Thread by @Noahpinion

1/I wrote a post about a bright spot in the U.S. economy: The upward mobility of Hispanic Americans.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/During the recent economic boom, Hispanic incomes grew faster than White, Black, or even Asian incomes.

3/Now, that growth is from a lower base -- at median, White households still make almost $20,000 more per year than Hispanic households.

But it's good progress. And it's accompanied by a widespread feeling of economic optimism and upward mobility.

pewresearch.org/hispanic/2012/…

4/Now, *part* of this is a composition effect, from falling immigration.

Large-scale immigration from Central America (particularly Mexico) stopped in 2007. And immigrants' kids tend to make much more than their parents.

migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-…

5/But much of it is simply Hispanics, as a group, moving up in America.

Economists Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie Jones and Sonya Porter noted in 2018 that Hispanics' upward mobility is similar to that of Whites:

equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documen…

6/And here is a report by sociologist Van C. Tran that finds much the same:

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117…

7/How are Hispanics achieving this upward mobility?

Education is one important way. Hispanic rates of college enrollments surpassed that of Whites back in 2012, and Hispanic high school dropout rates have plummeted.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013…

8/A second factor is geographic diffusion.

Hispanics are moving out of traditional immigrant enclaves, and spreading out across the country.

That tends to raise incomes and increase opportunity.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

9/Strikingly, Chicago is now 1/3 Hispanic, despite not being geographically close to any Spanish-speaking country.

chicagotribune.com/hoy/ct-mexican…

10/Here is research by @leah_boustan and others showing that geographic diffusion is good for upward mobility, for the descendants of immigrants.

nber.org/papers/w27372

11/Anyway, it appears that Hispanic Americans are following much the same paths as other recent-immigrant groups: Getting educated, spreading across the country, and moving up economically.

This is a huge American success story, at a time when there are few such stories.

12/But I don't want to be a rah-rah cheerleader and act like there's no work left to be done here.

Many Hispanic Americans still suffer significant racial discrimination.

pewresearch.org/hispanic/2018/…

13/And this has no doubt been exacerbated by the hateful and exclusionary rhetoric of President Donald Trump.

abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-lang…

14/Furthermore, there's one economic dimension in which Hispanics are NOT yet catching up to Whites in America:

Wealth.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017…

15/The wealth gap between White and Hispanic Americans remains enormous.

16/Hispanics have made significant progress in incomes and education, but not yet in wealth.

U.S. policy try to help Hispanics build more wealth.

17/But despite these remaining challenges, the news about Hispanic American progress is real, and very encouraging. A rare bright spot amid an overall vista of stagnation.

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…