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The economic downturn unfolding across the United States is imposing a particularly punishing toll on Hispanics, a group that was among the primary beneficiaries of the expansion in recent years. What had been a story of broad and steady advances has given way to growing joblessness, diminishing paychecks and lost homes.

The boom in American housing generated millions of new jobs for those willing to engage in physically demanding tasks, from factory work churning out floorboards, carpeting and upholstery, to landscaping, roofing and janitorial services. Latinos occupied widening swaths of these trades and filled large numbers of relatively high-paying construction jobs.

As a great influx of Latino immigrants spread beyond the initial entryways of the Southwest into smaller cities and towns across the South and the Midwest, many found employment doing much of the unpleasant work shunned by those with better prospects.”*

When Congress passed an economic-stimulus package giving hefty rebates to most taxpayers, it tried to make sure that illegal immigrants didn’t get any of the cash.

But in doing so lawmakers inadvertently penalized at least a million legal U.S. residents - and tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed overseas - simply because their spouses lack a Social Security number.

“Imagine an American soldier in Iraq whose foreign-born wife is waiting for an immigration petition to be approved and doesn’t have a Social Security card. Now the couple can’t even get a rebate,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose. “That is really stupid.”"*

Thousands of Puerto Ricans will finally see some kind of financial relief as the Puerto Rico Treasury Department begins to send out federal economic incentive checks to some 72,000 public workers Wednesday.

At a news conference in San Juan, Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vila announced that the first $59 million of some $1.282 billion in federal economic incentive payments will be deposited into the accounts of government workers who receive their regular salaries through “electronic direct deposits.” “*

A major survey released by the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) today gauged Mexican attitudes on the impact of remittances sent by their co- nationals living in the U.S. Remittances are defined as moneys earned and sent back to family or other organizations.

The TRPI study revealed how positively these remittances from the U.S. to Mexico are perceived. In this groundbreaking study, a nationally representative sample (N = 1000, error margin +/-3.1%) of Mexican nationals were interviewed to determine the impact of immigrant remittances.

Findings:

• Remittances are part of the fabric of everyday life for many families in Mexico: 32% of the respondents have received one to two remittances in the past year; 35% have received three to five remittances; and 33% have received six or more.
• In the past, Mexican immigrants were sending remittances to family members on a person to person basis. Responses from the study show a trend toward remittance money benefiting beyond familial support. Remittances include support for economic, social and health programs as well as funding for economic development and non- governmental organizations.
• Around one-third of respondents are aware of groups and programs working to extend the productive impact of remittances. 34% indicate some awareness of U.S. based immigrant and Mexican hometown associations that send money back to communities.
• Concerns surrounding the remittance industry are evolving. 51% of respondents said that the most important factor when receiving money from the U.S. is that it arrives securely. For 17%, the most important factor is that the monies arrive on time while 16% stated that collecting the money easily was a factor. Thirteen percent (13%) cited the cost of the transaction and only 4% mentioned the exchange rate.
• 95% said that there are more choices now than five years ago regarding the number of companies available to receive a remittance.

“Mexicans in remittance receiving communities recognize the value of monies sent by their co- nationals in the U.S. in improving the qualities of Mexican life,” said Rudy de La Garza, Ph.D., Vice-President of research for TRPI.

The World Bank estimates that over 24 billion dollars are received by Mexico, accounting for 3% of the country’s GDP.

“The amount of monies these remittances represent is enormous,” said Harry P. Pachon, President of TRPI. “For most countries in Latin America, remittances exceed U.S. foreign aid.”

If you have questions about the survey and the study’s findings, please contact Dr. Rudy de La Garza via phone at (212) 854-2292 or Dr. Harry P. Pachon at (213) 821- 5615.

About TRPIFounded in 1985, the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) advances informed policy on key issues affecting Latino communities through objective and timely research contributing to the betterment of the nation. TRPI is an affiliated research unit of the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development and is associated with the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University.”*

Today, Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU) released a new survey on the financial attitudes and behaviors of Hispanic Americans. According to the Hispanic Americans on the Road to Retirement research report, retirement is very much on the radar of middle-class Hispanic Americans – a vast majority of whom have taken steps to provide for their futures.

Nearly all of those surveyed (90%) acknowledge that retirement security is an important goal, and two-thirds (64%) have savings earmarked for retirement. Not only are 81% of households with an annual income greater than $50,000 putting aside money for retirement, but 45% of that group have already saved $100,000 or more toward their golden years. The survey also found that most of those polled are willing to defer retirement to gain greater financial security.

“The level of savings that middle-class Hispanics have accumulated suggests that many individuals in this market segment have made a good start toward their future retirement security,” said Bernard Winograd, executive vice president, U.S. Businesses, Prudential Financial.

Hispanics in the U.S. attach high importance to goals such as not outliving their savings and having enough money to maintain their lifestyle. However, the survey showed gaps of 30 and 24 percentage points, respectively, between the importance of these goals and the confidence that they can be achieved. Additionally, retirement planning, savings, and confidence are strongly influenced by relationships with a trusted financial advisor.

In 2007, Prudential commissioned the study of 503 middle-class Hispanic Americans1 to better understand the retirement preparation, practices, and concerns among the 5 million-plus Hispanics age 25 to 65 earning a household income of more than $35,000 annually2 . Hispanics are America’s largest and fastest growing market segment, accounting for more than half of the total growth in the U.S. each year. At an average age of 47, respondents overall have many years remaining to save for retirement. Yet, despite substantial earnings, assets, and time horizon, the retirement interests of Hispanic Americans have received relatively little attention.

Key findings of the study included:

– Hispanic Americans aspire to a successful and grounded retirement.
– The majority (90%) acknowledges retirement security as an important goal. Eight in 10 are seeking to be “comfortable” or at least “independent” in retirement; two in 10 hope for a more “upscale” retirement.

– Two-thirds of Hispanic Americans are saving for retirement.
– Of those surveyed, 64% have some kind of retirement savings. More than half (54%) are saving through a workplace retirement plan, and over a third of “savers” have reached $100,000 in retirement savings.

– Eight in 10 believe a successful retirement depends on careful planning, yet two-thirds lack a formal financial plan, or the help of a financial advisor.
– While only one in three reported having a financial advisor, those with a professional advisor relationship are nearly four times as likely to have a formal financial plan. Those working with an advisor also have higher tendencies to contribute toward some kind of retirement savings account (85% vs. 54%).

“Financial services companies have a unique opportunity to address the growth trends and emerging affluence of the Hispanic market. By providing the right products, tools, and professional financial guidance, we can help all Americans maximize their retirement savings as well as generate a paycheck for life,” said Winograd.

The full Hispanic Americans on the Road to Retirement research report is available online at the Prudential Online Newsroom. Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE: PRU), a financial services leader with approximately $631 billion of assets under management as of March 31, 2008, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping more than 50 million individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth. The company’s well-known Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential’s businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit www.prudential.com.

1 Participants represented the top 50% of Hispanics in Americans in America by socio-economic status.

2 According to the U.S. Census, an annual household income of $35,000 is considered middle class.”*

For an immigrant community that isn’t always comfortable with traditional banks, these transactions — known as remittances — are more likely to be done in places like La Concha, or in tiny grocery stores, travel agencies, video shops and beauty salons tucked away in strip malls, with signs on the windows that advertise “Envios de dinero,” or money transfers.

La Concha owner Tomas Ballesta, whose money-wiring business is one of the largest in the state, said he processes about 150 of these transactions on an average day; on a busy day, there might be 250. He collects a fee per transaction, typically between $8 and $10 for transfers under $1,500. Part of that is his commission; the rest covers fees charged by the wire transfer company.

Customers also pay a currency exchange fee to the wiring company, typically about 2 percent. Those picking up the money on the other end are generally not charged any fees.”*

Juan Martinez has seen drivers doze off from fatigue while he’s taking a bus from Houston to his hometown in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

“This is very dangerous,” Martinez said, waiting with suitcase in hand in front of Autobuses Lucano, one of the many smaller bus companies that offer service from the United States to Mexico.

But Martinez and the thousands of riders, mostly Mexican immigrants, looking for a cheap way to get home aren’t deterred by recent crashes and the recent drug smuggling indictments involving several of these bus companies.”*

More than three million Latin American immigrants in the United States, responding to the economic downturn and new uncertainties about their future, have stopped sending money home to their families in the last two years, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.

…

The drop in the number of people sending remittances, as the money transfers are known, is a sign of pressures on Latino immigrants as a result of the slump in the low-wage job market and of the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the survey shows. Of the immigrants interviewed, 47 percent said they did not have legal status. The others were American citizens and legal immigrants.”*

A California state senator reintroduced a bill that would allow children of undocumented immigrants who have attended three or more years of high school in California to receive certain types of financial aid to attend colleges and universities.

The bill, known as the DREAM Act, was brought back to the California Legislature by Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles. The bill would permit students to receive State University grants, University of California grants, scholarships and certain types of loans. It would not allow them to compete for Cal Grants or apply for federal aid. The bill is currently being reviewed by the Senate Appropriations Committee. “*

Elizabeth Mateo, founder of Casa Naranja, a newsletter and blog based in New York City that targets a style-conscious Hispanic market, often attends cocktail parties and other events where it’s hard to look chic while toting a laptop.

So, Mateo jumped at the chance to spend a few weeks with three sleek new computers designed to be extra portable: the Apple MacBook Air, the Everex Cloudbook, and the Sony VAIO Tz 298N.”*

A newly formed organization that encourages local teens to further their education is now offering scholarships to Latino students.

The Promise Group is a nonprofit volunteer organization that provides academic support to young adults and their families in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.”*

St. Louis-area Hispanic students are invited to apply for scholarships from the Hispanic Educational, Cultural and Scholarship Fund to pursue higher education.

Each year, the nonprofit Hispanic ECS Fund awards at least three $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors who have been accepted to an institution of higher learning or to students already enrolled in such an institution. All applicants must be of Hispanic origin, legal U.S. residents and residents of the St. Louis metropolitan area

The deadline for submitting an application for a scholarship is June 30. Applications are available at www.HispanicECSFund.org

The Hispanic ECS Fund has awarded more than $10,000 in scholarships in the last few years

The mission of the Hispanic Educational, Cultural & Scholarship Fund is better economic and social conditions for the Hispanic community in metropolitan St. Louis through local and regional educational, cultural and scholarship programs.  It is a Missouri nonprofit corporation and a public benefit entity organized for charitable and educational purposes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.   The Hispanic ECS Fund was created by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis in 1998. Additional information is available at www.HispanicECSFund.org.

State and federal officials are cracking down on prepaid calling cards that promise more minutes than they deliver to immigrants, soldiers in Iraq and other frustrated phone-card users.

Recent investigations, lawsuits and legislation focus on what officials say are deceptive advertising and unfair business practices by some calling-card companies. They accuse the companies of cheating card buyers of minutes purchased or charging poorly disclosed fees — such as 99 cents to use a pay phone — that reduce the balance on the card.”*

This weekend, hundreds of Hispanic teenagers from across the state will be working to pursue a goal in higher education.

Hispanics are known to have high drop out rate and this conference is an opportunity to allow local Hispanic students to seek brighter futures.

Two local educators say the meeting offers them options to stay in school.”*

In fact, the future of our environment is especially important to the Hispanic community because 50 percent of U.S. Latinos are under the age of 26 and 35 percent are younger than 18, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

One way to help achieve a halt in environmental deterioration is to stop the headlong, senseless embrace of biofuels as a linchpin of alternative energy policy. As we’re learning more each day, diverting our food crops into the development of ethanol is bad for the economy, bad for our health and bad for the environment.

Increased use of corn ethanol had seemed like a good idea when Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 as a way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. That law immediately accelerated corn ethanol production by paying refiners a 51-cent tax rebate per gallon and mandating the production of 9 billion gallons of renewable food-based biofuel use in 2008 and 15 billion gallons by 2015. Additional federal mandates for biofuels raise the total mandate to 36 billion gallons in 2022.”*

*From: http://www.chron.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

A Solano County woman and her daughter are among a growing number of people who have lost their homes and thousands of dollars to scams targeting property owners facing foreclosure, a county official said Tuesday.

“This woman lost her house, and so did her daughter, and they gave the perpetrators $12,000, and their homes are still on the block,” said Solano County District Attorney’s Office investigator Sonny Ash.

It’s part of a rash of kick-’em-when-they’re-down schemes aimed at defrauding people desperate to save their homes, he said.”*

*From: http://www.timesheraldonline.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

So did you know this? If you didn’t, perhaps you could send it to someone you know to help spread the knowledge and please tell them about HispanicTips.

View more “Did You Know?” facts in our “Did You Know?” section

From: http://cbs4denver.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Illegal immigrants are paying taxes to Uncle Sam, experts agree. Just how much they pay is hard to determine because the federal government doesn’t fully tally it.

But the latest figures available indicate it will amount to billions of dollars in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes this year. One rough estimate puts the amount of Social Security taxes alone at around $9 billion per year.

Paycheck withholding collects much of the federal tax from illegal workers, just as it does for legal workers.”*

*From: http://www.cnn.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Every week, millions of consumers buy prepaid calling cards, primarily to make international calls to family and friends. But many low-cost calling cards don’t deliver what they promise, law enforcement officials say.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has launched an investigation into the marketing and business practices of 10 companies — four of them based in South Florida — prompted by more than 200 consumer complaints filed about calling cards last year. Many consumers, including a large proportion of Hispanic immigrants, alleged the companies did not disclose hidden fees and misrepresented the number of calling minutes they received.”*

*From: http://www.sun-sentinel.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Confronted with fortress Jericho, Joshua’s forces let wail on ramhorns and, as the spiritual has it, “the walls came a-tumblin’ down.” Millennia later, it’s possible that another communication device — the ubiquitous cell phone — may blow away the border barrier currently being erected between the United States and Mexico.

This possibility emerged in the unlikely — and funny — convergence of two press releases on April Fool’s Day. Within hours of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s announcement that he would invoke congressionally granted waivers to expedite 470 miles of security-wall construction across the American southwest, Western Union rolled out a new service targeted at U.S. Latino consumers that will enable them to transfer money to Mexico with but a few keystrokes from their mobile phones.”*

*From: http://www.chron.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Ozell and J.W. McBee, a retired Black couple, had lived with their three grandchildren in their South Side Chicago home since 1999. In 2006, they received a call from a “mortgage consulting” company offering to re-finance them into a mortgage with a monthly payment $100 lower than the $700 a month they were paying. But to get that lower rate, the McBees were told, they would first have to be refinanced into a mortgage with payments of $1,400 for two months. Ozell and J.W. signed up, and they borrowed money on their credit cards to make the two $1,400 payments.”*

*From: http://www.indybay.org
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Su Casa Realty, one of the biggest real estate agencies catering to Hispanic immigrants in Memphis, has largely stopped selling homes to people without Social Security numbers, often a sign that they are here illegally.

Juan Romo, part owner of the Century 21 franchise, said mortgage programs for people who lack Social Security numbers aren’t likely to come back as banks clamp down on credit in response to the sub-prime housing crisis.

Also, it’s increasingly hard for illegal immigrants to keep steady jobs, he said.”*

*From: http://www.tradingmarkets.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

The Franchise Tax Board announced Monday that CalFile, the electronic state tax-filing program, is now offered in both English and Spanish. CalFile is available at no cost to 6.5 million Californians.

“Making the state’s free and convenient CalFile program available in Spanish will make tax filing easier for even more Californians,” state Controller and FTB Chairperson John Chiang said.”*

*From: http://eurekareporter.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

The National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE®) has translated its widely-used High School Financial Planning Program® (HSFPP) student guide to Spanish. It is available online for Spanish speakers and teachers to use in learning or teaching about personal finances.

“By offering this translation, youth whose primary language is Spanish can readily gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to manage money; a lifelong skill,” said Jane Schuchardt, national program leader at USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). CSREES partnered with NEFE to revise the HSFPP.

CSREES has maintained a memorandum of understanding since 1991 with NEFE to update, deliver and evaluate the HSFPP. The Cooperative Extension Service provides local leadership for the HSFPP in 48 states and the District of Columbia, primarily by marketing the program locally and training teachers.

To download the Spanish student guide, parents and students can go to their respective sections within hsfpp.nefe.org and click on the “Programa en Español” link on the left-hand navigation. Teachers may also access the information in the Instructor section of the HSFPP Web portal at http://hsfpp.nefe.org.

The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) and America’s Credit Unions® provided funding for the Spanish translation.

The NEFE High School Financial Planning Program was recently revised and has been linked to education standards in all 50 states. In addition, the new HSFPP is supported by a dynamic Web site that offers a large, continually changing collection of materials for teachers, students and parents. For more information on the HSFPP, visit http://hsfpp.nefe.org.

Through federal funding and leadership for research, education and extension programs, CSREES focuses on investing in science and solving critical issues impacting people’s daily lives and the nation’s future. For more information, visit www.csrees.usda.gov.

NEFE is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping all Americans acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to take control of their financial destiny. To learn more about NEFE, visit www.nefe.org.”*

*From: http://www.csrees.usda.gov
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish