The movie Crazy Rich Asians, tiger moms, and competition for acceptance to the Ivies contribute to the myth that Asians are the “model minority” and that they have made it in our society and don’t need assistance. When conflated with the misconception that immigrants take rather than create jobs, xenophobia and persecution flourish and hate crimes perpetrated against Asians are on the rise.
The data tell a different story about the socioeconomic condition of Asians in America. The affluence of Chinese and Indians living in Lexington, Acton and Weston among other suburban metro Boston towns contrasts starkly with the socioeconomic condition of Cambodians and Vietnamese living in Worcester, Lowell, and Fields Corner in Dorchester. According to the American Community Survey 5-year Estimates (2015-2019) Asian poverty is 2x White poverty in Greater Boston and 3x White poverty in Boston (11% of White population in Boston and 6% of White population in Greater Boston are poor vs. 29% of Asian population in Boston and 13% of Asian population in Greater Boston are poor). Demographers are faced with the challenge of aggregated data, which make it exceedingly difficult to document the income and wealth disparities between the most and least affluent Asians. Asia comprises 48 countries and immigrants from many of these countries live in metro Boston and throughout Massachusetts.
According to a McKinsey study, Asian Americans have the largest intra-racial income inequality of any racial group. More than 85% of Indians 25 years old or older have a college degree or more and household income greater than $120K versus less than 20% of Cambodians 25 years old or older have a college degree or more with household income of less than $80K. Because of this aggregate average, $102,875 is much higher than it is for some groups and creates the need to disaggregate the data. A fix to the challenge of aggregated data is on the horizon. The Boston Foundation, Barr Foundation, Eastern Bank Foundation and Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce are contributing $1.5M to fund a revision of the 2015 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Color of Wealth disparity study. This time Asians will be included in the research. AACA’s Asian Business Training & Mentorship Program is on the radar screen of the research director at the Fed and may be called on to serve as an action tank where research hypotheses are tested in the real world.
Do immigrants take jobs away from native born applicants? According to a MIT News Office May 9, 2022 article titled “Immigrants in the U.S. are more likely to start firms, create jobs” immigrants are about 80 percent more likely to found a firm, compared to U.S.-born citizens and those firms also have about 1 percent more employees than those founded by U.S. native born individuals, on average. Ultimately, the study showed that 0.83 percent of immigrants to the U.S. founded a firm from 2005 to 2010, while 0.46 percent of native-born U.S. citizens founded a firm in that time. That disparity — the 80 percent higher rate of firm founding — also held up among firms founded before 2005. “Immigrants found more firms in every bucket,” MIT Sloan faculty co-author Pierre Azoulay says. “They create more firms, they create more small firms, they create more medium-size firms, they create more large firms.” He adds: “It’s not the case that [immigrants] only create growth-oriented startups. It’s not the case they just create subsistence businesses. They create all kinds of businesses, and they create a lot of them.
According to data from a Boston Indicators report commissioned by the Asian Community Fund at The Boston Foundation Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in Greater Boston. The percentage change between 1990 and 2019 was 207% Asian, 166% Latinx, 52% AA, -23% White. More than two-thirds of Asian Americans are foreign born, higher than any other racial group (i.e. 68% Asian Americans in Greater Boston are foreign born compared to 42% Latinx, and 38% Black according to the 1990 U.S. Census and 2019 1-year American Community Survey). According to Dr. J. Daniel Kim of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, who co-authored the previously cited MIT article, foreign born immigrants are more entrepreneurial than their progeny. When coupled with the high rate of foreign-born Asians starting businesses one can confidently conclude that Asian entrepreneurs are dynamic creators of jobs for foreign born and native-born Americans.
