The one thing President Trump, Democrats, reporters and, most importantly, the American public can agree upon is the need for greater U.S. economic growth. An analysis from June 28, Latino GDP Report, highlights the Latino contribution to the U.S. economy. It provides helpful insight to our country’s challenge of creating greater economic growth.
President Trump promises annual GDP growth of 3%, the average rate after World War II. Until recently, Americans had averaged 2.3%. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today projects, absent fundamental changes in economic policy, GDP growth of 1.8% in the foreseeable future. Why the recent slowdown in economic growth and the pessimistic CBO forecast?
A slew of reaction pieces agree the Latino GDP report is fascinating: It provides data that within the U.S., there is a subset of the population, diverse in education, occupation and other relevant characteristics that produces impressive GDP growth.
In 2015, 55 million Latinos produced a Latino GDP of $2.13 trillion out of a U.S. $18.04 trillion nationally. It was the seventh-largest GDP in the world; the second-largest GDP of U.S. states.
At 2.9%, the Latino Compound Annual Growth Rate of GDP between 2010 and 2015 was the third-highest growth rate in the world, behind only China and India. It was nearly 70% higher than the non-Latino U.S. GDP growth rate of 1.7%. The report also concludes that if these rates are sustained, Latinos will contribute nearly one-fourth of all U.S. GDP growth between 2019 and 2020.
The labour force component of economic growth: Latinos are the major component of growth of the U.S. workforce. While the non-Latino workforce shrank by about 4,000 workers between 2010 and 2015, the Latino workforce grew by nearly 2.5 million, making possible an overall increase of 2.4 million in the U.S. workforce, ages 24 to 64. Workforce participation is becoming increasingly important for economic growth. In 2015, participation stood at 90% for young male mature workers aged 25 to 49 but lower, 82-86%, for non-Latinos in this category.
