Hispanics comprise the second largest minority ethnic group in this country and the fastest growing. The 1980 was the first U.S. census to explicitly track Hispanic individuals and families as such, distinguishing the largely white Hispanics from non-Hispanic whites. Yet Hispanics remain the most important ethnic group not now covered by longitudinal surveys capable of following the same individuals and families over three or more calendar years. A major cost posing obstacles to this development is that of drawing the initial sample. This proposal would take advantage of a sample of 2000 Hispanic respondents, recently drawn and currently being surveyed about their political participation, by adding follow-up surveys of the same sample in successive years to the current and influential Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Intergenerational and intragenerational social mobility, labor force participation and unemployment, movement into and out of poverty, usage of welfare, and the changing demographics of the Hispanic population are among the subjects that can now be studied over time with this sample.
