A recently published study of Latino economic performance in the United States belies the stereotype-based notion that the Latino community is just a burden on the U.S. economy. The state report reveals that Latino GDP in 2018 was $2.6 trillion, outmatching Italy, South Korea or Brazil, ranking eighth in the world if it were an independent nation.
Study co-author and director of the “Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture” at UCLA, Prof. David Hayes-Bautista, PhD says the report disaffirms the idea that Latinos come to the United States to commit crimes or live on public assistance: “We are not lazy or criminal, we come to work, and these figures prove it’”.
“The U.S. Latino GDP grew 21 percent faster than that of India and 30 percent faster than China’s. In California, the statistics are just as staggering. In 2018, the state’s Latino GDP was $706.6 billion, higher than Ohio’s total economic output”.
According to the report, the weight component of Latin GDP is consumption. In states where the prevalence of Latino communities is highest, such as Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas, consumption hit the $1.36 trillion mark in 2018. The data also shows that the consumption of this population in relation to non-Latinos grew 135% faster between 2010 and 2018.
One of the relations pointed out by Hayes-Bautista for this expressiveness in the numbers is the Latino population’s growth in the last decade, not through immigration, but through the high fertility rate, which corresponded to the greater participation of Latinos in the labor market (on average, 4.6% higher than that of non-Latin people).
Other factor highlighted by this report is that the greater expressiveness in GDP would be on increase educational level of the Latino population in recent years, that is, 2.5 times faster in relation to the non-Latino population in the United States. The life expectancy of Latinos is also a differential: 83.6 years compared to 80.8 years for non-Latinos, and this must be related to health habits, according to Hayes-Bautista, despite the unequal health care system experienced by the Latins in their daily lives.
