Latinos drive 28% of U.S. growth as news gaps widen

The economic weight of the Latino community in the United States no longer matches the attention it receives in English-language media. At a panel discussion held at the Harvard Club of Boston on October 21, industry leaders and journalists addressed a disconnect: while Latinos contributed to nearly a third of the nation's economic expansion in 2024, traditional newsrooms in Spanish are shrinking or disappearing.

The numbers define the scale of this shift. In 2024, the Latino Gross Domestic Product reached $4.4 billion, surpassing that of Japan for the first time. This group accounted for 28.2% of total U.S. economic growth. Demographically, the population hit 70.1 million by July 1, 2025, making up 21% of the total population. The United States is now the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, trailing only Mexico.

Javier Marín, founder of Tiempo Company, moderated the event alongside Jazmine Ulloa of The New York Times, Marcela García of The Boston Globe, and Julio Varela, founder of The Latino Newsletter. The group was organized by Conexión and El Planeta with support from the Harvard Club of Boston, Eastern Bank Foundation, and TQM Wealth.

The panelists identified a vacuum in reliable information sources. García noted that when she asks interviewees where they get their news, the most common answer in the last four years has been TikTok. This shift has created opportunities for misinformation, including artificial intelligence-generated accounts posing as immigration lawyers. Marín reported that 38% of Latinos rely on Spanish as their primary language, yet investigative units in Spanish are being dismantled as legacy media companies consolidate.

Stakes are high for both business and politics. Varela argued that major media corporations treat Spanish-language projects as short-term experiments, often closing them before trust can be established. He cited the end of the New York Times Spanish opinion section and the Washington Post's Spanish podcast. Ulloa added that the diversity of news sources makes predicting Latino voting behavior difficult for campaign strategists who rely on traditional media tracking.

The panel concluded that sustained investment in local journalism is necessary to fill the gap. García pointed to a recent UMass Boston Gaston Institute report stating that 36.1% of Latinos in Massachusetts receive SNAP benefits, the highest proportion in the country. This statistic sits alongside Pew Research Center data showing that while 57% of Latinos say they are living better than their parents, only 20% believe they have achieved the American dream.

The participants agreed that the Latino audience is not a monolith. It includes first-generation immigrants, fifth-generation citizens, and bilingual residents. They urged media organizations to stop viewing the community as a separate bloc and instead support the journalists who have remained in these communities for decades.