Income inequality has been growing steadily among all Americans since the 1970s. But within racial groups, the gap between rich and poor is growing most rapidly among Asians in the U.S., according to a new study.
Asians continue to rank as the highest-earning racial and ethnic group in the U.S. on average, but the distribution of income among Asians has gone from being one of the most equal to being the most unequal among all major groups, according to new analysis by the Pew Research Center.
I mean I don’t think this is anything new. The fact is this “Asian-Americans” is such a huge umbrella category that encompasses hundreds of different ethnicity and minority groups. The Hmog and Cambodian Americans are some of the most economically disadvantaged groups.
Also there are several Asian-Americans groups that came to America as refugees. The reason that it was relatively equal for a while was because of discriminatory laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and other restrictive laws that allowed only highly educated and generally well-off Asian-Americans to immigrants to come to the United States. This is why they are often stereotyped as a “model minority,” “smart,” and “successful” because all other Asian-Americans were banned from entering the United States. In other countries like the UK, there are a number of Asians that are living in poverty and face the same type of negative stereotypes that other minorities in the United States face.
This is why dis-aggregation of data is important and understanding a person’s specific background, rather than all being classified as “Asian-American” will lead to more refined results and more insightful findings about how certain groups are doing.
The Pew study report is at http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/07/12/income-inequality-in-the-u-s-is-rising-most-rapidly-among-asians/ .
But yes, how immigration filters immigrants from Asia has a large effect on educational attainment, income levels, and income inequality.