Center for Latino Policy Research

Mexican immigrants and persons of Mexican descent constitute an important and rapidly growing segment of California’s labor force (18 percent in 1990, up from 13 percent in 1980). They are also among the most economically disadvantaged workers in California: in 1989, Mexican-origin households earned on average 33 percent less than non-Hispanic white households, 30 percent less than Asian households, and 6 percent less than black households.

Disagreement persists over the prospects for Mexican Americans joining the economic mainstream of American society. Chavez (1991) claims that the large inflows of recent immigrants from Mexico create a deceptively pessimistic picture of Mexican-origin workers in the U.S. labor market, and that U.S.-born, English-speaking Mexican Americans have enjoyed rapid progress over the last couple of decades and are approaching the labor market status of non-Hispanic whites. According to Chavez, Mexican Americans are making steady progress towards economic parity with Anglos, and he worries about the emergence of a Chicano underclass with many of the same problems faced by inner-city blacks.

Using national Current Population Survey data from November 1979 and 1989 and Census data from 1990 for California and Texas, I shed light on the this debate by analyzing in detail the wage structure and relative earning power of U.S.-born Mexican-American men.