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Economic Data Report & Key Policy Recommendations

Considering that 17.5 million Latino voters will head to the polls this November, UnidosUS is proud to have recently published a first-of-its-kind report that assesses how our community has fared financially since 2020.

Importantly, From the Pandemic to the Present: Forging a Path from Recovery to Prosperity, offers policy recommendations to help maintain Latinos’ positive economic momentum which, ultimately, contributes to the nation’s prosperity.

The report finds that Latino families have largely bounced back post-COVID, buying homes and creating businesses. Despite the 4.7 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S., there are growing economic concerns, particularly among working class families. Nearly 70% of Latino voters benefited from at least one federal pandemic relief policy. These public investments grew real wages for Hispanics at their fastest rate in 40 years and allowed the U.S. to make the quickest economic recovery in the world.

UnidosUS and our Affiliate El Concilio hosted an economic roundtable in August with U.S. Senator Bob Casey in Philadelphia, PA.

But the report suggests that some of these successes might be short- lived without continued investment. As pandemic programs ended, and costs continued to rise, Latinos who reported doing OK financially dropped from 71% in 2021 to 61% and, significantly, more than a million Latino children fell back into poverty.

The last five years have shown that smart public investments can remove unnecessary barriers to opportunity and strengthen working- and middle-class communities. As the federal government prepares to deploy more than a trillion new dollars in the U.S. economy, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and CHIPS and Science ACT, it is essential that these funds are administered in a way that ensures they reach and benefit the Latino community.

Thanks to support from donors like you, UnidosUS can collect and share key economic data in the report, along with crucial policy recommendations to help Latinos boost their incomes, cope with high housing and health care costs, and access affordable credit. You can access the full report online here.