Exploring the US Latino Economy

Thank you for letting me be here.

And let's begin with that 2026 Latino Report, Part 1, that was released in July.

The L. William Seidman Research Institute at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business was commissioned to develop the research.

You had previously co-authored and contributed to three prior reports.

What does this say about U.S. Latinos and overall economic growth in the nation?

I think the two most important takeaways from this report is, as you mentioned, that the Latino population, despite being only around 20% of the entire U.S. population, is contributing about a third of our economic growth.

And the second aspect that I want to focus on is that going forward, these trends are only going to accelerate as the U.S. population slows down and ages.

We have a domestic dynamic population that is younger, has higher rates of labor force participation, and is making inroads in terms of human capital accumulation and just overall income growth.

Latino households generated $3.4 trillion in gross domestic income, while household consumption reached $2.8 trillion.

Why is Latino household consumption outdistancing the pace of the rest of the country?

So I think it really comes down to two aspects that are driving this growth.

On the one hand, you have a Latino population that is growing.

So there are more Latinos earning wages and therefore consuming more.

And on the other hand, every Latino worker on average increases their annual earnings to a higher degree compared to the rest of the population.

And that comes down to inroads that are being made in terms of human capital accumulation and in terms of entrepreneurship.

So these two forces really are driving higher income, which translates into higher consumption as well.

Well, Dr. Huerta, another way to look at it is from a report from UCLA and California Lutheran University, which looks at this impact in GDP.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Latino GDP is the single fastest growth among major economies, growing even faster than India and China's GDP.

So what are the factors behind this overall gross domestic product growth?

The growth of the Latino economy is really anchored on some very strong fundamentals that are unlikely to change in the short to medium term.

So the first anchor, of course, is demographics.

We have a population that is much younger, that exhibits higher rates of labor force participation, and that crucially, a large share of Latinos are under the age of 16.

So these are individuals that are just going to start entering their working age years.

On the other hand, we also have strong performance in terms of human capital accumulation.

Specifically, what we're seeing is higher rates of high school and bachelor degree completion, among other more advanced degrees.