The United States is a diverse nation of consumers with different wants and needs, backgrounds, opinions, values, and expectations. However, not all voices are always clearly heard, often leading to decision-makers remaining ill-informed.

CivicScience’s robust privacy-centric polling platform, fueled by our media partnerships, enables Americans from all walks of life to be heard and informed. In this series, we’ll take a closer look at Hispanic and Latino American respondents, who represent 19% of the U.S. population.

Here are three key insights about U.S. Hispanic consumers regarding finances and how they compare to the general population.

1. Financial Health

At the time of writing, the latest CivicScience economic sentiment reading shows confidence in personal finances dropped nearly two points among the Gen Pop, making it the largest decrease since Q3 2022. This drop is also in line with recent CivicScience data showing that the Gen Pop is more likely to report being financially ‘worse’ off (33%) than ‘better’ off (30%) overall now than before the pandemic.

Compared to the Gen Pop, Hispanic Americans are more likely to report being financially ‘better’ off (40%) than ‘the same’ (25%) or ‘worse’ off overall (35%) post-pandemic. However, Latino Americans experienced more significant fluctuations over the last month than the Gen Pop, notably a jump in the percentage ‘worse’ off (+7 points) and ‘better’ off (+5 points).

Financial standing is also reflected in how Hispanic Americans respond to increasing prices and concerns over inflation. Hispanic adults are more likely to report they’ve become less price sensitive over the last year than the Gen Pop (21% compared to 14%), and a slightly greater percentage are not concerned about inflation at all (13% compared to 11%). 

2. Banking

Even though U.S. Hispanic adults are more likely to report they are financially better off now than before COVID-19, a large percentage are interested in switching banks.

Currently, over one-third of Hispanic Americans report they’re at least ‘somewhat likely’ to switch banks in the next three months (35%) – a whopping 12 percentage points higher than the Gen Pop (23%).

Further findings that could influence bank-switching habits include:  

  • Hispanic Americans are slightly less comfortable with the amount of debt they have — 29% are ‘not very / not at all comfortable,’ compared to 28% of the Gen Pop. 
  • Forty-six percent of Hispanic U.S. adults expect to have more money invested six months from now, which is three percentage points higher than the general population. 
  • Hispanic Americans are much more likely to anticipate their credit score to be higher in the next six months than the Gen Pop (53% compared to 47%). However, they also are slightly more likely to expect their credit score to be lower than the Gen Pop (12% compared to 10%). 

3. Investments: Cryptocurrency

Hispanic U.S. adults also report differences from the Gen Pop when it comes to investing, particularly cryptocurrency. Recent polling shows that intent to invest in crypto sunk to 9% among the Gen Pop by the end of January. Intent to invest is slightly higher among Hispanic American adults (10%), who are also much likelier to have experience investing in crypto than the general population (25% compared to 20%).

It’s clear from the data that there are stark differences between U.S. Hispanic adults and the Gen Pop when it comes to personal finances and economic outlook. Be sure to stay tuned for future insights from our ongoing series exploring a variety of categories among Hispanic Americans – or work with us to see the data among your consumer segment.