In terms of education, the Latino population shows a bimodal distribution.  Latinos live worlds apart in that the highest population concentrations include, on one hand, those who have received less than a 9th grade education and in the other concentration, those who have obtained graduate or professional degrees.  29.7 percent of Latinos who are at least 25 years old had not completed the ninth grade compared with 5.5 percent of the total population; and 12.5 percent had not obtained a high school diploma compared with 8.7 percent for the total population.  Data also shows disparities in the number of Latinos that hold a bachelor’s or graduate/professional degrees compared with the total population.  21.5 percent of the total population earned a bachelor’s degree and 26 percent had a graduate/professional degree, compared with 12.5 percent of Latinos holding a bachelor’s degree and 20.1 percent obtaining a graduate/professional degree.

As it is the case with the distribution of educational attainment, the Latino population of the District is quite diverse in terms of English language proficiency and use.  A close analysis of the data on language spoken at home shows that 28.5 percent speak only English or other language, while 71.5 percent speak Spanish, of these 71.5 percent, 55 speak English “very well,” and  17.54 percent speak English “well,” as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Eight percent speak English “not at all,” and 19.86 percent Speak English “not well,” thus comprising a total Limited English Proficient and non-English proficiency (LEP/NEP) population of 27.86 percent.

The overall picture of Hispanic/Latino male employment in the District can be seen by combining construction, service occupation, sales and office, and production and transportation material trades.   Again, we see a significant bimodality in the Latino population in regard to employment with a large number of Latinos employed in managerial and professional occupations, and the rest of the population working in service and construction capacities.  Latino women showed diversification in employment/occupations with the largest proportion (17.7 percent) being employed in service occupations.  12.6 percent of Latino women were employed in management, professional, and related occupations; with 10.3 percent employed in sales and office work; 1.7 percent were employed in construction, extraction, maintenance, and repair occupations, and one percent in production, transportation, and material moving occupations.  See Table 6 below for distribution by category:

The District median income for all households was $54,317, while the median Latino household income was $45,051. Of the Latino population, at least 20 percent had incomes below the poverty rate, which was the same for the total population.  About 70.2 percent of Latino families lived in rental housing, compared to 33 percent for the total population. About 29.8 percent of Latino households owned their homes, while the citywide homeownership rate was 67 percent.

Page 5 of 5      1  2  3  4  5