♪ Hey, hey, hey (lively music) ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey (joyful music) - Good evening, and welcome to "Horizonte," a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens.

I'm your host, Catherine Anaya.

The 27th annual DATOS Report has been released by the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The report details important data about the ever-growing Hispanic marketplace.

This year, the report focuses on transportation.

The in-depth report covers a wide range of important data points in the Hispanic community.

Here are some of the bigger highlights.

The latest DATOS Report found that Hispanics made up almost 1/3 of Arizona's population in 2021, at 32.3% or 2.4 million people.

If all Latinos in the US were their own country, they would be the world's fifth largest economy.

And 71% of Latinos own their own home before the age of 45.

That's compared to 62% of the general population.

Here with more on the DATOS Report is Paul Padilla, the director of Marketing Intelligence for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Great to see you, Paul.

Thank you for being here.

- Yeah, thank you for having me.

- So these numbers and stats are very impressive.

How would you describe the key findings of this latest DATOS Report?

- Yeah, overall, to summarize, I would say it's very promising.

I just wanted to highlight a few points on the population side and economic side for Latinos.

So at the US level, from 2010 to 2020, the Hispanic population increased by 12 million.

So that accounted for 52% of the total growth that we're seeing in the US.

Here locally, in Maricopa County, during that same time period, we saw the Hispanic population increase by 200,000, and that was the third largest growth among all counties in the US, just behind a county in Texas and in Florida.

So, a lot of growth there.

On the economic side, we're seeing a lot of growth as well.

5.8 million Hispanics entered the labor market from 2010 to 2020.

And if you compare that to the non-Hispanic population, that was only 2.4 million individuals.

So a lot of Hispanics are entering the market as well.

And then we're seeing Hispanics, seeing a large decrease in their poverty as well.

So the Hispanic poverty rate in the US decreased six percentage points, and that was the greatest percentage decrease compared to all other major racial ethnic groups.

But there's still some areas for growth and opportunity.

I want to highlight a few opportunity points.

28% of Hispanic adults, own a retirement account.

So we need to get that number up.

That's the lowest among any other group.

Hispanics are 2.5 times more likely to experience food insecurity than white individuals.

So obviously, that's a point where we want to improve.

So yeah, there's areas in improvement that we need to work on as well.

- But still, when you look at the strides that we're making, according to this report, it's pretty phenomenal.

So what does that say about the impact of Latinos?

- Yeah, so one of the stats that you highlighted is that Arizona, or Hispanics, make up 1/3 of the Arizona population, right?

So if we want to have a successful Arizona, that means we need to have Latinos be successful too, right?

There's a saying that our CEO, Monica Villalobos, says.

She says, "If you're a business and you're doing business here in Arizona, then you're a Hispanic business, whether you know it or not."

And that's just because the sheer number that we're representing.

We're 1/3 of the population, so we have an impact.

- DATOS is a very comprehensive report.

Can you talk a little bit about the key areas that are analyzed in this report?

- Yeah, so starting back in 2018, we collaborated with the Vitalyst Health Foundation, and they have a model that's called Elements of a Healthy Community.

So there's basically 12 chapters that they recognize, or 12 aspects that they recognize as elements of someone being healthy and happy.

We've all realized that money doesn't necessarily equal happiness, and success, and being healthy, right?

There's a lot of more aspects to living a sustainable and healthy life.

So we wanted to challenge ourselves and look at other areas just outside of population, and economics, and healthcare.

Those are all important too, but there's other chapters and topics that we should account for as well.

So in this book now, we look at like how Latinos impact social justice, how their affordable housing looks like.

How does affordable healthcare look like?

How does getting affordable food looks like?

So those are like the points that we wanna focus on now and moving forward.

- It's a very well-rounded look at the population.

What of those areas did you see the most growth, according to the report?

- Yeah, so I want to go back to population and economics.

So population, we already established that, in the past decade weve seen a growth and the data shows that that's not gonna change anytime soon.

So, according to census, from the year 2025 to 2060, the Hispanic population in the US is projected to grow by over 60%.

- Wow.

- [Paul] So there's a lot of growth to keep on going.

- And what do you attribute to that kind of growth?

- Just, you know, a lot of growth, a lot of movement, a lot of people moving to Arizona, big states like Arizona, and Texas, and Florida, so just a lot of movement going on.

Like I said, a lot more Hispanics entering the workforce, the economy, contributing with their dollars.

- So when you talk about growth like that, and what's expected in terms of growth, do you think that, you know, Arizona leaders, leaders across the country, are doing enough to really tap into that power of the Hispanic community?

- So, I think we're doing a good job, but there's always room for improvement, right?

We can always be doing more.

So for business leaders, I would say that we need to attach more or foster more of the entrepreneurial spirit that Hispanics have.

If you look in DATOS this year, we have one stat that shows, basically from 2010 till now, Hispanics have consistently had the highest rate of entrepreneurship compared to all other groups.

So creating programs that foster that entrepreneurial spirit.

We have some of those at the chamber, but I would invite all our business leaders to invest more in that, into those programs.

- The report is released at a breakfast, a DATOS breakfast every year, and that's also a place where there's a conversation to take kind of a deeper dive into one specific area.

This year, that was transportation.

What was some of the discussion, if you can share, from the breakfast that's centered around transportation and Latinos?

- Yeah, so obviously transportation is very broad, right?

That means a lot.

It can mean a lot of things.

So we had various panelists and speakers talk about their impact on transportation.

So, for example, we had the chief of staff of the Secretary of the US Navy speak and talk about what impact Hispanics have had on the US Navy throughout history.

We had the director of the Arizona Department of Transportation, ADOT, talk about their current projects to invest in infrastructure here in Arizona.

We had somebody from the city of Phoenix talk about similar things, but at the city level.

We had somebody from Lyft talk about how rideshare, specifically Lyft, is impacting Arizona economically.

We had the consulate of Mexico in Phoenix talk about the importance of trade relationship between Arizona and Mexico.

And then we had some surprising guests, as well, that you would never think like have an impact on transportation.

So we had the executive director of the Arizona Lottery, and they were talking about how they invest many dollars, millions of dollars into our local infrastructure and improving our transportation system here in Phoenix and in Arizona.

So that was amazing.

- That's pretty impressive.

Yeah, so, what was the general theme, would you say, or the takeaway that everybody sort of had a consensus, opinion on with regard to transportation and the Hispanic community?

- Yeah, that it plays a big impact, and that Hispanics have a huge impact as well.

So, courtesy of our partnership with Univision, they provided us some data that shows that, in Phoenix specifically, Hispanics over-index when it comes to alternative uses of transportation.

So Hispanics, compared to non-Hispanics, use carpooling more, they use rideshare, Uber, and Lyft more.

They use the bus system more, they rely on it more.

They rent scooters and bicycles more than non-Hispanics.

So there's an impact there.

And then, going back to what the consulate of Mexico talked about, the importance of trade, Mexico was our greatest trade partner with Arizona in 2022, both on the the export and import side.

So just nourishing that collaboration between Mexico and the United States, and Arizona specifically, was very important.

So that was something we highlighted.

- Well, it is fascinating every year to read the DATOS Report, and especially this year.

And, as you mentioned before, it is very comprehensive, which means it's not small by any means.

- (chuckles) No.

- Where can folks go to read more information?

- Yeah, so we use this platform, it's called Issuu, and we house all our research publications there.

so if you go to issuu its I S S U U dot slash A Z H C C so we have all our research publications there, obviously including this year's DATOS, but we also have some primary research that we've done with minority businesses, finding out what their needs were.

So I encourage everybody to go there.

This year's DATOS book is 365 pages.

- [Catherine] Oh my.

(chuckles) - So what I'm saying is that everybody, if you read one page a day, you'll be good, by next year, for the next DATOS book.

(Catherine laughing) So that's what I recommend.

- Exactly.

Perfect timing.

(Paul chuckles) Paul Padilla, thank you so much for joining me.

Really appreciate it.

- Yeah, thank you for having me again.

- Thank you.

And that is our show for tonight.

For "Horizonte" and Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya.

Have a great evening.

♪ Hey, hey, hey (lively music) ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey (joyful music)