Alfredo Ortiz, The Hill, September 18, 2018

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Last week, the Census Bureau announced new household income numbers, which showed that median income for Hispanic households grew by 3.7 percent, adjusted for inflation, last year. That’s more than double the increase seen by all households. More Hispanics moved into the upper-income brackets, and fewer remained in the lower ones. {snip}

Contrast this to the Obama economy. It took until 2015 for Hispanic household incomes to finally get back to their 2006 levels. For the population as a whole, household incomes remained flat between 2010 and 2014, as President Obama rolled out one job-killing policy after the next.

In addition to rising incomes, there are more job opportunities than ever today for Hispanics. This month, the Labor Department announced that the Hispanic unemployment rate remained at a record low — below 5 percent for the fifth consecutive month. This is less than half the unemployment rate that Hispanics faced as recently as President Obama’s second term. Median weekly earnings for full-time Hispanic employees have grown by 4.3 percent, adjusted for inflation, over the past two years.

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President Trump’s pro-growth policies have had a disproportionately positive impact on Hispanics because they are more entrepreneurial than the general population. Hispanics start businesses at a faster rate than any other ethnic group. Since 2007, the number of Latino-owned businesses has grown by nearly 50 percent, nearly double the rate of all other ethnic groups combined. By a far higher margin than the general public, Hispanics believe that you can get ahead by hard work, according to Pew polling.

President Trump’s deregulation and pro-business policies have made it far easier to be entrepreneurial. {snip}

With Trump unleashing the economy’s animal spirits, entrepreneurs — led by Hispanics — are increasing the long-depressed small business start-up rate. These businesses are more likely to provide good job opportunities to Hispanic job seekers. In fact, one survey shows they plan to hire workers at twice the rate of their non-Hispanic counterparts.

Hispanics also have benefited generally from the growing economy. For example, the number of full-time jobs is rapidly increasing at the expense of part-time jobs. This has helped Hispanics, who also disproportionately work in the service sector, to raise their incomes to a middle-class level because they are able to work more hours.

Given this success, it’s no surprise that Hispanic approval of President Trump is rising. According to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll this summer, Trump’s approval among Hispanics jumped by 10 percentage points in one month.

{snip} Republicans shouldn’t get swayed by the siren song of pursuing divisive social issues that may drive up turnout in rural areas but will repel Hispanics and independents in the suburbs where voters will decide control of the House of Representatives.

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