Think tank: Tough times for Hispanics nationwide

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 | 2 a.m.

An overlooked aspect of Nevada’s economic downturn uncovered by the Sun two months ago has been given the national treatment by a Washington, D.C., group.

A new Pew Hispanic Center report says the economic downturn is hitting Hispanics, particularly Mexican immigrants, harder than other groups, mostly because of the slumping construction industry.

Rakesh Kochhar, the study’s author, notes that Hispanics had an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2008, compared with 4.7 percent for all non-Hispanics. As recently as the fourth quarter of 2006, the report says, the groups were separated by only half a percentage point.

Consulted in March for the April 6 Sun story “Vegas exodus,” Kochhar said how the dive in homebuilding was hitting Hispanic workers was “not an issue we have specifically researched.”

Asked about this Wednesday, Kochhar said it was true, he wasn’t working on the subject then, but he began to research it in April. He also points out that Pew had looked at Hispanics and construction before and that, back in March, the new report “was one of those pending things.”

Interestingly, one of Kochhar’s findings differed from the Sun’s report. Where the Sun found that an increasing number of workers in the Las Vegas Valley are leaving for other states or Mexico because of the drought in jobs, the Pew report finds that “those affected (by the downturn) are still here and still seeking jobs.”

Kochhar notes that there does seem to be a decrease in new immigrants: In the past two years, the number of working-age Hispanics arriving yearly has dropped from about 750,000 to 500,000. It is unclear how much of that decrease is due to the economy and how much is because of increased enforcement of immigration laws. “Various factors point to a less than hospitable environment for immigrant workers,” Kochhar says.

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Also from Washington: On May 12 the Sun reported on the local United Way’s changing how it hands out millions to nonprofit groups, focusing more on what the valley needs and less on who got funding last year.

Three days later Dan Goulet, president and chief executive of the United Way of Southern Nevada, found himself in Washington at a meeting of his peers to discuss that very change. A story appeared May 15 on the front page of The Washington Post about the subject. Goulet passed the Sun story around and said to his colleagues, “Look at this story and then look at that one. We had it first.”

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Closer to home, the Nevada chapter of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, a group started last year, sent us a news release about a new “straw poll ... called ‘Message to McCain.’ ” Results include: When asked which issue was most important to them, the group’s nearly 50 members gave the most votes to “war on terror.” Education ranked dead last, with less than half as many votes as war. Also, 85 percent supported the war in Iraq; 30 of 44 supported closing the borders and “no amnesty” for immigrants; and ... drumroll ... 95 percent thought Ron Paul should pull out of the race.

The poll, according to the release, is “a great thermometer of Republican preferences in Nevada.”

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Andres Ramirez, who lost a 2005 mayoral bid in North Las Vegas, now is vice president of Hispanic programs at NDN, a think tank in Washington, D.C. (and a successor to the New Democrat Network). The organization’s recent analysis projects 11.9 million Hispanic votes in the upcoming presidential election.

That would be 59 percent more than in 2004.

Ramirez says some groups think the projection is too high, but he notes how the polarized debate over immigration and other issues led Hispanics to the polls in record numbers in the primaries, and says the same turnout will be seen in the general election. He also notes that the support the Republican nominee got in 2004, 40 percent of Hispanic votes, is unlikely to be repeated this time around; NDN puts Hispanic support of Republicans in this year’s primaries at 22 percent. That would mirror current patterns in Clark County, where an estimated 21 percent of Hispanic voters are registered Republicans and 61 percent are Democrats.

Time will tell whether the acclaimed “sleeping giant,” the Hispanic voter, will awaken in November.