Latino immigrants in the United States generated $1.6 trillion in GDP in 2023, according to new research from the Latino Donor Collaborative. That contribution forms part of an overall Latino purchasing power of $4.1 trillion, highlighting the community’s growing influence on the U.S. economy.
The study, conducted by economists at Arizona State University, shows that U.S. Latino GDP grew 50% between 2015 and 2023, far outpacing the 17% growth recorded among non-Latinos. Researchers attribute this rapid rise to gains in education, entrepreneurship, and workforce participation.
California led the nation with $989 billion in Latino GDP last year and is on track to surpass $1 trillion by 2025. Texas, Florida, and New York also report Latino GDPs in the hundreds of billions, underscoring how widespread this economic force has become.
Latino spending is reshaping the overall U.S. economy. As baby boomers reduce their annual spending by roughly 4%, Latinos are filling the gap. Their share of U.S. consumption is growing by more than 3% each year, with actual consumer spending rising nearly 5% annually compared with 2.4% for non-Latinos. Rising disposable incomes and demographic shifts are driving this momentum.
“This is very clear — if there’s a silver bullet for the economy beyond AI, it’s the Latino consumer,” said Sol Trujillo, co-founder of the Latino Donor Collaborative and chairman of the Trujillo Group. “They are workers, entrepreneurs and consumers, driving significant growth across sectors in the American economy.”
At the Velocity economic conference in Los Angeles, Suma Wealth co-founder and CEO Beatriz Acevedo emphasized the growing importance of Latino consumers to American brands. She pointed to Modelo, which overtook Budweiser in 2023 as the top-selling beer in the U.S. by capturing half of the Latino market, and to T-Mobile, which surpassed AT&T and Verizon in subscriber growth thanks to strong Latino support. Other brands like Dr. Pepper, Kia, and even the WNBA have seen major gains tied directly to Latino consumers.
However, experts caution that mass deportations could threaten this progress. Arizona State economist Dennis Hoffman, lead author of the report, warned that removing up to 8.3 million undocumented workers could indirectly cost the economy more than 19.5 million jobs due to lost output and spending. His models suggest GDP could shrink by $2.3 trillion, or about 7.7%.
Hoffman stressed that immigration reform is needed to maintain economic stability, noting, “We can sponsor productive, hardworking, undocumented workers and not suffer the pain we would incur with mass deportations.”
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