the SSI values at face value and extrapolating that as a proxy for wealth, despite the contradictory data on median household income, home ownership and educational attainment. Even if we assume that Somali income is deflated (which is accurate imo), from informal streams of income, I don't think this would explain a 50-100% increase. I'm skeptical that SSI represents "hidden wealth" to the extent that you're implying.

*unemployment

 

[Idilinaa]

My main point was more so what the SSI stratifies for. I don't deny that the Somali SSI is true, or Somalis do have a higher employment than what is led on; however because SSI is not representative of the overall population but the subset of that population who are aid recipients, you can't compare it across different ethnic groups as an implicit measure of wealth since the reasons as to why these people are stratified to receive aid is different.

For Somalis and other migrant groups that initially resettled aid reception is near universal and represents closer to the average person. For Whites, Blacks and Native Americans this stratifies closer to a chronically disadvantaged group that might suffer from long term employment.

You're taking the SSI values at face value and extrapolating that as a proxy for wealth, despite the contradictory data on median household income, home ownership and educational attainment. Even if we assume that Somali income is deflated (which is accurate imo), from informal streams of income, I don't think this would explain a 50-100% increase. I'm skeptical that SSI represents "hidden wealth" to the extent that you're implying.

What you are saying overlooks how the SSI is structured.

The Self-Support Index doesn’t compare random subsets of populations , it measures how different racial and ethnic groups perform after leaving the same welfare programs, so the comparison is valid and standardized.

If Somali results were just an artifact of “initial resettlement,” then other refugee groups (like Burmese or Hmong) would show similar outcomes, but they don’t. Somali rates have stayed top-tier for decades, long after the first generation.

Also, it’s not possible to maintain long-term independence from aid on near-poverty incomes , households earning $35–40K would fall back into assistance programs. The fact that Somalis sustain 85–90% self-support rates shows they’re earning well above subsistence, even if much of it comes from unreported business and informal income or other sources.

The median income data undercounts that reality , it doesn’t disprove it.

 

[Idilinaa]

And a study on Maine in the early 2000s debunking Right wing lies and smears:

I encourage people to read the comments , because its people who lived around Somalis in Main and tell their direct experiences:

A few of them that talk about Somali economic impact and involvement:

Forgot to share this news report from the mid 2000s. It supports the study above and the comments on that reddit thread:

Lewiston, Maine, Revived by Somali Immigrants

A dying Maine mill town gets a fresh burst of energy.

www.newsweek.com

Talks about when Somalis settled there incomes rose and crime rates dropped. It became one of the best places to do business in America.

Talks about the local impact of Somali trade and businesses:

It also talks about Somalis filling local universities:

No surprise that a Somali became a Mayor of the city for a short stint. Her background is pretty interesting. Her father was Petroleum Engineer was very politically outspoken and she took up the mantel after earning her accounting degree, before working as an account receivable she worked as a cashier at a parking garage and she married a Somali Businessman who moved from Atalanta.