How Badly Has The U.S. Economy Battered Hispanic Families?

I am in total agreement with Dan Aversano, Senior Product Manager at The Nielsen Company.

There are 2 schools of though. Some said that Hispanics are less affected since this recession is largely the result of a credit crisis and substantial losses on Wall Street, and Hispanics were under-leveraged in terms of debt and, on average, had less money in equity securities.
Others believed Hispanic households have been particularly hard hit by shrinking housing starts and an ailing contracting service industry.

As Dan said, this is not a black and white situation and one has to look at various factors including unemployment rates, credit scores, GDP and confidence levels, etc.

We do know that unemployment rate of Hispanics (12.2%) hovers several percentage points above the national average (8.7%), yet lower than African American (14.7%) and did not decline in July along with that of other ethnic groups.

According to Nielsen's Homescan Hispanic Panel among both English- and Spanish-speaking Hispanics, when asked about their current financial conditions, more than half replied they were somewhat or much worse off than before—almost identical to the population as a whole.

Plus, surprisingly, unemployment did not seem to be a major source of concern. Despite steadily climbing rates through most of the first half of the year, not quite two-thirds of Hispanic respondents (63%) were very or somewhat secure about keeping their jobs. Though lower than the 72% of non-Hispanics who shared the same sentiment, it revealed an unexpected display of confidence.

Whether Hispanics are truly faring better or worse than the rest of the population, they are plainly concerned about their situations—just like everyone else. For example, 94% of Hispanic consumers and 93% of non-Hispanic consumers said they worry about the rising cost of food. Moreover, they are reluctant to make major purchases of cars, houses, appliances or vacations. Their homes have become the focus of many of their activities, which means eating out less often. Most important, they are going back to basics and becoming increasingly more discerning about what they need versus what they want.