![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/calmatters.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/110724_Latino-Voters_LV_CM_24.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1"\")
\n\t\t\t\tRosa Morales works in the store she owns in downtown Delano on Nov. 8, 2024. Research shows Latinos are more entrepreneurial than other demographic groups. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n
By David Hayes-Bautista, Special for CalMatters<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\tRosa Morales works in the store she owns in downtown Delano on Nov. 8, 2024. Research shows Latinos are more entrepreneurial than other demographic groups. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n
This commentary was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n Guest Commentary written by<\/p>\n California has a third of the population of Japan \u2014 39.4 million versus 122.8 million \u2014 but it has a larger gross domestic product than Japan. If California were its own country, it would have the world\u2019s fourth largest economy; Japan would be fifth.<\/p>\n What is California\u2019s secret GDP sauce? In three words: Latino GDP growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gross Domestic Product measures the final value of goods and services a country produces. It describes an economy\u2019s size and productivity.<\/p>\n In California the state\u2019s 15.1 million Latinos generated more than $1 trillion<\/a> of economic activity in 2023. The Latino GDP grew more than twice as fast as the state\u2019s non-Latino GDP \u2014 before, during and after COVID-19 \u2014 because the Latino labor force grew 15 times faster than the non-Latino workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n It also worked harder. Following a decades-long trend, in 2023 Latinos\u2019 participation in the labor force<\/a> was 5.5 percentage points higher than non-Latinos\u2019 participation. Latinos also were more likely to work in the private sector than non-Latino workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n With more people, working harder, and in the private sector \u2013 Latinos\u2019 vigorous work ethic lifted California\u2019s economy above Japan\u2019s.<\/p>\n Latinos<\/a> also are more entrepreneurial<\/a> than non-Latino demographic groups, setting up businesses and growing them at faster rates. While it might be easy to assume these businesses would be in construction and agriculture, in 2023 the largest sectors of the California Latino GDP were finance, insurance, business services and real estate.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the large, rapidly growing economic sectors is health. Interestingly, for 175 years, California has done a poor job of producing Latino healthcare providers, such as doctors<\/a>, dentists, nurses and others. How did health care become a large sector of California\u2019s Latino GDP when mainstream providers avoided Latino areas?<\/p>\n A new type of health organization arose in Latino communities to fill the service vacuum: Community clinics, governed by community boards, focused on preventive services and health promotion for underserved areas.<\/p>\n One example is AltaMed. What had been a community clinic in a Los Angeles storefront has grown to become one of the largest federally qualified health center operations in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n Founded in 1969, at the height of the Chicano movement, the East LA Barrio Free Clinic began as a volunteer organization, living month-to-month on irregular donations of supplies. By 1977, with an operating budget of $50,000, it could barely afford a couple of employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n The little organization suddenly took off, economically speaking. AltaMed now serves more than 700,000 patients annually<\/a> at more than 60 sites. It employs more than 5,700 people \u2014 who are paid competitive wages \u2014 and its operating budget in 2024 was $1.64 billion.<\/p>\n But the growth doesn\u2019t end there. AltaMed employees spend their wages in local stores and restaurants, driving growth in those sectors. A nonprofit business, AltaMed contracts with local suppliers and service providers. As it expands its footprint, it hires architects and contracts with construction companies.<\/p>\n Far from its storefront days, AltaMed today has a direct and indirect economic impact of $15.1 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the last decades of the 20th century, up to 2024, California\u2019s Latino population grew from 1.4 million to 15.1 million. This population growth drove labor force growth, business growth and a Latino GDP growth that\u2019s twice as fast as the rest of the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n If it were not for the Latino GDP, California wouldn\u2019t be No. 4 in the world. It would be No. 8, near Italy. California would be much poorer and less competitive without Latinos\u2019 work ethic and business drive.\u00a0<\/p>\n This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By David Hayes-Bautista, Special for CalMatters Rosa Morales works in the store she owns in downtown Delano on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[217,785,191,189,2095,188,190,2096],"class_list":{"0":"post-1803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-commentary","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-economy-of-japan","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-japans-economy","14":"tag-japanese-economy","15":"tag-latinos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}