A survey finds that more than half of the U.S.' Spanishspeaking Latin American immigrants send home at least $960 a year, providing a major boost to many a nation's economy in the hemisphere.

BY FRANK DAVIES

WASHINGTON - Latin American immigrants in the United States will send $30 billion -- about 10 percent of their income -- to families in their home countries this year, the first major survey of remittances has found.

Florida ranks fourth among states, with immigrants sending $2.4 billion in remittances, according to a survey of 3,802 adults in 37 states.

The survey, released Monday and conducted for the Inter-American Development Bank, also found that Latin American immigrants have an estimated gross income of $450 billion.

Their output, taken as a whole, would rank as the third-largest economy in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico.

More than 60 percent of the 16.5 million Latin American-born adults in the United States send home money at least four times a year. The transactions, which average about $240, help poor and middle-class families throughout the hemisphere to pay for food, shelter, education and healthcare and to start small businesses.

''It's not a cause for celebration, because it means economies [in Latin America] are not generating enough jobs,'' said Donald Terry, manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank.

But, he said, in countries where banks traditionally ignore the poor, such remittances provide limited ''financial democracy'' to people able to put some of the money into savings and investment.

The survey also found that recent arrivals to the United States, having found jobs in the poultry, meatpacking and service industries, send back money more frequently than more established immigrants.

More than 80 percent of the immigrants in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, for example, send remittances at least four times a year, compared to 64 percent in California, 47 percent in Florida and 43 percent in Texas, states where many Latin American immigrants have lived for decades.

''In Florida, a large number of Cubans came in the 1960s and '70s, and they have fewer family members to send money to,'' said Sergio Bendixen, of Miami, whose firm conducted the survey.

Those immigrants who regularly send money home were also found to be relatively young, with 49 percent age 34 or younger.

And 80 percent were found to make $30,000 a year or less.

The survey also showed that more than half have been in the United States longer than 10 years and have been sending remittances for more than five.

MANY ARE U.S. CITIZENS

According to the survey, 24 percent are U.S. citizens, 39 percent are legal immigrants and 32 percent are undocumented migrants.

''These are the maids, busboys and day laborers doing the jobs many others don't want to do,'' said Bendixen, adding that the survey was conducted by phone in Spanish.

The survey, whose results do not include Haitians and immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent for national results and of up to 8 percent for some states.

Remittances have become an essential element of some Latin American economies. According to Census data and other surveys, an estimated $13.2 billion was sent to Mexican families last year.

In smaller countries like El Salvador ($2.3 billion last year), the Dominican Republic ($2.2 billion), Jamaica ($1.4 billion) and Cuba ($1.2 billion), they are an indispensable boost to family income.

INCOME GAP STILL WIDE

Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, which studies hemispheric issues, believes remittances help, in a small way, to bridge the region's wide income gaps.

''This money is going from the poor to the very poor,'' Hakim said.

``This is a very real form of development -- and this money actually gets through to poor people.''