Hispanic Wealth Could Triple By 2025, Study Says

A recent St. Louis Federal Reserve study, released on Tuesday, found that by 2025, the Hispanic community living in the United States could see a spike in wealth.

Specifically, the study finds that if the economic trends of the past two decades are to hold up, then Hispanics could see their wealth triple in the next ten-some years owning anywhere between $2.5 trillion to $4.4 trillion. According to researchers William Emmons and Bryan Noeth, who took inflation into account, Hispanics would own between 2.6 to 3.2 percent of the U.S. total wealth.

“The majority of the gain will be due to faster population growth, but a small increase may occur due to faster growth of average household wealth,” wrote the authors in the June issue of the regional central bank’s "In the Balance" report.

The findings from the St. Louis Federal Reserve study echo those made by the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA). The study, titled "America's New Upscale Segment: Latinos," found that there were 15 million "upscale Latinos" in 2012 earning anywhere between $50,000 to $100,000 a year. This group, which accounted for 29 percent of the wealth in the U.S. Hispanic population, is expected to double by 2015 says the study.

Despite the growth, Hispanic families will still be less wealthy than Asian and non-Hispanic white families. And while the group's wealth will be lower than the overall population's average, the median of the Hispanic family wealth will rise faster than the overall population, according to the researchers, since the group saw an “extraordinary 39 percent decline in median wealth” between 2007 and 2010.

“Increasing wealth over time will allow Hispanic families to diversify their assets and reduce their dependence on borrowing,” Emmons said in a press release. “This will increase their financial stability, enhance the economic mobility of their children, and contribute to a growing U.S. economy.”

With over 52 million Hispanics living in the U.S., there is no doubt that the growing wealth of the community will play a role in the American economy. In fact, Hispanics are already displaying their purchasing power in the consumer world. Take, for example, the fact that Latinos buy 25 percent of all movie tickets in the United States. Or that the Selig Center for Economic Growth has calculated the purchasing power of Hispanics in 2012 to have been $1.2 trillion -- a value expected to rise over the next few years.