A new study from the Latino Donor Collaborative and Kantar, produced with TelevisaUnivision, Victoria’s Secret, Hispanics in Philanthropy, and We Are ALX, “Data Beyond Demographics: U.S. Latinas’ Economic Power, Influence, and Growth” covers 34 million U.S. Latinas and answers that very question through a radiographic look at key economic power indicators.
Latina Power in 5 acts:
Control of the household ledger: 86% of Latinas hold primary or joint responsibility for financial decisions at home. 74% are the trusted source their family and friends turn to before buying anything new. That is influence no media budget can buy.
An ownership mindset with no blueprint handed to them. 71% of Latinas are entirely self-taught in financial management. 79% name generational wealth as a defining priority. 52% expect to own a business in their lifetime. Latina owned businesses are growing at a 6.3% compound annual rate, nearly double the 3.9% rate for white female owned businesses, per the LDC’s 2025 U.S. Latinas Overview.
This is what economic power looks like before an institution decides to notice it: built self-taught, outpacing the benchmark, with no dedicated infrastructure behind it.
A capital gap that has not caught up to the ambition. Here is where this stops being a story just about culture at all. Latinas secure only 39% of the bank funding they request. Set beside the entrepreneurial numbers above, that is not a contradiction. It is the clearest evidence in the entire report that the barrier is institutional design, not effort.
The power is documented. The capital access is not proportional to it.
An economy with its own scale and its own velocity. Latina financial decisions anchor a $2.8 trillion Latino consumer economy, growing at double the pace of the non-Latino market. At this scale, it is not a segment. It is a meaningful share of the American economy.
The right to define the terms of engagement. 80% of Latinas say brands still treat them as an afterthought. 56% have walked away from a brand that got the portrayal wrong. 73% actively support brands that hire and promote Latinas, and they are specific about the image they want reflected back: entrepreneurs, leaders in male dominated fields, financial decision makers, working mothers, CEOs.
That is not a warning. It is where the money already is.
Put those five findings together and Latina Power is not a hashtag. It is 34 million women who control the majority of household spending decisions, who taught themselves how to build wealth without a system designed to help them do it, and who are still waiting for capital markets to allocate resources at the same scale as the results they are already producing.
Culture is not a marketing vertical sitting beside the real business decisions. It is the engine underneath consumer behavior, household finance, and entrepreneurship, measurable with the same rigor as any other growth driver.
The data does not close gaps. Decisions do. Corporate America is still deciding.
Call it whatever you want. Just follow the money.
— Ruth Villalonga, Villa — , Villa Communications
Sources: Latino Donor Collaborative and Kantar, Data Beyond Demographics: U.S. Latinas’ Economic Power, Influence, and Growth (2026); Latino Donor Collaborative, 2025 LDC U.S. Latinas Overview (2025).