Asian-Americans face widening income gap
The distribution of income among Asians went from being one of the most equal to the most unequal among America’s major racial and ethnic groups. Analysis of government data from 1970 to 2016 by the Pew Research Center
Growing up in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Tony Zhang considered his family – and all the Asians he knew – to be middle class.
His parents, both immigrants from China in the 1990s, are hardworking folks, he said. They own and operate a Chinese takeout. To help them get by, the Oakland University senior would sometimes join them in their no-frills restaurant.
New economic data about Asians in the USA – and popular “crazy rich” media portrayals – show that Asian-Americans are the racial group facing the greatest income inequality, a problem, experts said, that could thwart the kind of economic opportunity, mobility and influence Zhang hopes to one day have after he graduates.
“I definitely want to be rich,” Zhang, 20, said. “Who doesn’t?”
According to an analysis of government data by the Pew Research Center, from 1970 to 2016, the distribution of
income among Asians went from being one of the most equal to the most unequal among America’s major racial and ethnic groups.
“An increase in income inequality matters because of the potential for social and economic consequences,” the study said. “People at the lower rungs of the income ladder may experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility and have less political influence.”
The gap in the standard of living between Asians near the top and the bottom of the income ladder nearly doubled. The Washington-based think tank concluded Asians displaced African-Americans as America’s most economically divided racial group.
This change, experts said, can be attributed to immigration, education, and the “crazy rich Asian” narrative emerging from Hollywood that portrays Asians as a privileged group more than as a part of the underclass.
“This is in line with a lot of really important research that shows Asians are an extremely diverse group in the United States, and immigration plays an important role of Asians in this country,” said Joshua Rivera, data and policy adviser with the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions initiative. “The category Asian encapsulates so many different groups who have journeyed to America in different ways.”
Rivera’s warning to policymakers: Pay attention to the diversity within the racial category.
“In a classical sense, most people would tend to think among racial and ethnic groups that Asians are on par with white Americans and having relatively higher outcomes,” he said. “But this report tells me policymakers need to think about what these categories mean individually.”
Why inequality matters
The Pew study found that the difference in inequality among Asians reflected that Asians near the top experienced more growth in income from 1970 to
2016 than any other group while Asians near the bottom experienced the least growth.
Why?
Asians, the study said, tend to attain higher levels of education than other racial groups.
Moreover, inequality was driven in part by immigrants who accounted for
81 percent of the growth in the Asian adult population from 1970 to 2016.
The end of the Vietnam War brought a wave of refugees, and along with it, fewer Asian immigrants in high-skilled jobs and more in low-skill occupations. New immigration rules in 1990 and a tech boom led to an influx of Asians for high-skilled, higher-paying jobs.
As perceptions about privileged Asian-Americans take hold, workplaces, educational institutions and even Asian-Americans themselves wrestle with how affirmative action and other policies aimed at helping racial minorities should apply.
A group of Asian-Americans sued Harvard University, contending the elite, private institution systematically discriminates against them by capping the number of qualified Asian-Americans who are admitted.
The Ivy League university denied such claims.
According to Harvard, 22.2 percent of the class of 2021 is Asian-American, 14.6 percent is African-American, 11.6 percent is Hispanic and 2.5 percent is Native American.
Asians make up less than 6 percent of the U.S. population.
Although Asians are an underrepresented minority group in the USA and fear discrimination, “elite college administrators” have expressed concerns that they may have “too many Asians” enrolled in higher education, according to an online report from the American Psychological Association.
Two Asian Americas?
The concept of an Asian-American group – a single pan-ethnic identity – emerged as Americans with ancestors from East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia began organizing together to fight discrimination.
The beating death of Vincent Chin – a Chinese-American man who was killed in the 1980s while celebrating with friends at his bachelor party in Highland Park by two white autoworkers angry about competition from Japanese carmakers – galvanized ethnic Asians in Detroit and nationwide.
“For a certain group of leaders, there is a pan-Asian civil rights movement that is striving to unify the community across Asian-American subgroups,” said Roland Hwang, co-founder of American Citizens for Justice and a lec- turer at the University of Michigan. “The residual effect is having a lot of pan-Asian organizations.”
Hwang said that although Asian-Americans have joined to fight injustice, they are a very diverse group in many ways, including income.
“The community is coming of age, and all this stuff in the media is finally exposing our community as complex, not monolithic,” said Hwang, an attorney. “There are certain segments of the population that are struggling. There are segments that are new arrivals. And there are parts that are thriving.”
How crazy rich?
The hit romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians,” which was released in theaters in August, offers a sliver of insight into the varied economics and status among Asians, mostly through the plot tension that shows Asians from different socioeconomic groups in a relationship.
The latest U.S. Census Bureau rankings of real median household income by race, which included Hispanics, put Asians at the top of the list, earning $81,300 in 2017. Non-Hispanic whites earned $68,100; Hispanics, $50,500; and blacks, $40,300.
The “Crazy Rich Asians” movie may feed a stereotype: Asians are affluent.
“It’s a great movie,” Angela Beasinger, president of the Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said. “But when it comes to how crazy rich they are, I think most people know it’s movie drama.”
Beasinger, 45, immigrated to Michigan from China more than 20 years ago. She is president of her own consulting firm, WeAct.
“Income disparity exists everywhere,” Beasinger said. “There are always going to be rich people, and there are always poor people, too.”