{"id":472456,"date":"2026-10-21T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T08:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/472456\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T08:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T08:02:10","slug":"houstons-latinos-are-driving-growth-even-as-high-costs-and-wage-concerns-persist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/472456\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston’s Latinos are driving growth even as high costs and wage concerns persist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston’s Hispanic consumers spend nearly $63 billion annually. Yet for many, making ends meet remains a major concern<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Findings presented Tuesday at the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s annual State of Hispanics Data Summit indicate Latinos are driving the majority of the region’s economic and population growth even as they grapple with rising living costs<\/a>, concerns about wages and immigration enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“As they are looking at budgets, as they’re looking at investments, as they’re looking at opportunities, you cannot ignore the Latino demographic in this city,” Laura Murillo, the chamber’s longtime president, said in an interview. “And if you are, you’re missing about half of the demographic.”<\/p>\n

The summit brought together over 400 business leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs and elected officials to discuss the economic and demographic trends shaping the Houston region.<\/p>\n

Here are five takeaways.<\/p>\n

Latinos spend nearly $63 billion annually<\/p>\n

Hispanic consumers in the Houston region spend nearly $63 billion annually, according to the latest figures from marketing research company Claritas.<\/p>\n

That spending is expected to grow three times faster than spending among non-Hispanic consumers in Houston over the next five years.<\/p>\n

They also represent a crucial share of the city’s business community, accounting for one-third of small business owners and more than 40% of self-employed adults.<\/p>\n

“These consumers are really the driving factor of Houston’s workforce,” Mitzi Hudson Fleissner, a regional research director for Telemundo Station Group, said as she presented the findings.<\/p>\n

The three most common purchases are bath and kitchen remodels, smart home technology and foundation repairs.<\/p>\n

Hispanic incomes are rising<\/p>\n

Income levels among Houston’s Hispanic residents have increased about 63% over the past 22 years, according to figures presented at the summit.<\/p>\n

Fleissner said that median annual income reached nearly $64,000 this year. But there’s still an income gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic residents, she said, as both groups have seen similar rates of income growth in recent years.<\/p>\n

“One of the benefits of living in the Houston area is really the cost of living,” Fleissner said, noting the region’s living expenses are about 5% below the national average.<\/p>\n

She said lower costs can leave households with more money to spend on things like cars, home improvements and vacations.<\/p>\n

High living costs and low wages are top concerns<\/p>\n

Despite rising incomes and growing consumer spending, affordability remains the biggest concern for Hispanic residents in the Houston area.<\/p>\n

A survey presented by Jim Granato, dean of the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, found that nearly 90% of Hispanic respondents said their top economic issue was the high cost of living.<\/p>\n

Other major concerns included wage stagnation, job availability and inequality.<\/p>\n

“The cost of living is the major, major issue for folks, and this cuts across both Hispanic respondents and the greater Houston area as well,” Granato said.<\/p>\n

The findings were part of the Hobby School’s Survey on Public Attitudes and Community Engagement, known as the SPACE City Panel. It’s an ongoing research initiative in partnership with the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n

The study follows residents across Greater Houston to examine how their views on politics and economic policies change over time.<\/p>\n

Granato said in an interview that the findings show that many Hispanic and non-Hispanic residents share the same financial concerns, with little difference when it comes to affordability and employment opportunities.<\/p>\n

“We’ve become more homogenous,” he said, referring to the economic pressures affecting both groups. “We’re all feeling the same things.”<\/p>\n

Majority want to abolish ICE<\/p>\n

Most of the Hispanic respondents in the Houston area supported eliminating ICE as a federal agency, according to Granato.<\/p>\n

About 62% of respondents supported the idea. The survey also asked about sentiments towards ICE operations and cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents.<\/p>\n

Granato said Latino respondents expressed stronger opposition to immigration enforcement than non-Hispanic residents, although both groups generally held negative views of local police cooperating with the agency.<\/p>\n

Without immigration, Harris County shrinks<\/p>\n

Harris County has had more residents leave for other parts of Texas or the country than move in, but immigration has helped keep the county’s population growing.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, Harris County lost 300,000 residents through domestic migration, according to demographic data presented by Bill King, an author and fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.<\/p>\n

Most of those residents didn’t move far. King said about two-thirds relocated to surrounding communities, including Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.<\/p>\n

International immigration, however, is keeping Harris County growing.<\/p>\n

It accounts for nearly 117% of the county’s overall population growth in 2025, meaning immigration added more people than natural births or domestic migration.<\/p>\n

“If you look at 2025, had there not been any international immigration, Harris County would have actually lost population,” King said during his presentation<\/p>\n

The shift comes as birth rates decline.<\/p>\n

The changes are also visible within the city of Houston. King said the population living inside Loop 610 is roughly the same as it was in 1960, despite many pointing out how fast Houston is growing.<\/p>\n

King said that trend is partly because of smaller household sizes and changes in mostly minority neighborhoods, where families with several children once filled blocks of single-family homes.<\/p>\n

These trends could have serious consequences for the region’s future, particularly as declining birth rates and changes in immigration slow Houston’s growth.<\/p>\n

“Immigration policy affects us as much or more than any other state in the country,” King said. “We’ve gotta get this right.”<\/p>\n

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This article originally published at Houston’s Latinos are driving growth even as high costs and wage concerns persist<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston’s Hispanic consumers spend nearly $63 billion annually. Yet for many, making ends meet remains a major concern.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-472456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}