Spanish Language Facts

  • Nearly 500 million people in the world speak Spanish, making it the second most widely spoken language next only to Chinese and ahead of English.
  • Total U.S. Hispanic population has increased 50.5 million, up 43 percent.in only ten years while non Hispanic or Latino has grown only 4.9 %.
  • Hispanic and latinos are now the nation's largest minority group, accounting for half of the nation's population growth since April 2001.
  • Not only are they large; they are expanding at an ever-increasing rate. It has been projected by the Pew Research Council that in 2050, Hispanics will make up 30 percent of the population.
  • With almost 50 million people of Hispanic descent, the US has more Spanish speakers than Venezuela (29 million), Peru (28 million) and, by implication, each of the other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.
  • Hispanic buying power reached nearly $700 billion last year, according to estimates by HispanTelligence, a division of Hispanic Business, Inc. That buying power could reach as much as $1 trillion by 2010.
  • In the past 12 months, the US Hispanic online market has grown significantly while the US general online market has actually declined.
  • On average, bilingual pay differentials range between 5 and 20 percent per hour more than the position's base rate.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, The New York Times, HispanTelligence, ComScore, Salary.com