Population

• 46.9 million was the estimated Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2008, making people of Hispanic origin the nation's largest ethnic race or minority. Hispanics constituted 15% of the nation's total population. In addition, there are approximately 4 million residents of Puerto Rico.

• More than one out of every two people added to the nation's population between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008, was Hispanic. There were 1.5 million Hispanics added to the population during that period.
  
  
• 3.2% percentage increase in the Hispanic population between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008, making Hispanics the fastest-growing minority group.
  
  
• 132.8 million is the projected Hispanic population of the United States by July 1, 2050. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 30% of the nation’s population by this date.
  
  
• 22.4 million was the nation’s Hispanic population during the 1990 Census—less than half the current total.
  
  
• The United States ranks 2nd in Hispanic population worldwide as of 2008. Only Mexico (110 million) had a larger Hispanic population than the United States (46.9 million).
  
  
• 64% of Hispanic-origin people in the United States were of Mexican descent in 2007. Another 9% were of Puerto Rican background, with 3.5%, 3.1% Salvadoran, and 2.7% Dominican. The remainder were of some other Central American, South American or other Hispanic or Latino origin.
  
  
• About 45% of the nation's Dominicans lived in New York City in 2007 and about half of the nation's Cubans in Miami-Dade County, Fla.
  
  
• 25% percentage of children younger than 5 were Hispanic in 2008. All in all, Hispanics comprised 22% of children younger than 18.  27.7 years median age of the Hispanic population in 2008. This compared with 36.8 years for the population as a whole. In 2008 there were 107 Hispanic males per every 100 Hispanic females. This was in sharp contrast to the overall population, which had 97 males per every 100 females.
  
  
  
  States and Counties

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• 48% the percentage of the Hispanic-origin population that lived in California or Texas in 2008. California was home to 13.5 million Hispanics, and Texas was home to 8.9 million. 16 the number of states with at least a half-million Hispanic residents–Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
  
  
• 45% the percentage of New Mexico's population that was Hispanic in 2008, the highest of any state. Hispanics also made up at least one fifth of the population in California and Texas, at 37% each, Arizona (30%t), Nevada (26%), Florida (21%) and Colorado (20%). New Mexico had 891,000 Hispanics.
  
  
• The states with the highest percentage increases in Hispanic population between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008. South Carolina's increase was 7.7% and North Carolina's was 7.4%.
  
  
• 4.7 million Hispanics reside in Los Angeles County, Calif., in 2008–the largest Hispanic population of any county in the nation. Los Angeles County also had the biggest numerical increase in the Hispanic population (67,000) since July 2007.
  
  
• 97% of the population of Starr County, Texas was Hispanic as of 2008, which led the nation in Hispanic to non-Hispanic population ratio. All of the top 10 counties in this category were in Texas.
  
  
• 48 of the nation's 3,142 counties are majority-Hispanic. 313,000 is the increase in California's Hispanic population between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008, which led all states. Texas (305,000) and Florida (111,000) also recorded large increases.
  
  
• 20 of the 50 states, Hispanics are the largest minority group. These states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Businesses

• 1.6 million was the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in 2002.
  
  
• Nearly 43% of Hispanic-owned firms operated in construction, administrative and support, waste management, remediation services and other services, such as personal services, and repair and maintenance. Retail and wholesale trade accounted for nearly 36% of Hispanic-owned business revenue.
  
  
• Counties with the highest number of Hispanic-owned firms were Los Angeles County (188,422); Miami-Dade County (163,187); and Harris County, Texas (61,934).
  
  
• Triple the rate of growth of Hispanic-owned businesses between 1997 and 2002 (31%) compared with the national average (10%) for all businesses.
  
  
• $222 billion Revenue generated by Hispanic-owned businesses in 2002, up 19% from 1997.
  
  
• 44.6% . . of all Hispanic-owned firms were owned by Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and Chicanos.
  
  
• 29,168 of Hispanic-owned firms with receipts of $1 million or more.

Families and Children

• 10.4 million Hispanic family households in the United States as of 2008. Of these households, 62% included children younger than 18.
  
  
• 66% of Hispanic family households consisted of married couples.
  
  
• 43% of Hispanic family households consisted of married couples with children younger than 18.
  
  
• 70% of Hispanic children live with parents in wedlock.

Spanish Language

• 35 million of U.S. residents 5 and older spoke Spanish at home in 2007. Those who hablan español constituted 12% of U.S. residents. More than half of these Spanish speakers spoke English "very well" and were completely bilingual.
  
  
• 4 states where at least one-in-five residents spoke Spanish at home in 2007–Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.
  
  
• 78% of Hispanics 5 and older speak Spanish at home.

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance

• $38,679 was the median income of Hispanic households in 2007, statistically unchanged from the previous year after adjusting for inflation.
  
  
• 21.5% was the poverty rate among Hispanics in 2007, up from 20.6% in 2006.
  
  
• 32.1% of Hispanics lacked health insurance in 2007, down from 34.1% in 2006.

Education

• 62% of Hispanics 25 and older had at least a high school education in 2008.
  
  
• 13% of the Hispanic population 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher in 2008.
  
  
• 3.6 million of Hispanics 18 and older had at least a bachelor's degree in 2008.
  
  
• 1 million of Hispanics 25 and older had advanced degrees in 2008 (e.g., master's, professional, doctorate).
  
  
• 12% of full-time college students (both undergraduate and graduate students) in October 2007 who were Hispanic, up from 10 percent in 2006.

Names

• The number of Hispanic surnames ranked among the 15 most common in 2000. It was the first time that a Hispanic surname reached the top 15 during a census. Garcia was the most frequent Hispanic surname, occurring 858,289 times and placing eighth on the list – up from 18th in 1990. Rodriguez (ninth), Martinez (11th) and Hernandez (15th) were the next most common Hispanic surnames.

Jobs

• 67% of Hispanics 16 and older were in the civilian labor force in 2007.
  
  
• 18% of Hispanics 16 or older worked in management, professional, and related occupations in 2007. The same percentage worked in production, transportation, and material moving occupations. Another 16% worked in construction, extraction, maintenance, and repair occupations. Approximately 24% of Hispanics 16 or older worked in service occupations; 21% in sales and office occupations; and 2% in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations.
  
  
• 79,400 of Hispanics were chief executives. In addition, 50,866 were physicians and surgeons; 48,720 postsecondary teachers; 38,532 lawyers; and 2,726 news analysts, reporters, and correspondents were Hispanic.

Voting

• 9.7 Hispanic citizens reported voting in the 2008 presidential election, about 2 million more than voted in 2004. The percentage of Hispanic citizens voting–50%–represented a statistical increase from 2004 (47%).

Serving our Country

• 1.1 million the number of Hispanic veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

Source: http://www.census.gov/