The size of the U.S. immigrant population has grown significantly over the past 40 years, from 4.7 percent of the total population in 1970 to 13.5 percent in 2015. Of the 43 million immigrants living in the United States in 2015, 45 percent (19.5 million) were Latino. The hard work and ingenuity of the immigrant community has produced many important contributions; for example: the foreign-born labor force participation rate (65.2 percent) exceeds that of native-born workers (62.2 percent); immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a business as native-born citizens; and foreign-born Latinos who have become naturalized citizens vote at higher rates than native-born Latinos. Yet there are also areas where immigrants lag behind their native peers, and...
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During his campaign, Donald Trump emphasized and expressed frustration about the lack of economic opportunity and mobility for Americans across the country. The idea that upward mobility is out of reach for many Americans proved to be a compelling message for many voters, paving the way to victory for President Trump. For many Americans, the challenge of economic opportunity is acutely felt in the context of housing, whether being able to afford rent, secure a mortgage or purchase an affordable home. The price of a mortgage is now more expensive than it has been in half a decade thanks to rising interest rates and growth in home values. While this challenge is not unique to any one demographic group, Latino...
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ELACC and partners with tenants’ rights fighters and allies from all over the state of California. Photos: ELACC Homeownership continues to be essential to the creation of Latino family wealth, yet many Latino families are still trying to recover from the loss of their home to foreclosure during the financial crisis, as well as job loss during the recession that hit Latino communities hard. For families who live in expensive cities like Los Angeles, homeownership can seem even further out of reach. In L.A., more than half of a family’s earnings goes to rent, and at 38%, Latinos have a lower rate of homeownership compared to other groups in the city. Even as families overall might pay less for a...
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Last month, my colleague Chad Bolt wrote a blog about the upside-down tax implications of the now-defunct-but-maybe-not-completely-gone American Health Care Act (AHCA). In it, Chad walked through how the AHCA would have taken some of the most right-side up tax credits created by the Affordable Care (ACA)—which are used by countless Americans each year to afford their coverage—and flipped them completely upside-down. Indeed, while the heart of the ACA/AHCA fight was about preventing 24 million Americans from losing their health coverage, it was also about taxes. More specifically, it was about ensuring that the more than $500 billion we’re slated to spend over the next decade through the tax code for healthcare continues to provide greater, more equitable support to...
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What do millions of people who occupied Wall Street, felt the “Bern,” wore pink hats with pointy ears, and donned baseball caps with the slogan “Make America Great Again” have in common? They are all concerned about wealth inequality. Today, the top 1 percent of Americans have more than half the nation’s wealth. The wealth gap is especially wide for people of color: The wealthiest 400 Americans own more wealth than the entire black population and a third of all Latinos combined. From a practical perspective, this means that millions of low- and moderate-income young adults are not getting to and through college. Millions of low- and moderate-income families can’t afford stable homes, and small business owners are going out...
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