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A new report released Tuesday by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute (LPPI) and UnidosUS finds that Latino households held just 22 cents for every dollar of wealth held by white households as of 2022, a gap that the report’s authors attribute not to individual choices, but to decades of policy decisions that shaped who could build wealth in the United States.
The report, titled Sueño Incompleto: A History of the Latino Wealth Gap in the United States, was led by Gabriella Carmona, a senior research analyst at LPPI, and co-authored by Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, Mariah Bonilla, and Xalma M. Palomino. It documents how five interconnected policy systems — immigration, homeownership, labor, public benefits, and education — have historically limited wealth-building for Latino families.
The numbers are stark. According to the report, Latino median household wealth stood at $62,000 in 2022, compared to $284,000 for white households. Latino workers earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by white workers. Even Latino college graduates face a penalty: those with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $70,500 in 2023, more than $20,000 less than white graduates with the same credential. In addition, only 28 percent of Latino households hold retirement accounts, compared to 62 percent of white households.
The report also highlights homeownership as a driver of the gap. In 2023, 51 percent of Latino households owned homes, compared to 73 percent of white households — a disparity the report traces to land dispossession, redlining, and predatory lending practices, including the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2010. It also notes historical patterns. For example, Mexican-descended farm ownership in the U.S. fell from 39 percent in 1850 to just 16 percent by 1910, a direct result of the legal fallout from the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
“This report is especially important at this moment,” Dominguez-Villegas, LPPI’s director of research, said in an email about the report. “Many of the same policy areas that have historically limited wealth-building, like access to legal status, homeownership, and labor protections, are once again at the center of public debate. Understanding how these systems are interconnected and have operated over time is essential for recognizing the weight of today’s challenges and charting a stronger path forward.”
All of this unfolds as Latinos contribute $4.1 trillion annually to the U.S. economy and account for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population, the report notes.
According to LPPI, more work on this research will be made public.
“Over the coming months, we will release additional two-pagers and presentation-ready materials to support partners in using this research for advocacy, policy engagement, and community-based storytelling,” Dominguez-Villegas said.
The full report, executive summary, and visual summary are available here.
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Julio Ricardo Varela edited and published this edition of The Latino Newsletter.
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