Employees at the counter of restaurant, bakery, Manolo, Miami Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Jeff Greenberg | Universal Image Group | Getty Images
Latinos contribute significantly to the U.S. economy.
According to a recent report, the Latinx female population contributed $1.3 trillion to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, an increase from $661 billion in 2010 Report Funded by Bank of America.
This marks a real GDP growth rate of 51.1% between 2010 and 2021, which means the economic contribution is 2.7 times that of the non-Hispanic population.
Citing data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the report noted that the total output of U.S. Latinos in 2021 also exceeded the total output of the entire state of Florida that year. In fact, only individuals from California, Texas and New York were larger that year.
Despite the large numbers, some economists believe that U.S. Latinos may contribute more to GDP than reported.
Belinda Román, an associate professor of economics at Saint Mary’s University, said the data may not capture activity in every area. Child care is one of them.
“A lot of it is unpaid care,” she told CNBC. “What’s interesting is that there are a lot of Latinos in this field that you don’t see in those numbers, so I think in some ways it might actually not be big enough.”
Economist Monica Garcia-Pérez also thinks the number could be larger, saying some of Latinos’ “immeasurable” contributions – such as being stay-at-home moms taking care of other neighbors’ children – allow “other group” participate in the labor market.
She also pointed out their more common career positions creates some difficulties in assessing their contribution.
“This group is very sensitive to shocks, and that may have to do with the fact that they’re in industries where there’s a lot of liquidity or mobility,” said the Fayetteville State University economics professor, adding that they tend to be concentrated in the nursing and service industries. , such as healthcare, retail and hospitality. This is why they are a “moving part” of the economic cycle.
For example, Garcia-Pérez said Latinos “are likely to lose their jobs much faster in their industries” during a recession, as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. “But they are also more likely to reintegrate into the market because the cost of entry and the barriers to entry for the types of positions are lower.”
growing power
A Bank of America report shows Latinos are surpassing other ethnic groups in labor force participation.
From 2000 to 2021, Latino participation rates increased by 7.5 percentage points. On the other hand, participation rates for non-Hispanic women were flat during the same period.
The organization is also more resilient than others. Despite an overall slowdown in labor force growth in 2020, growth rates for Hispanic men and women remained positive. In contrast, non-Latino labor growth was negative that year, meaning more people left the labor force than entered it.
In addition, between 2019 and 2021, Latino GDP growth was more than five times that of non-Latino GDP, growing at 7.7%, compared with 1.5% for non-Latino GDP. Meanwhile, the GDP growth rate for Hispanic men is nearly four times the GDP growth rate for non-Hispanic men, at 5.9%.
View Latino Families Some of the worst-hit countries Affected by the epidemic.
“When the economy generally needed help the most, we actually saw U.S. Latinos do “While all Latinos are a source of economic strength, Latinos are the drivers of the energy the economy needs. “
“If Covid-19 can’t stop this increase, it’s hard to imagine what can,” said report co-author David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for Latino Health and Culture Research at the UCLA School of Medicine.
drivers of change
Since the late 1970s, the proportion of Latinos who are employed has been increasing. Specifically, the employment-to-population ratio for this group surged from 41.6% in December 1978 to 56% in December 2023, according to the data. data From the Economic Policy Institute.
By comparison, the proportion of black women—who, like Latina women, experience Worst pay gap Relative to white, non-Hispanic men, this rate increased by 11.9 percentage points. During the same period, the overall indicator for women increased by 8.8 percentage points.
“Part of it is expanding opportunities for women,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at EPI. Part of the reason, she said, is also the lack of wage growth for typical workers over the past few decades. “Because it can be difficult to make progress, families may have to put in more work hours to do better.”
This seems to have paid off in a way. growth in the labor force participation rate and improvement in educational attainment Co-authors of the Bank of America report found that from 2010 to 2021, this group will earn about 2.5 times more than non-Hispanic women.
The Brooklyn Puerto Rican Day Parade was held on June 13, 2021, on Knickerbocker Avenue in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
Andrew Lichtenstein | Corbis News | Getty Images
Hayes-Bautista also pointed to a generational shift and the Latino female population growing faster than Hispanic men and the non-Hispanic population as another catalyst for Latino economic output.
“We started seeing around 2000 that first-generation immigrants began to gradually withdraw from the labor market,” he said. “As they age, their shoes will be filled by their daughters and granddaughters, who have twice their population and who bring higher levels of human capital.”
Latinos in particular have supported the contributions of Latinos as a whole. Finap told CNBC that the total contribution of Hispanics has fueled positive labor force growth in some parts of the country at a time when the non-Hispanic workforce has shrunk.
“We expect this dynamic to become increasingly important over the next three decades,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is really just the beginning of an increasingly important story in the U.S. economy.”
