One of the most pervasive stereotypes about the Latino community is that they are a drain on the United States’ economy. But a new report titled “Making America Rich Again: The Latino Effect on Economic Growth” finds that it’s actually quite the opposite. Authored by Jeffrey Eisenach – a member of Donald Trump’s transition team – the 55-page report details how the Latino population is contributing to the US now and how it will continue to do so in the future. “This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the contribution made by Latino Americans,” the introduction reads. “The US Latino population is growing, young, increasingly educated, employed, connected, entrepreneurial, and upwardly mobile in terms of income as well as consumption.”
According to Yahoo, the Latino Donor Collaborative (LDC) and the Royal Bank of Canada commissioned the report. It comes at a time when anti-Latino sentiment are running high. President-elect Donald Trump spent most of his campaign generalizing the Latino population – calling them rapists and accusing them of stealing jobs. LDC founder Sol Trujillo funded this study to debunk harmful Latino stereotypes.
For Eisenach – a lover of data – this study allowed him to piece together interesting bits of information that may not tell a story when presented individually. For example, we’ve known for some time that Latino’s purchasing power exceeds the $1 trillion mark or that the population is younger than other ethnic groups. But it’s stunning to see a complete breakdown of how one demographic has contributed to the United States. “The data surrounding Latinos’ economic implications pull together a story that’s compelling, pervasive and deep. Especially because the average Latino is nine years younger than the overall population, we know that this demographic will be with us for a while, and we can take advantage of that,” Eisenach said.
While there’s a lot of really interesting pieces of information in this study (and it’s worth checking out in its entirety), here are five ways Latinos are increasingly crucial to the success of the United States:
H/T Latino USA
1
On Latinos' Purchasing Power
“To put Hispanic buying power into context, Figure 38 compares the buying power of American Latinos against the Gross Domestic Products of the 15 largest economies in the world. If US Latino consumers were a country, they would represent the world’s fourteenth largest economy—ahead of both Spain and Mexico, and approximately equal to the GDP of the Russian Federation,” the report reads.
2
On a Younger Latino Population
3
On the Latino Employment Rate
“Hispanics also compare favorably to other racial/ethnic groups in terms of the employment rate,” according to the report. “As shown in Figure 24, in 2015 the Hispanic employment rate was the highest of any major racial/ethnic groups at 61.6 percent, compared to 59.6 percent for whites, 56.8 percent for others, and 59.3 overall. The differences in the rate of employment between Hispanics and other ethnic groups is even more pronounced when looking at the male population. More than three quarters (76.2 percent) of Latino men are employed, compared with approximately 64 percent for other ethnic groups.”
4
On the Number of Latino-Owned Businesses
“Productivity is one of the two major drivers of economic growth,” the report notes. “It is significiant, therefore, that Latinos contribute disproportionately to new business formation and entrepreneurship. For example, data from the US Census Bureau’s Survey of Business owners show that the number of Hispanic-owned firms doubled over the period of 2002 and 2012 from1.6 million to 3.3 million. As shown in Figure 28, Hispanic-owned businesses accounted for 12 percent of all US firms in 2012, up from 6.8 percent a decade earlier.”
5
On Latinos' Median Household Income
“Data on aggregate income from the American Community Survey (ACS) show that the rapid increase increase in Hispanic incomes is has been occurring for some time: between 2005 to 2015, Hispanics—who represent just 18 percent of the population—accounted for 29 percent of the growth in real aggregate income,” the study reads. “US Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers rose almost 11 percent for Hispanics between the first quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2016, more than triple the increase for the population overall.”