Latinos work hard, have money and spend it, and their vast buying power – close to $900 billion nationally this year – will shape the future of American society, including the housing market, panelists at a business forum said Thursday, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
“This is a very hard-working community,” said Henry Cisneros, who chaired the program presented by the Tom s Rivera Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization headquartered at USC. “No one surpasses the foreign-born Latinos when it comes to work ethic.”
That work ethic translates into serious dollars. According to data from a recent University of Georgia study cited at Thursday’s conference, Latinos will account for $863.1 billion in buying power this year. By 2011, that will swell to $1.2 trillion, a 450 percent increase in 21 years.
The trick for the businessmen and academics in attendance at the two-day forum, held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, is to turn that buying power into things such as homeownership and future economic development.
While Cisneros noted Latinos have proven successful starting mom-and-pop entrepreneurial ventures that can provide for their families, they lag behind other immigrant groups in the major corporate sector.
