Positive economic news was reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, noting that the poverty rate for Hispanic-Americans had dropped to its lowest level ever since data first was collected for Hispanics in 1972.

In a press release on the agency’s website, the Census Bureau reported that the overall annual poverty rate in America for 2017 (the most recent year for which the full year’s data was available) was 12.3 percent, a decline from the 2016 rate of 12.7 percent.

Hispanics had the among the largest year-to-year decline in poverty rates among all the demographic groups studied, dropping to a poverty rate of 18.3 percent in 2017, a 1.1 percent decrease from 2016.

These historically-low poverty rates are good news for Hispanics, but as a group they have long been overrepresented among the total American population in poverty. The latest available figures from 2017 show that Hispanics were 18.3 percent of the total national population but 27.2 percent of the population in poverty.

“For Hispanic families there’s nothing more important than a healthy and growing economy where smart and hard-working people have a chance to get ahead,” said Daniel Garza, President of The LIBRE Initiative, in a statement provided to RedState.

“We’re seeing that now more than ever, a growing economy is helping our families and our workers to pull themselves up out of poverty,” continued Garza. “That’s welcome news, and we should continue to push for lawmakers to support policies that encourage economic growth and allow us to keep more of our hard-earned pay.”

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