Spectators at the Lunar New Year Parade in New York City on February 25, 2024. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)
In 2022, Chinese American households near the top of the income ladder had incomes more than 19 times higher than Chinese American households near the bottom. The gap was widest across Asian American households of different origins, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Income inequality is a measure of the income disparity between the highest and lowest income households. In the United States, this issue has been a concern for years, especially since the economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
A 2018 analysis by the center found that Asian Americans have greater income inequality than any other race or ethnicity in the United States. This new analysis examines income disparities within the origin groups that make up the Asian American population.
Related: The state of America’s middle class
Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand the level of income inequality between and within Asian groups using a 90/10 ratio. This is the ratio of income at the 90th percentile to income at the 10th percentile of the income distribution. This provides a simple measure of the distance between the top and bottom of the income distribution.
In this analysis, household “income” refers to the combined resources of all household members, regardless of whether they have personal income. Therefore, people’s income is represented by household income adjusted according to household size.
The primary sources of information used are the 2022 American Community Survey and the 1980 Decennial Census (1% of the metropolitan sample), both obtained through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS). Ta.
Income inequality varies widely between Asian groups
One of the most common measures of income inequality is the “90/10 ratio.” This measure reflects the ratio of the household income of the 90th percentile (top 10% of earners) to the 10th percentile (bottom 10% of earners).
Among all Asian groups in the United States, Chinese American households had the highest income inequality in 2022, with a 90/10 ratio of 19.2. In other words, Chinese households in the 90th percentile of the income distribution earned 19.2 times more than households in the 10th percentile.
Sri Lankan, Korean, and Pakistani American households also had high levels of income inequality in 2022. In each of these origin groups, the income of the top 10% of households was more than 13 times that of the bottom 10%. The 90/10 ratio for households in Laos and Vietnam also exceeds 11, indicating a large income disparity.
In contrast, Burmese, Filipino, Nepali, and Hmong households had the lowest income inequality among U.S. Asians in 2022, all with a 90/10 ratio of less than 8. Still, among Hmong households, the top 10% had incomes 7.3 times higher than other households. The bottom 10%.
Income inequality is widening for most of the largest Asian groups.
Since 1980, income inequality has increased for nearly all of the largest Asian groups in the United States.
The largest increase was in Chinese American households. Their income 90/10 ratio rose from 8.3 in 1980 to 19.2 in 2022. Households in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and India also experienced widening income inequality during this period.
Vietnamese Americans are an exception to this pattern. Since 1980, the income inequality ratio of Vietnamese households has decreased by more than 17 points at a 90/10 income ratio. Although it is not clear what is behind this trend, many Vietnamese Americans in 1980 were new immigrants who entered the United States after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
Among Asian Americans, Chinese households are among the lowest and highest income households.
Indian Americans are often the highest earners of the Asian American group when looking at various rungs of the income ladder. For example, if you look at people in the bottom 10% of households and the top 10% of households by income level, they rank at the top of the list.
For Chinese Americans, it’s a different story. At the lower end of the income distribution (10th percentile), Chinese Americans in the lowest income households were among the poorest Asian American groups in 2022, with annual incomes of $10,500. . At the 50th percentile (median) of the income distribution, Chinese American households had the highest incomes among Asian American households, with an income of $65,800. And at the 90th percentile, Chinese households will have an income of $200,000 in 2022, second only to Indian Americans. (Income is adjusted for household size and expressed in 2022 dollars.)
Asia’s lowest and highest income households are demographically different
There are some important demographic differences between the bottom and top of the income distribution across the six largest Asian groups in the United States.
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Among most of the largest groups of Asian origin, those in the bottom 10% of incomes are more likely to be immigrants than those in the top 10%. But Filipinos and Japanese Americans at both ends of the income ladder are about as likely to be U.S.-born as foreign-born.
Length of stay in the US
Among five of the six major Asian immigrant groups, excluding Japanese Americans, immigrants in the highest income households are more likely to have lived in the United States for 10 years or more than immigrants in the lowest income households. A high or similar proportion.
For example, 71% of the highest-earning Indian American immigrants have lived in the United States for more than 10 years. A much smaller share of Indian American immigrants in the lowest income households has lived in the United States that long (53%).
Academic background
The top 10% of Asian Americans by income are much more likely to have a bachelor’s degree or higher education than those in the bottom 10%. This trend holds true for all six major Asian American origin groups.
