The Hispanic population’s well-being plays an increasingly important role in regional and national economic prosperity. Hispanic workers’ skills and education will help determine the future productivity of the labor force and competitiveness of U.S. industry.

Among Latinos, the U.S. born make up a majority in Texas but a minority in the rest of the country. Because natives typically earn more than immigrants, a state with a large, established population of U.S.-born Latinos might be expected to have relatively high Latino wages. That's not the case...

Latino workers in Texas are on the short end of two pay gaps. They earn substantially lower wages than the state's non-Hispanic white workers. They also earn less than Latinos working in other parts of the U.S. ; In the fourth quarter 2009 issue of Southwest Economy, we identified lower...

Limited access to migrant networks and strong geographic preferences may underlie border migrants' willingness to settle for lower wages on the border rather than seek higher wages by venturing into the U.S. interior.

The rising minimum wage has important implications for Texas, which unlike other big states sets its minimum wage equal to the federal one.