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The Pew Hispanic Center recently released data on the Latino population in the U.S. The first of Más Wired’s look at the Pew Center’s massive data release, we focused on population data and other demographics. Now we are going to look at education and economics.

When talking about immigrants, there is always the issue of language. Language can help create distinct divisions in the culture of a nation, and be a source of resentment among the established population. In some locals like Canada, entire regions of a country can be left speaking a different language, and living in a different culture, than the majority of the country. In the U.S., language has manifested itself in a fear that Hispanics are not learning English.

However, the Pew Center data shows us that English is becoming the dominant language among Hispanic youth. The data seems to suggest that, as Hispanics are settling in and having children, it is the educated children who are beginning to assimilate and only speak English at home — a trend which has been occurring in the U.S. since immigrants first arrived at Ellis Island. The older population was initially slower to adapt to the new culture, and the youth brought about the changes.

In correlation with the young embracing English, the educated Hispanic population is noticeably growing. In 2000, it was pretty much split down the middle. Half the Hispanic population had high school diplomas, half didn’t. This is changing, however. Granted, the room for improvement is still there in 2011, we at least have a change occurring for the better. The results are also showing, albeit at a much smaller amount, in higher education.

Despite the edge above, higher education degrees are not being obtained by Hispanic students at a solid rate.

A lot more Hispanics are going to post-secondary schooling than there were in 2000, but the percentage of Hispanics with baccalaureate degrees or beyond has just inched from 10% to 13%; a rather unimpressive improvement when contrasted with the turnabout in high school graduations. The data seems to suggest that Hispanics are attempting college — but are simply not making it. However, without breaking down the post-secondary school degrees, we can not measure if there is an increase in Hispanics obtaining masters degrees or Ph.Ds.

Of course, with lower graduation rates, it should come as no surprise that Hispanics are still a relatively poor, impoverished population in the country. Median household incomes are among the lowest in the U.S.; it is even less of a surprise then that Hispanics have a higher poverty rate than the U.S. overall, and are barely less impoverished than the black community.

Food stamp consumption is also, unsurprisingly high.

As is a lack of health insurance: 30% of Hispanics lack health insurance — double the U.S. total.

A final, also unsurprising statistic, comes up at the end of the study, regarding Hispanic home ownership.

Hispanics and blacks are almost together here, too. Less than half of Hispanic householders own their homes. Now then, all of the economic data here points to multiple issues and problems for not only the Hispanic community, but for the United States as a whole. We can draw a few quick points of note:

• The Hispanic community is seemingly stuck in a situation where many will be set up for failure due to poverty. Lower household incomes and a lack of homeownership suggest that these communities only succeed when the economy is in solid shape. When the economy slumps or crashes, the Hispanic and black communities will take exceptional, harsh hits.
• The Hispanic community’s low income likely qualifies a lot of its members for student aid in pursuit of undergraduate degrees. The low number of Hispanics graduating with degrees from college suggests that Hispanics aren’t competing college — so they are going to be exiting college with no reward, and loads of debt saddled upon their backs.
• The Hispanic community is in poor health. When food stamps are so needed by a community, and home ownership is so low, we have a community prone to medical problems. Given that they do not have health insurance, any serious problem could be enough to drive a Hispanic family into poverty with ease.

These are some of the few problems which the community faces. A much more thorough analysis of the Hispanic community, its needs, and how they effect the whole nation will follow in next installment of our series on the new Pew Center data.