Reports

The spread of poverty across the United States that began at the onset of the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and accelerated last year hit one fast-growing demographic group especially hard: Latino children.

Driven by a single-year surge of 24% in Hispanic enrollment, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high of 12.2 million in October 2010.

Median household wealth among Hispanics fell from $18,359 in 2005 to $6,235 in 2009—a 66% decline. This was larger than the decrease for black households (53%) and white households (16%), according to an analysis of newly-available Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project.

Births have surpassed immigration as the main driver of the dynamic growth in the nation's Mexican-American population. From 2000 to 2010, the Mexican-American population grew by 7.2 million as a result of births and 4.2 million as a result of new immigrant arrivals.

Browse detailed demographic and economic profiles of Hispanics in the United States by their countries of origin.

More than 6.6 million Latinos voted in last year’s election—a record for a midterm. Fueled by their rapid population growth, Latinos also were a larger share of the electorate in 2010 than in any previous midterm election, representing 6.9% of all voters, up from 5.8% in 2006.

The 2010 Census counted 50.5 million Hispanics in the United States, making up 16.3% of the total population. The nation's Latino population, which was 35.3 million in 2000, grew 43% over the decade.

The number of Hispanics counted in the 2010 Census was nearly 1 million more than expected, based on the most recent Census Bureau population estimates.

For the first time since the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, native-born workers in the second half of 2010 joined foreign-born workers in experiencing the beginnings of a recovery in employment.

This statistical profile of the foreign-born population is based on Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of the Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey.