Jobs

Job cushion

Also called job buffer, cushion, surplus jobs, job surplus.

A job cushion is the margin between the jobs a project's economic report forecasts and the jobs its investors need, which is ten full-time jobs per investor. The word is offering document usage: no statute or regulation defines a cushion or sets a minimum one.

What it decides

No statute or regulation defines a cushion or requires one, and the phrase appears nowhere in the USCIS Policy Manual chapters on EB-5. The arithmetic under it is fixed. Each investor needs ten full-time jobs, and at Form I-829 must show ten were created or can be expected to be created within a reasonable time. A project raising $40,000,000 from 50 investors at $800,000 each, a figure that requires a targeted employment area or an infrastructure project, needs 500 jobs: a forecast of 520 leaves 4 percent of margin, a forecast of 750 leaves 50 percent. Read the usable total rather than the headline. In a regional center offering, indirect jobs may satisfy at most 90 percent of each investor's ten, so at least one job per investor has to be direct, and where the estimated jobs come from construction activity lasting less than two years that indirect ceiling falls to 75 percent. Direct jobs from such construction are counted only in proportion to the fraction of two years the work runs, so a twelve month build yields half of them. Outside a regional center no indirect jobs count and all ten must be direct. Allocation matters as well: the jobs a project creates are divided only among its petitioning investors, and USCIS recognizes a reasonable allocation agreement among them.

Governed by 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(A)(ii), ten full-time jobs (https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1153&num=0&edition=prelim). 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(iv)(I) and (II), the 90 percent and 75 percent ceilings on indirect jobs in the regional center program, and (b)(5)(E)(v)(II)(cc), proration of direct jobs from construction lasting under two years. 8 CFR 216.6(a)(4)(iv), created or can be expected within a reasonable time (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-216/section-216.6). 8 CFR 204.6(g)(2), allocation of created positions among petitioning investors (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-204/section-204.6). USCIS Policy Manual, Volume 6, Part G, Chapter 2 states the 90 percent limit and at footnote 123 describes INA 203(b)(5)(E)(iv)(II) as limiting the percentage of estimated indirect jobs to 75 percent (https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-6-part-g-chapter-2). The term "job cushion" itself appears in no statute, regulation or USCIS guidance.

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into job cushion rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

Job allocationJob allocation is the division of a new commercial enterprise's qualifying full-time jobs among the EB-5 investors who petitioned on it, at least ten to each, under any reasonable agreement the investors have made. Where the documents are silent, USCIS allocates by the date each investor filed to remove conditions, so a shortfall falls on the last to file rather than on everyone in equal shares.
Tenant occupancyTenant occupancy is a job counting method that credits an EB-5 regional center project with jobs attributed to the businesses expected to lease the commercial space the project creates or improves, counted on top of the jobs the project itself creates. It is open only to regional center projects, and only where the count rests on an economically and statistically valid methodology and the jobs are not existing jobs that have been relocated.

Checked against primary sources on 6 August 2026. Back to the glossary