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Letter to the editor

Hispanic immigrants progress financially

By Washington Post
Published August 23, 2007

WASHINGTON - Hispanic immigrants have steadily moved out of jobs paying the lowest wages and into middle-income employment in the past decade, helped by the boom in the construction industry, which hires millions of foreign-born workers, said a study released this week by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Recent Hispanic immigrants are moving up the ladder just as foreign-born workers did generations ago, said study author Rakesh Kochhar.

Foreign-born Hispanic workers made up 36 percent of laborers earning less than $8.50 per hour in 2005, compared with 42 percent earning low wages in 1995, according to a Pew analysis of U.S. census data. Kochhar said the advancement of Hispanic immigrants to middle-income scale was faster than pay increases among native-born workers.

Even as many Hispanic immigrants moved up the pay scale, other foreigners replaced them at the bottom. While the number of Hispanic immigrants earning "middle income," defined as $8.50 to $16.20 per hour, increased to 2.6-million, there were 3.3-million earning a lower wage, primarily in the service industry as janitors, lawn-cutters and dishwashers.

The number of Hispanic immigrants on the low end of the wage scale grew by 1.2-million, Kochhar said.

However, the stagnation in the real estate industry, rising interest rates and slowing construction could soon affect the immigrant workers who benefited from the 1990s boom.

[Last modified August 23, 2007, 01:08:50]