(Irma Aquirre) – It’s been two and a half years since President Trump took office, and America’s Latino communities are stronger and more prosperous than ever before.
For two months in a row, the national unemployment rate for Hispanics has hovered at an all-time low of 4.2 percent, trailing the overall U.S. unemployment rate by just 0.6 percent.
As a Latina entrepreneur, I’ve been able to witness the full impact that President Trump’s policies — including tax cuts, deregulation, and strategic tariffs — have had on Hispanic workers in the Silver State.
According to a University of Nevada, Las Vegas report published in 2014, Hispanics were not only hit especially hard by the Great Recession, they were largely left out of the tepid Obama-era “recovery.” After peaking at 18.6 percent in 2010, Hispanic unemployment declined only gradually over the next several years, remaining well above pre-recession levels.
Now, though, Nevada’s Hispanic unemployment rate is a full percentage point lower than it was immediately before the Great Recession, falling to just 5.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. About half of that progress has come just since the beginning of 2018, when Hispanic unemployment in Nevada was at 5.9 percent.
The future of this economic renaissance will be at stake in the next presidential election, which is precisely why the Trump Campaign is launching its new “Latinos for Trump” coalition this week to profile the myriad ways in which the President’s America First agenda benefits Hispanic Americans.
If the Democrats win in 2020, they will try to eliminate every job-creating policy that President Trump has implemented during his first term in the White House. Former Vice President Joe Biden and socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, have already pledged to abolish the President’s signature tax cuts, despite the overwhelmingly positive effects they’ve had on local economies across America.
Regrettably, the Democrats don’t see Hispanics as hard-working individuals who are capable of achieving success on our own. For too many years, liberals in Washington have arrogantly assumed that we can’t be prosperous without welfare, and that our financial success hinges on handouts from the federal government.
The most important mission of Latinos for Trump will be to dispel the disgraceful myth that Hispanics can’t succeed without special treatment; that we are helpless victims who can’t live without the welfare state.
The fact is, Donald Trump has done more for Hispanic workers than any other president before him because he refuses to pander or condescend to us. The President’s economic policies have revitalized hard-working Latino communities in states such as Nevada, not because they’re designed to help Hispanics in particular, but because they’re designed to empower all hard-working Americans.
As an entrepreneur, I’ve seen firsthand that the road to economic prosperity is paved with freedom and individual initiative, not job-killing regulations and government handouts that create dependency.
I’ve also witnessed the incredible impact that Donald Trump’s economic agenda has had across my beloved state, and I’m convinced that the best way to ensure that Hispanics are able to keep succeeding is to make sure that Donald Trump gets another four years in the White House.
Irma Aguirre served on the Small Business Advisory Council for the Trump for President campaign and is currently The Latino Coalition’s national advocate for small-business and women’s issues.
