The purchasing power of Latinos and Asians living in Texas increased by more than 400 percent since 1990, totaling more than $208 billion in 2009, according to a recent report compiled by the Immigration Policy Center.

For Latinos, that's an increase of about 430 percent from two decades ago, to $175.3 billion; it's a 626 percent increase for Asians, to $33.5 billion.

The populations of the two groups have increased enough to collectively be about 40 percent of the Texas’ population. Latinos in Texas currently make up about 37 percent of the population, about 8.9 million people, according to U.S. Census Bureau data for 2008. That represents a jump from 25.5 percent of the population in 1990. Asians are now 3.5 percent of the population, about 851,000 people, an increase of almost 100 percent from 1990.

The surge in population also translates at the polls, according to the study. An estimated 1.7 million Latinos cast ballots in 2008, representing about 20 percent of all voters. About 118,000 Asians, or 1.4 percent of the voting public, also flexed their civic muscles at the voting booths in 2008.

Immigrants in Texas made up a fifth of the state’s workforce in 2008 with about 2.5 million enjoying steady employment. Immigrants accounted for about 21 and 16 percent of the economic output in the Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas, respectively. And look at the economic contributions from the undocumented workforce. According to the Perryman Group, removing every undocumented immigrant from Texas would result in a loss of $69.3 billion in economic activity, about $31 billion in gross domestic product and a loss of more than 403,000 jobs.