- Author: Jenny Manrique, Dallas News
At almost 58 million and growing, Hispanics make up the largest minority group in the United States.
When it comes to the economic power of this group, consider these figures:
Latinos who live and work in the U.S. were responsible for $2.13 trillion of gross domestic product in 2015, almost 12 percent of the country's $18.04 trillion GDP. And the projections for 2020 are even higher: Latino GDP will account for almost 25 percent of the nation's economic growth, according to David E. Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Hayes-Bautista, who spoke at the State of Hispanic Businesses Forum, hosted by Wells Fargo and the four largest Hispanic chambers of commerce in North Texas, said if the Latino GDP were representative of an independent country, it would be the world's seventh largest. It would be topped only by U.S., China, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and France, and it would be bigger than the GDP of India, Italia, Brazil, Canada or Russia.
In an interview, Hayes-Bautista explained his methodology and his projections.
Explain the concept of Latino GDP and how you came to that number.
For decades, I've researched the Latino contributions to the American society, and I had always noticed the high participation rate on the workforce — the highest of any (demographic) group in 75 years.
I have followed Latino businesses (and their) tremendous growth rate. The number almost doubles every five years.
As the figure most widely understood by people worldwide is GDP because of the size and growth rate, we decided to estimate the Latino GDP, the total value of products and services produced by Latinos.
Then we used the same methods employed by the Department of Commerce, the same databases, so everything matched.
It took us almost a year and a half to finally understand the amount we (Latinos) contribute to the U.S. GDP: $2.13 trillion, which would be the seventh largest GDP in the world.
It was surprising to me. I thought we would be like the 30th economy. But our growth rate is an annual 2.95 percent, 70 percent higher than the non-Latino GDP. We contribute a lot to this country.
Why the difference with the non-Latino GDP?
We keep growing, while the non-Latino GDP often barely grows. Sometimes it doesn't. We're basically the economic salvation to the U.S.
We're a younger population, we're entering the labor force, while baby boomers and whites retire and die.
Each year, half a million white workers leave the workforce after turning 65 years old, while each year one million Latinos turn 18 years old and enter it. We are the future of the nation's GDP.
What are the variables prompting Latinos to become the world's seventh GDP?
One is the work ethic. Not only the workforce participation rate is high we also work more hours per week, and we work more in the private sector, which is the one sector that generates wealth. Government doesn't create wealth, and you see fewer Latinos in the public sector.
We have a good sense of family, and we tend (more than other groups) to form couples with children units, almost doubling the rate for whites. And we don't use welfare that much.
We are very healthy. We live three and a half years longer than whites, we suffer 30 percent fewer heart attacks, 35 percent less cancer, 10 percent fewer strokes. And finally, we are very patriotic.
How much does Texas contribute to Latino GDP?
Here we have about 10 million Latinos, so we can safely say they contribute more than 20 percent of that GDP.
If this is a calculation based on official figures, why hasn't the government done the math before?
I ask myself the same question every week. In California, we Latinos make up 40 percent of the population, the same as here in Texas. However, there are only a few Latino researchers, so research is limited.
But sometimes diversity is not enough for a research group in a lab. That diversity needs to find a voice. I'm a Chicano from the 1960s, and I found my voice. I make my voice heard when I see something wrong.
I was originally educated as an engineer, so I relay a lot to data. And if someone says something off-kilter, I show them the figures.
Your most recent book is La Nueva California: Latinos from Pioneers to Post-Millennials. How much the new generations contribute to that GDP?
The post-millennials are people born in 1997. They're just entering the workforce; they're still studying. The GDP estimate was made with a population with just eight years of schooling, very low-income, and nevertheless they lifted the world's seventh largest GDP.
Their U.S.-born children graduate from high school, they're going to college, they have a lot more human capital than their immigrant parents. So now let's imagine how much more they will be able to do with their investment in education.
There's this view of millennials as a generation born in a digital world, with little political commitment and less urge to work than previous generations.
Latino millennials and post-millennials are very different from whites.
To Anglo post-millennials, their parents gave them a good cultural baggage, they know the arts, they travel to Europe, etc. But parents of Latino post-millennials, almost 70 percent of whom are immigrants, instill in their children values of work, family and honesty.
Post-millennials are said to be somewhat lazy, they don't want to get direction, they're not diligent. I see that among the resident doctors I teach, and faculty members my age complain about that.
I tell them they should select Latino resident doctors because since they were 5, they made the doctor's appointments for their parents, they helped them pay their bills, to get a mortgage, they know about responsibility since they were children.
Latino millennials have fled the anti-immigrant rhetoric all their lives. White millennials aren't bothered by anything.
Why doesn't the private sector invest as much in Latino businesses?
At least half of Latino businesses lack employees. They're very small, almost micro-businesses. And an additional 20 or 30 percent employ just one worker or family members.
For me, the key is not persuading Latinos to start something, but to make its growth easier.
What would be your pitch to persuade the anglo business sector to invest in Hispanic entrepreneurs?
I would tell them their investment is not philanthropy, nor charity. It's an investment. They will get a return from that investment.
This Q&A was conducted, edited and condensed by Jenny Manrique, a reporter with Al Dia, a Spanish-language publication of The Dallas Morning News.
CORRECTION, 11:27 a.m., January 16, 2019: An earlier version of this story incorrectly translated GDP amounts as billions. Latinos who live and work in the U.S. were actually responsible for $2.13 trillion of gross domestic product in 2015, almost 12 percent of the country's $18.04 trillion GDP.
Source: Published originally on Dallas News, Latinos are America's economic salvation, by Jenny Manrique, January 10th, 2019.
- Author: PewResearchCenter.org By Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn
The number of adults in the prime working ages of 25 to 64 – 173.2 million in 2015 – will rise to 183.2 million in 2035, according to Pew Research Center projections. That total growth of 10 million over two decades will be lower than the total in any single decade since the Baby Boomers began pouring into the workforce in the 1960s. The growth rate of working-age adults will also be markedly reduced.
The largest segment of working-age adults – those born in the U.S. whose parents also were born in the U.S. – is projected to decline from 2015 to 2035, both in numbers and as a share of the working-age population. The Center's projections show a reduction of 8.2 million of these adults, from 128.3 million in 2015 to 120.1 million in 2035.
That numerical loss will be partially offset by an increase in the number of working-age U.S.-born adults with immigrant parents, who are projected to number 24.6 million in 2035, up from 11.1 million in 2015. But perhaps the most important component of the growth in the working-age population over the next two decades will be the arrival of future immigrants. The number of working-age immigrants is projected to increase from 33.9 million in 2015 to 38.5 million by 2035, with new immigrant arrivals accounting for all of that gain. (The number of current immigrants of working age is projected to decline as some will turn 65, while others are projected to leave the country or die.) Without these new arrivals, the number of immigrants of working age would decline by 17.6 million by 2035, as would the total projected U.S. working-age population, which would fall to 165.6 million.
The Pew Research Center projections for foreign-born working-age adults are based on current rates of immigration, combining lawful and unauthorized. They assume that two-thirds of immigrants arriving through 2035 will be ages 25 to 64, as is true of today's new immigrants. The declining number of U.S.-born working-age adults with U.S.-born parents means that they will become a smaller share of the working-age population: 66% in 2035, compared with 74% in 2015. U.S.-born children of immigrants will make up a growing share of working-age adults: 13% in 2035, compared with 6% in 2015. The immigrant share of working-age adults will inch up, from 20% in 2015 to 21% in 2035.
The decrease in working-age adults born in the U.S. whose parents also were born in the U.S. largely reflects the aging of the Baby Boom generation, born from 1946 to 1964. The youngest Boomers turn 65 by 2030 (of course, some Baby Boomers are immigrants or have immigrant parents, but the share is smaller than among younger Americans). Birth rates, which have stayed relatively low since the 1970s, also play a role.
The largest group joining the nation's working-age population will be the 60 million people who were born in the country to U.S.-born parents and turn 25 between 2015 and 2035. But they will be outnumbered by U.S.-born adults with U.S.-born parents who turn 65 or who die, according to the projections, and so this group will have a net loss in number.
There will also be 18 million U.S.-born people with immigrant parents who will join the working-age population from 2015 to 2035. This group already lives in the U.S.; they were ages 5 to 24 in 2015. They will outnumber the working-age adults in this group who turn 65 or die over the next two decades, resulting in a net gain of 13.6 million working-age adults who are U.S. born with immigrant parents.
The projections indicate that 17.6 million new immigrants will be added to the working-age population by 2035, offsetting the aging or death of other working-age immigrants. Without them, the number of working-age immigrants would decline by 2035 and the total U.S. working-age population would drop by almost 8 million (or more than 4%) from the 2015 working-age population.
Growth rates and immigration's role
The relatively weak growth rate projected for the total working-age adult population – averaging 0.3% per year for both the decades between 2015 and 2035 – is well under the increases in recent decades. The annual growth peaked at 2% in the decade from 1975 to 1985, when the Baby Boomers were coming of age, and growth rates were at least 0.8% in all other decades since 1965.
These projections, which are based on analysis of census data trends, focus on the working-age population, defined as ages 25 to 64. They exclude young adults, many of whom are enrolled in training programs or higher education, as well as adults ages 65 and older, most of whom are not working. However, the patterns are similar if the age range includes those as young as 18 or as old as 69.
These projections do not look at the future labor force – that is, how many people in each of these groups will be employed or looking for work. Labor-force participation differs by gender and generation. Currently, foreign-born men are somewhat more likely to work than all U.S.-born men (including those with immigrant parents and U.S.-born parents), but foreign-born women are somewhat less likely to work than U.S.-born women, in part because many are staying home to raise children.
Immigrants also play a large role in future U.S. population growth. Assuming current trends continue, future immigrants and their U.S.-born children will account for 88% of the nation's population growth between 2015 and 2065, according to Pew Research Center projections.
Source: Published originally on PewResearchCenter Immigration projected to drive growth in U.S. working-age population through at least 2035, by Jeffrey S. Passel and D'VeraCohn, March 7, 2017.
/span>The overall population is almost evenly split on whether growing numbers of immigrant workers help or hurt U.S. workers overall: 45% say having more immigrant workers hurts Americans and 42% say this trend helps U.S. workers. (The survey referred to immigrants in general and did not specify whether they were legally permitted or undocumented.)
These attitudes have changed significantly since a 2006 Pew Research Center survey, which found that 55% of Americans believed that the presence of more immigrant workers hurt U.S. laborers. That figure has since decreased by 10 percentage points.
Additionally, the share of Americans who thought a decade ago that the growing number of immigrants helped workers was 28%, marking a 14-point increase in that positive view.
There is a far wider partisan divide on this question – one that has been hotly debated during the 2016 campaign – than there was 10 years ago. The new poll shows that since 2006, Democrats have moved substantially in the direction of seeing immigrant workers as a plus when it comes to their effect on American worker: Today, about six-in-ten (58%) say that having more immigrant workers helps U.S. jobholders, up from just 30% who said this in 2006. Over the same time period, Republican opinion has shifted slightly in the opposite direction: Among adults who identify with the GOP, 54% now believe that the growing number of immigrant workers hurts American workers (a 6-point increase since 2006).
Overall, when Americans are asked what hurts American workers, the top answers are outsourcing jobs to other countries (80% of Americans think this hurts U.S. jobholders), more foreign-made products being sold in the U.S. (77% think this hurts), increased use of contract or temporary employees (57%), automation of jobs (50%) and the decline in union membership (49%).
While there are partisan differences over immigration in this election campaign, fairly strong majorities of Americans have positive views about immigrants, including those who are unauthorized.
An August poll by Pew Research Center showed that 71% of Americans said undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that U.S. citizens do not want, while 24% said such immigrants mostly fill jobs citizens would like. And a large majority of adults (76%) said that undocumented immigrants are as honest and hardworking as U.S. citizens.
The U.S. has 44 million immigrants, more than any other country, that together make up 13.6% of the U.S. population. Three-quarters of them are in the U.S. lawfully or hold U.S. citizenship. The remaining quarter are unauthorized immigrants. The latest estimates from Pew Research Center show that there were 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the country in 2014, a figure that has remained essentially stable since 2009.
Source: Published originally on PewResearchCenter, Americans less concerned than a decade ago over immigrants' impact on workforce, by Lee Rainie and Anna Brown, October 7, 2016.
- Author: UCR Today by Sarah Nightingale
The study, released today by the UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting and Development at the School of Business Administration, examines data from the U.S Census Bureau's newest Survey of Business Owners, which is published once every five years and provides the most current snapshot of the nation's proprietors. The most recent survey includes data on business owners through 2012 and was released this past December.
The new analysis finds that from 2007 to 2012, the number of Hispanic-owned businesses grew 46.3% in the U.S., 43.9% in California, and a whopping 50.6% in Inland Southern California. Comparatively, the rate of growth among ‘all businesses' was much slower: 3.4% in the U.S., 5.0% in California, and 8.0% in Inland Southern California. With this growth, Hispanic-owned businesses now comprise over one-third of all businesses in Inland Southern California (36.9%), nearly one-quarter (23.4%) of all California businesses and 12.2% of all U.S businesses.
The upsurge helps the share of Hispanic business ownership converge closer to the share of Hispanics employed in the workforce at all three levels. Hispanics comprise 46.2% of the labor force in Inland Southern California, 35.3% in California, and 15.5% in the United States.
“For years, Hispanics have made up a large and growing share of the population and workforce of the nation, state, and inland region,” said Director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Development Christopher Thornberg, one of the report's lead authors. “As a measure of socio-economic advancement, it is an important and positive trend to see proprietorships increasing and a healthier balance developing between Hispanic business owners and workers.”
The last time this Census data was published, Hispanic-owned businesses comprised 8.6% of all businesses in the U.S., 17.1% in California, and 26.5% in Inland Southern California.
While growing impressively in number, Hispanic-owned businesses in Inland Southern California have not kept pace with their counterparts at the state and national level when it comes to revenue or employment growth. In Inland Southern California, revenues generated by Hispanic-owned businesses increased just 5.8% from 2007 to 2012, while they jumped 23.1% in California, and 35.1% in the United States.
Over the same period, hiring at Hispanic-owned businesses in the Inland region declined by 9.2% while it expanded at the state (12.7%) and national (22.1%) level. While job growth at the state and national level bucked a recessionary trend of falling employment among all businesses, the decline locally was likely tied to the severity of the recession in the inland region.
Despite growth on many fronts, Hispanic-owned businesses account for a disproportionately low share of total revenues and employment across all three geographies with the disparity intensifying at the regional level. In Inland Southern California, they make up nearly 40% of all businesses but generate just 9.1% of total revenues and employ only 10.3% of the local workforce. In California, Hispanic-owned businesses comprise 23.4% of all businesses but only generate 6.5% of all revenues and employ just 8.0% of the state's workforce; in the nation they make up 12.2% of all U.S. businesses, but generate 4.0% of total national revenues and employ 4.2% of the nation's employed population.
“The disparities in revenue and employment should improve as these businesses mature,” Thornberg said. Indeed, according to the analysis, many Hispanic-owned businesses have formed within the past five years and are relatively young enterprises. While some of the disparities may be related to their early stage of development, the authors also note that in Inland Southern California, Hispanic-owned businesses may need to reevaluate their business strategies in order to improve revenue and employment outcomes.
Source: UCR Today, Growth in Hispanic-Owned Businesses Outpacing Total Business Creation in U.S., California, and Inland Southern Californiaby Sarah Nightingale, April 13, 2016.
- Author: Fusion.net by Emily DeRuy
According to a new Gallup-Lumina Foundation study, 51 percent of Hispanics think “education beyond high school is affordable to anyone in this country who needs it.”
Just 19 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites feel the same.
So why are Hispanics way more optimistic than their white and black peers about the affordability of postsecondary education?
“This is a population of folks who are very hungry for education and see it as a pathway to a better life,” Brandon Busteed, the Gallup lead on the study and executive director of Gallup Education, told Fusion.
One potential theory Busteed offers is that there's a large immigrant population in the Hispanic community and first-generation immigrants see education as the only pathway to a good job.
Another is that data indicates adults without a postsecondary credential are more likely to think college graduates are well-prepared for the workforce than those who hold a credential, and since Hispanic adults are less likely to hold a credential than their white peers, they may have more optimism about college.
Still, whites, on average, have more than nine times the wealth of Hispanics, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they would have a more difficult time affording college. Yet Hispanic students are less likely to take out student loans and more likely to work, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Latino students are also more likely to attend community colleges, which often have relatively low tuition, close to home, which allows students to work and cut out room and board costs.
The makeup of colleges is changing as more young Hispanics pursue higher education.
Between 1976 and 2011, the percentage of college students who identified as Hispanic rose from 4 percent to 14 percent, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. In 2012, seven out of 10 Latino high school graduates enrolled in college, according to the Pew Research Center, which was higher than the enrollment rate for students identifying as white or black.
The survey found that most Americans think colleges need to do more to prepare students for success in the working world, and that they need to do more to serve an increasingly diverse array of students. Virtually all adults in the United States think high schoolers need to go on to college or technical school to be successful in today's economy.
“We as country have got to get behind this Hispanic population that is coming to college with very high expectations for it and valuing it,” Busteed said, “and make sure we're supporting them in the right ways.”
Source: Originally published on Fusion.net asHispanics are way more optimistic about paying for college than everyone else, by Emily DeRuy, April 17, 2015.