Census Data Track Status of Latinos : Figures Show Group Lags Sharply in Earnings and Educational Levels

Even before the recession hit, working-age Latinos in Los Angeles County were feeling the pinch in 1989 because their per capita income of $11,489 was a little more than half that of the county’s overall working-age population, data from the 1990 Census shows.

The census also found that only 39% of Latinos 25 and older had a high school diploma or higher, compared to 70% of Los Angeles County residents in that age group.

Demographers and social scientists warn that lagging educational attainment and the shrinking manufacturing base in some areas of Los Angeles County will only make the situation worse.

“There is a direct link between the educational level and how much the person is expected to earn over a lifetime,” said Arturo Vargas, vice president of community education and public policy for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “And what we know about the educational system is that it’s doing a wonderful job of failing our students. That’s what it does well.”

Indeed, a census-based study by Nuestro Tiempo of selected tracts in five different neighborhoods showed the number of people living in poverty grew in most places over the decade. Those microcosms, selected areas within neighborhoods, include parts of East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, Pico-Union, Watts, and an area of South Los Angeles south and southwest of Manual Arts High School.

For Latinos in the five microcosms, the proportion of people living below the poverty level increased during the 1980s. It went from 24% to 26% in East Los Angeles and from 36% to 41% in Watts. During the decade, the number of Latinos in the entire city of Los Angeles living below the poverty level rose from 24% to 28%, and the proportion for all city residents climbed from 16% to 19%.

Despite the poverty statistics, the figures for male labor force participation in Los Angeles County show a higher rate for Latinos, with 82%, than non-Latinos, with 75%, according to UCLA Medical School professor David Hayes-Bautista, a former director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

He added, however, that Latinos in California place second, behind blacks, in unemployment.

But the figures on poverty and unemployment are just part of the Latino economic picture.

At the middle and upper portions of the income scale, about 20% of the Latino households in Los Angeles County earned at least $50,000 in 1989. The number of households with at least $50,000 in income that year was 28% countywide, including 21% of black households and 17% of Asian and Pacific Islander households.

But the gap between average earnings for Latinos and the rest of the population persists. Since differences in the number of children can skew calculations of average income per person, the per capita figures used here are only for people 15 and older.

Although per-capita income for that age group in Los Angeles County was $20,759, for every dollar made overall, blacks made about 77 cents and Asians or Pacific Islanders made 89 cents, compared to the 55 cents for Latinos.

Per capita income for Latinos 15 and older in the Watts, Boyle Heights, South Los Angeles, and Pico-Union microcosms was less than half that of Los Angeles County.

In addition to educational attainment, social scientists agree that large influxes of unskilled immigrants tend to lower earning levels for a given group.

Vargas said that Latinos are very aware of the need to get a good education. “The frustration is, how do we get our children that education?” he added in pointing a finger toward the educational system.

Although more minorities generally have completed college than in the past--including nearly 100,000 Latinos in Los Angeles County--the growing populations in the five neighborhood microcosms lag well behind the city and county in schooling.

While 70% of all census respondents over 25 in Los Angeles County had finished high school or pursued higher studies, the figures for Latinos in the selected tracts were much lower: 26% in Pico-Union and East Los Angeles, 25% in South Los Angeles, 20% in Boyle Heights and 16% in Watts.

Other trends that emerged from the study of the five neighborhood microcosms included:

* Nearly half of the people living in the selected tracts of Pico-Union came to this country in the 1980s, and slightly more than one in four were born in the United States. Within the Boyle Heights microcosm, the ratio of 1980s immigrants to native-born was 32% to 40%, and it was 20% to 50% in the East Los Angeles selected tracts. The ratio of 1980s immigrants to U.S.-born in California was 11% to 78%, and it was 22% to 62% for the city of Los Angeles. Not all of those immigrants hail from Spanish-speaking countries.

* In addition to the heavily Central American Pico-Union area, a pocket with a high ratio of Central Americans was the microcosm of South Los Angeles. One in five Latinos there was Salvadoran and one in 10 was Guatemalan.

Among Los Angeles County’s 3.3 million Latinos, the proportion of Mexicans slipped from 80% to 76% in the ‘80s as hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans and Guatemalans fled their strife-torn homelands. The census counted 253,086 Salvadorans in Los Angeles County, although previous local estimates had varied from 350,000 to 400,000.

Vargas, of MALDEF, said he was not surprised by the discrepancy because many Central Americans are believed to have been part of an estimated 428,000 people missed countywide by the 1990 Census.

After Mexicans and a total of 453,048 Central Americans, census figures show that the county’s Latinos include 95,387 South Americans and 90,784 people of Spanish-speaking Caribbean origin. Just as the overall county population aged slightly over the decade, with the county median rising from 29.9 years in 1980 to 30.8 years in 1990, the Latino population, while younger, had an average age of 23 in 1980 and 24.6 years in 1990.

There are 2.56 million people over 5 years old who speak Spanish at home in Los Angeles County. Of those Spanish-speakers, nearly two-thirds said they speak English either “well” or “very well,” according to the census.

The makeup of the newest Latino immigrants appears to have shifted, according to Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, an assistant professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Urban Planning.

“In the ‘80s, we’ve seen the migration moving from males coming north to a much more diversified structure, even in the illegal migrant population,” Hinojosa-Ojeda said. In a UCLA survey he conducted with graduate students in conjunction with the Central American Refugee Center and the Dunbar Economic Development Corp., people were interviewed in an area extending from Pico to El Segundo boulevards and from Alameda Street to Van Ness Avenue, almost all of it in Los Angeles.

In the decade from 1980 to 1990, that study found, the proportion of married couples went up, while there was a small drop in the number of single mothers, from 18% to 15%. The economic news in that area, however, reflected overall census figures, showing a higher rate of poverty. “There were some modest gains in income,” Hinojosa-Ojeda said. “We’re still relatively poor.”

Anecdotal data gathered in that study also indicates an increase in the area’s street vendors.

“There’s less manufacturing,” Hinojosa-Ojeda said, which reduces the availability of low-skill jobs that can sustain families. In the ‘70s, immigrants became involved in services and direct manufacturing. “The arrivals . . . were easily absorbed,” he added.

“A lot of recent arrivals who have participated in other types of services or manufacturing can’t keep those jobs and move into (street vending),” Hinojosa-Ojeda said. “The range of what they can make varies widely . . . but it’s way below poverty level. . . . This is their primary source of livelihood. It signifies an important shift in strategies for survival of the poor.”

Statistics for this story were compiled by Richard O’Reilly, Times director of computer analysis, and by statistical analyst Maureen Lyons.

Latino Groups

* The 1990 Census compiled data for U.S. Latinos by their-or their families’-country of origin. It reflected the growth of the Central American population in this region during the 1980s and the wide diversity of national groups among Latinos in Southern California.

(Southern California: Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.)

Total: 4,839,351.

Mexican: 79.5%, 3,848,333

Other Origins: 20.5%, see breakdown below

* Origin:

Puerto Rican: 69,105

Cuban: 60,189

Dominican: 3,806

Guatemalan: 139,372

Honduran: 25,593

Nicaraguan: 38,439

Panamanian: 8,312

Salvadoran: 272,301

Other Central American: 15,993

Colombian: 31,197

Ecuadorian: 22,788

Peruvian: 29,523

Other South American: 47,696

Other Latino: 226,704

Source: 1990 Census

Neighborhoods Studied

Nuestro Tiempo looked at 1990 census figures for a portion if five Los Angeles-area neighborhoods. The map shows the neighborhood sectors.

Here are some of the 1990 Census figures for Latinos:

Per Capita % of Poor % High School Selected Tracts Income* People** Grads*** 1990 1990 1980 1990 1980 Boyle Heights $7,996 34 32 20 17 East Los Angeles 8,877 26 24 26 22 Pico-Union 7,611 34 30 26 27 South Los Angeles 7,697 31 32 25 29 Watts 7,050 41 36 16 19

Data for Latinos in comparison to total population in Los Angeles County and city:

L.A. County

Per Capita % of Poor % High School Selected Tracts Income* People** Grads*** 1990 1990 1980 1990 1980 Total 20,759 15 12 70 70 Latinos 11,489 23 21 39 40

L.A. City

Per Capita % of Poor % High School Selected Tracts Income* People** Grads*** 1990 1990 1980 1990 1980 Total 20,482 19 16 67 69 Latinos 10,018 28 24 33 35

* Only includes people 15 years and older

** Percentage of people known to be living below poverty level of $12,674 annually for a family of four.

*** Among people 25 and older who have at least completed high school; includes higher studies.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census

Compiled by: Richard O’Reilly, Maureen Lyons, Los Angeles Times.