Latinas contribute $1.3 trillion to the U.S. economy, a new report says. That number could be even higher.

Latina women contribute significantly to the U.S. economy.

Hispanic women contributed $1.3 trillion to the gross domestic product in 2021, up from $661 billion in 2010, according to a recent report funded by Bank of America.

This represents a real GDP growth rate of 51.1% between 2010 and 2021, which translates into an economic contribution 2.7 times that of the non-Hispanic population.

The report noted that the total output of American Latinas in 2021 was also larger than the total output of the state of Florida that year, citing data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, only California, Texas and New York had more Latinas that year.

Despite these large numbers, some economists believe that Latina women in the United States may contribute more to the GDP than the report indicates.

“There’s activity in different areas that the data might not be able to capture,” said Belinda Roman, an assistant professor of economics at St. Mary’s University. “Child care is one of those areas.”

“A lot of this is unpaid care. And interestingly, there are a lot of Latinas in this space and you wouldn't bet on those numbers, so I think to some extent it may not actually be large enough,” she said in an interview with CNBC.

Economist Monica Garcia Pérez also believes the number could be higher, saying that some of the “unmeasured” contributions Latinas make — such as being mothers who care for other neighbors’ children, for example — allow “other groups to participate in the labor market.”

She also noted that the professional positions they hold generally pose some difficulties when assessing their contributions.

“This group is very sensitive to shocks, and that may be related to their presence in sectors that see a lot of movement or turnover,” said the Fayetteville State University economics professor. She added that this group tends to be concentrated in care and service industries, such as health care, retail and hospitality. That makes them a “moving piece” in economic cycles.

For example, in a recession, García Pérez said, Latinas “are more likely to lose their jobs much faster in the sectors they work in,” as happened during the Covid-19 pandemic. “But they are also more likely to be reintegrated into the market because the cost of entry and the type of jobs they enter have lower barriers.”

A Bank of America report showed that Latinas outperform other groups when it comes to labor force participation.

From 2000 to 2021, the participation rate for Latina women increased by 7.5 percentage points. On the other hand, the participation rate for non-Latina women remained flat over the same period.

The group was also more resilient than others. Although overall labor force growth slowed in 2020, growth rates for Hispanic men and women were positive. Conversely, non-Hispanic labor force growth was negative that year, meaning more people left the labor force than entered it.

Moreover, Latino GDP grew at more than five times the rate of non-Latino GDP between 2019 and 2021, at 7.7% compared to 1.5%. Meanwhile, Hispanic male GDP grew at nearly four times the rate of non-Latino GDP in those years, at 5.9%.

These contributions are noteworthy given that Latino families have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic.

“When the economy needs support the most, we actually see the most dramatic contributions from Latinas,” said economist Matthew Finnup, co-author of the report and executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University. “While all Latinas are economic powerhouses, Latinas are the engines of the vitality that the economy needs.”

“If COVID-19 can’t stop this growth, it’s hard to see what it will,” said David Hayes-Bautista, co-author of the report and director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA School of Medicine.

Since the late 1970s, the share of Latinas with jobs has grown. Specifically, the employment-to-population ratio for this group rose from 41.6% in December 1978 to 56% in December 2023, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute.

By comparison, the share of black women—who along with Latinas have the sharpest wage gaps compared with non-Hispanic white men—rose by 11.9 percentage points. The measure for women overall rose by 8.8 percentage points during that period.

“Some of this is due to the expansion of opportunities for women,” says Elise Gold, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Part of it is also due to the lack of wage growth for typical workers over the past few decades, she adds. “Because it’s harder to get ahead, families may have had to work longer hours to get better.”

And that seems to be paying off to some extent. Growth in labor force participation and higher educational attainment have led to income gains for the group, particularly by about 2.5 times that of non-Hispanic women from 2010 to 2021, the Bank of America report’s authors found.

Hayes-Bautista also cited generational shifts and the rapid population growth of Hispanic women compared to Hispanic males and non-Hispanic populations as another driver of Latina women's economic output.

“We have been seeing since 2000 that first-generation immigrants are starting to age out of the labor market. As they age, their daughters and granddaughters are starting to take their place, doubling their population size and bringing much higher levels of human capital.”

Latinas in particular have boosted the contributions of Latinos as a whole. Total Latino contributions have driven positive labor force growth in certain areas across the country at times when the non-Latino labor force has been shrinking, Finop told CNBC.

“We expect this dynamic to become increasingly important over the next three decades,” he said. “What we are seeing now is really just the beginning of a story that will become increasingly important in the U.S. economy.”