Hispanic Heritage Month: Latino business in America

Arturo E. Osorio is an associate professor at Rutgers Business School. He researches entrepreneurial actions and consequences in urban communities, socioeconomic development systems and processes, and food security. He says higher education plays a vital role in the Hispanic community’s positive impact. The number of Latinos enrolled in college has increased from 2.9 million to 3.6 million during the 2010 to 2019 period.

By Arturo E. Osorio

The US Census reported that 18.7% of the U.S. population was Hispanic as of April 1, 2020. In New Jersey, recent estimates suggest that about 20.4% (nearly 1.8 million) are Hispanic, which ranks the state seventh among the top ten states with the largest Hispanic/Latino population in the nation.

As reported by the New Jersey Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (NJ-SHCC), the Garden State is home to over 120,000 Hispanic-owned businesses , which in turn create thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars in tax revenues – an essential component to funding municipal services and shoring up social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

In 2018, the Gross Domestic Product of this Hispanic community in New Jersey was $97 billion, larger than the entire economic output of the state of Hawaii. In […]

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