State of the State - Latinos in Texas

[sonias]

Houston Chronicle 5/16/10
A warning signaled for Latinos and Texas
Reports show economic woes of Hispanics could affect everyone

AUSTIN — If the American Dream is upward economic mobility and arrival in the middle class, the grim statistics show only a small percentage of Texas' Hispanics are on the road to success.

As the state's Latino population continues to expand over the next two decades, if current trends stay the same, Texas is in danger of developing what one academic describes as a "permanent underclass." Widespread poverty could pull down the standard of living for all Texans.

"It's not a Mexican-American problem. It's a Texas problem," said state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio. "We've got a diminishing middle class, period."

Data from a variety of state and federal sources show the Hispanic population in Texas is economically stagnating and may be falling behind Latinos in other parts of the United States:

• • Texas Hispanics not only make less money than Anglos, they make less money than Hispanics living in other states. The wage gap is broadest for Hispanics living on the border with Mexico, according to a report of Southwest Economy published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

(snip)
But Murdock said the real numbers of Texas Mexican-Americans older than age 25 who have not completed high school will have grown by more than 400,000 in the past decade. If nothing changes, the percentage of the Texas workforce lacking a diploma will grow from 18 percent in 2000 to 30 percent by 2040, he said.

It's not good and Perry and his crew are perfectly content to have a "permanent underclass." We absolutely need new leadership to take action to stop this downward mobility.

[sonias]

1. Related story on Latino growth driving the congressional seats in TX

Poltifact Check 5/17/10
Democratic group credits Hispanic and African American population growth with pending leap in U.S. House seats for Texas
(snip)
Angle spices his April 29 e-mail blast for the Lone Star Project, the pro-Democratic effort he directs, by saying: “This increase in federal political clout is almost entirely due to the growth of the African American and Hispanic populations in Texas in virtually every region of the state.”

(snip)
Some background: Relative population changes, as measured by each decennial census, determine whether states gain or lose seats in the 435-member House. Texas is poised to add to its 32 House seats because its population has grown at about twice the national pace. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there were 24.3 million Texans in 2008, up 17 percent from 20.8 million residents in 2000. In contrast, the nation’s overall estimated growth from 2000 to 2008 was 8 percent.

Here's how population affects congressional representation. First, every state gets one House seat. Then the remaining 385 seats are divvied up according to a formula that ultimately gives states with the most residents—California and Texas—the most seats.

Angle, referencing the bureau’s estimates, said the state’s African American and Hispanic population increased by 29 percent since 2000 while the “rest of Texas” grew at around 8 percent. “Without the high growth rate of the Hispanic and African American populations,” Angle said, “Texas would have grown at the same rate as the United States and earned no additional congressional seats.”

(snip)
In the end? We're persuaded that Hispanic growth alone stands to merit most credit for Texas gaining three to four additional House seats, but no one can say for certain until the census is complete.

We rate the statement as Mostly True.

And this is why the Latino population matters - it is the reason that Texas is going to gain clout with additional Congressional seats in Congress. Now if we can only get this force mobilized and take back this state!

:kick:

[sonias]

2. Counting on the Census

Nation Magagine 5/17/10
Counting on the Census

(snip from page 2)
As goes Texas, so goes the nation. By far the country's fastest-growing state, Texas is gaining on California for the title of most populous. As the housing crash reversed trends in such rapid-growth states as Georgia and North Carolina, the Texas population boom appeared to continue apace in 2008 and '09. The decennial Census, which takes a closer look than the bureau's yearly estimates, is expected to show this trend intensifying.

But it would be far more accurate to say that East Texas is the fastest-growing state in the nation. Rice University professor Steve Murdock was George W. Bush's last Census director and has been Texas demographer for decades. He's got a state map divided into counties, with red marking those that are shrinking and blue, those that are growing fastest. The largely rural, overwhelmingly white counties in the west form a sea of blood-red. The eastern half is dominated by three massive blue blobs, each a leg of the Houston-Dallas-San Antonio triangle and each a place where whites are in the minority. Actually, Texas stopped being a majority-white state in 2004. It's one of four states, with California, Hawaii and New Mexico, the Census Bureau calls "majority-minority."

Texas's new residents are not only overwhelmingly brown; they are overwhelmingly young. Nearly half of 18- to 29-year-olds in Harris County are Latino, according to Rice University's Institute for Urban Research, while 70 percent of people over 60 are white. The bureau estimates that the county's Latino population grew by 40 percent between 2000 and 2008, while the white population grew less than 1 percent.

I like the red, blue comparison. Red is shrinking and blue is rising. :)