Latino-owned businesses are thriving in Trump’s America, with explosive growth over the last year in particular.
The average revenue for Latino-owned businesses jumped 46.5 percent in fiscal year 2019 to $479,413 – an increase of about $150,000 over 2018, according to an annual study by Biz2Credit, a small business financing company.
The online lender used its platform to analyze 2,900 Hispanic-owned businesses and 32,000 other companies that submitted funding requests, focusing on only those with 250 employees or fewer and under $10 million in annual revenues.
“Latino-owned businesses have grown 31.6% since 2012, and our research finds that revenues of Latino-owned companies jumped 23 percent from 2017-18,” Rohit Arora, Biz2Credit’s CEO, said in a prepared statement. “Latino business are thriving and expanding, and they help contribute to the overall strength of the U.S. economy.”
The study showed the average credit score for Latino businesses dipped slightly from last year, going from 594 in 2017-18 to 588 last year, while the number of credit applications from those businesses increased by 23 percent over the same time period.
The trends largely mirror stats for non-Latino owned businesses, which boasted slightly better credit scores and average annual revenues. The data shows non-Latino owned businesses also shouldered a higher average operating expense this year at $239,844, compared to $215,846 for Hispanic-owned businesses.
“The growth of Latino businesses is undeniable and will undoubtedly increase as this important group becomes a larger section of the population. By 2050, Latinos are expected to comprise almost 30 percent of the population, compared to 18 percent today,” Popular Bank COO Manuel Chinea told Biz2Credit.
The online lender ranked the top five states for Hispanic owned businesses, with California first at 23 percent, followed by Texas at 20 percent, New York at 7 percent, and Georgia and Pennsylvania, both at 2 percent.
“Accommodation and Food Services remains the largest category of businesses represented by nearly 18% of the Hispanic-owned companies in the study,” Biz2Credit reports. “Services (except Public Administration) were 17%, Construction remains close at 15%, Retail Trade remains almost unchanged to 13%, Transportations and Warehousing 8% were the four next most common industries for Latino entrepreneurs.”
But it’s not just Hispanic small business owners thriving with Trump in the White House, unemployment for blacks and Hispanics hit a record low this month.
A Labor Department jobs report issued October 4 shows the jobless rate for Hispanics hit an all-time low of 3.9 percent in September, while the unemployment rate for blacks stayed at a record 5.5 percent.
Those figures were even better for women of color, CNBC reports.
The overall unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell another .2 percentage points to 3.5 percent – the lowest that number has been in five decades.
“We have the best economy we’ve ever had, we have the best jobs numbers in 51 years, the best unemployment numbers that we’ve had in a half a century,” Trump told reporters earlier this month. “People are working, they’re making money.”
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