Latinos contributed $65 billion to the Phoenix metro economy
Latinos contributed at least $65.1 billion to the Phoenix-area economy, according to a new report measuring the gross domestic product of the region’s fastest growing demographic group.
That is higher than the entire economies of the states of Maine and North Dakota, the report found.
The report is intended to create a broader understanding of how the Latino population contributes to the business and economic growth of the Phoenix area and show where that growth is headed in the future, said Benito Almanza, the Arizona state president of Bank of America, which funded the 2023 Phoenix metro Latino report.
“There are a lot of narratives that really don’t paint that great a picture” of the Latino population, “and certainly this is we think a great story that is happening here in Arizona and across the country,” Almanza said during a gathering Friday at the Heard Museum, where the report’s findings were presented to business and community leaders.
The Phoenix metro area is made up of 4.9 million people and is the 9th largest metro area in the U.S.
Latinos comprise 1.5 million, or 31% of the total Phoenix metro population. That makes the Phoenix metro area the 8th largest in the U.S. by Latino population, said Matthew Fienup, one of the report’s authors. He is executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University.
Big picture: The report is one of a series of reports funded by Bank of America that show that Latinos are driving economic growth in cities and states with large or fast-growing Latino populations. The reports measured Latino GDP for the year 2018, the most recent year data was available.
Much of that economic growth is being driven by rapid Latino population growth and rapid increases in Latino educational attainment and labor force participation, Fienup said.
Latino population growth in the Phoenix metro area is two times greater than non-Latinos. Latino work force participation is four times that of non-Latinos. And household formation and homeownership growth is three times that of non-Latinos, Fienup said.
The Latino GDP for the entire state of Arizona is $91.7 billion, Fienup said. Latinos in the Phoenix metro area are responsible for 71% of Arizona’s Latino GDP.
Latino GDP is mostly driven by Latino consumption, Fienup said. Latino consumption in the Phoenix metro area amounts to $44.5 billion. That is larger than the entire economy of Wyoming, Fienup said.
Nationally, Latinos contributed $2.6 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2018, the most recent year data was available, up from $1.7 trillion in 2010, the report said.
For perspective: If Latinos living in the U.S. were their own independent country, Latino GDP would be the 8th largest GDP in the world, larger than the economies of Italy, Brazil and South Korea, the report said.
The Latino GDP was the single fastest growing among the world’s 10 largest GDPs in 2018, the report said. Latino real GDP grew 21% faster than India’s and 30% faster than China’s.
Bottom line: In cities and states with large or fast-growing Latino populations, rapid economic growth is driven by rapid population and labor force participation of Latinos, many of whom came to the U.S. as immigrants, said David Hayes-Bautista, another co-author of the report. He is professor of medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles.
Investing in the education of Latinos and providing economic opportunities to Latinos will help further drive economic growth, he said.
“If the largely immigrant Latino population of the late 20th Century could create the world’s eighth largest GDP, their children, who are born here, who are U.S. citizens, who are highly educated, what kind of GDP can they create?” Hayes-Bautista said.
“That is the possibility. That is the opportunity. That can be a reality if we choose to make it so. Investing in these Latino children now will ensure growth” in the future, he said.
Reach the reporter at [email protected] or at 602-444-8312. Follow him on Twitter @azdangonzalez.
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