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FOREWORD BY THE AUTHORS

In 1983, we published our first report, The Hispanic Portfolio: An Investment Guide to the Future, on the
generational effects of Latino population growth in California. Those early projections were the basis for our
subsequent book The Burden of Support: Young Latinos in an Aging Society (Stanford University Press, 1988).

For 35 years, we have seen two trends converging, first in California, and then in the nation:

• The aging, largely non-Latino Baby Boom generation is withdrawing from the labor force, increasingly
requiring support generated by those still working;
• The younger, largely Latino population gradually is gaining an increasing share of the labor force, and their
productivity is, and will continue to be, a mainstay of support for the aging, largely non-Latino Baby Boomers.

The question for policy makers at the national and state levels, both public and private, is this: Are appropriate
investments being made in the young Latino population that will maximize its ability to carry the country,
including the burden of the retiring Baby Boom generation, in the 21st century?

Over the past forty years, many piecemeal methodologies, such as report cards, have been used to measure
progress on this question. Given the size of the Latino population—55 million in 2015, projected to be around
100 million by 2060—it made sense to us to use the same metric that is commonly used around the world to
gauge the progress, or failure, of a region to move into the future: its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Latino Donor Collaborative provided us with an opportunity to implement this dream of calculating the
Latino GDP. The results are in this report. Briefly, the Latino GDP is large, growing rapidly, and increasingly will
provide the U.S. economy with the competitive edge needed to maintain its position as a world leader. The
Latino Donor Collaborative urges policy makers at all levels to consider carefully how to invest this country’s
resources into maximizing the Latino GDP’s potential. We appreciate the support of, and ongoing dialogue
with, Sol Trujillo, Co-Founder of the Latino Donor Collaborative, and Ana Valdez, Executive Director of the
LDC.

The methodology we developed to estimate the Latino GDP is described at the end of the report. We
welcome feedback from our peers.

Sincerely,

Werner Schink David E. Hayes-Bautista
Co-Founder and CEO, Distinguished Professor of Medicine,
Latino Futures Research David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

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