If it were a country, would be the 12 world’s largest economy. In real life they are much more than that: they are the most dynamic engines of this nation formidable machinery of production and consumption valued in over 17 trillion dollars a year.
Latino community is the youngest and most dynamic segment of the American society and economy. There are 55 million people and will soon be 150 million, almost a third of the total population of this country.
While it is true that many of the 10.7 million Latino families now living here are several million immigrants that belong to the category of the undocumented, so it is the fact that their presence is essential in several key industries, such as agriculture, construction and most services in the hospitality sector.
In these fields, as in the 3.1 million Hispanic small businesses you can find the most active segment of the economy. Not to mention that Latinos are the social group with the highest participation in the labor market and the youngest segment of society, therefore one of the most important consumer markets in the nation.
Ignoring the Hispanic market today is the equivalent of denying the growing economies of Asia in recent decades. Latinos represent an economy larger than the vast majority of countries in the world; bigger than Canada (with a GDP of 1.4 trillion), Mexico (1.3) and many other countries.
In order to understand the real value of the Latino economy, the best advice would be the classic followed the money. Even tough around a quarter of the American population is close to the poverty line, as a whole Latinos are the most attractive consumer market segment in various fields. For example:
Latinos spend more than non-Latinos in the supermarket, telephone service, furniture, shoes and menswear and children. They also spend a greater proportion of their income on food (supermarkets and restaurants), the housing and transportation, and basically the same as non-Latinos in household products, women’s clothing and beauty items.
Also in the digital world, especially in telephony, where the around 40 million Latino users are thriving, especially for two basic reasons: (1) they are younger than the average which almost automatically brings them closer to master the use of new technologies and (2) for its deep roots with other countries they have more need to use the phone than others who have always lived in the same place.
Despite political prejudices the main fact about Latinos is that more than half of them are American citizens by birth. Over 90 percent have a completely legal immigration status. And among those who do not, the vast majority have spent more than a decade working in this country, have formed family here where likely most of them will remain.
Therefore it should be no surprise that even in the real estate industry, Latinos are an essential market. Being just over 13 percent of the population, they represented 39 percent in the growth of the total universe of homeowners or apartment throughout the first decade of this century. In fact their presence in California was 82 percent in New York to 65 percent in cities like Chicago and nearly 100 percent. In other words, the real growth of the real estate business is held on the economies of the Latino families. In fact, the more than one million Latinos who own their own business and declare annual income to $ 100,000 a year are the backbone of the growth of the mortgage market in the major cities.
In other words, Latinos should be recognize as one of the most valuable internal markets in the country. We are sure that very soon all this will be common sense knowledge and therefore a major element in order to advance this community agenda.
