Top Stories » Headlines » Profiles & Trends

Hispanic buying power in the U.S. is forecast to top that of all minority groups by next year, overtaking the African-American population, according to a new report seen on Food-NavigatorUSA.com.

Released last week, the report by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia revealed that by 2007, Hispanic purchasing power will reach $863.1 billion

“The economic clout of Hispanics has risen from $212 billion in 1990, when I first started doing this study, to $798 billion this year and I expect it to be almost $1.2 trillion five years from now,” said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center. “That’s more than 450 percent growth from 1990 to 2011. Non-Hispanic buying power is growing closer to a rate of 176 percent over the same period.”

In fact, population counts have revealed that Hispanics actually surpassed blacks as the nation’s largest minority group five years ago. But in terms of spending power, 2007 will mark the first year that Hispanics control more disposable personal income than any other U.S. minority group.

“Still, even as Hispanic buying power overtakes African-American buying power at the national level, it is important to recognize that in the majority of states, the African-American market will continue to be much larger than the Hispanic market,” Humphreys said.

“This insight reflects the fact that Hispanics and their buying power are much more geographically concentrated than non-Hispanics or African-Americans. For example, California alone accounts for 27 percent of all Hispanic buying power in the US.”

The report, which estimates minority buying power by applying economic modeling and forecasting techniques to data from various U.S. government sources, includes state-by-state projections of buying power for the nation’s three most populous racial groups, as well as Hispanics, who are categorized by the U.S. Census as an ethnic minority and not a racial minority.

Buying power, also referred to as disposable income, is the total personal income available for spending on goods and services after taxes.

According to Humphreys, the remarkable gains in Hispanic buying power are largely explained by immigration and population growth. Between 1990 and 2011, the beginning and ending boundaries of the study, Hispanic population is expected to increase 126.4 percent, compared with 15.4 percent for the nation’s non-Hispanic population.

Other driving forces boosting the Hispanic consumer market include better employment opportunities and higher business ownership, said the report.