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When I began research for this book five years ago, I had a somewhat different purpose in mind. I was to focus on developing a theory of political behavior that can help explain the apparent disparity between Asian American economic and political accomplishments observed in the census data. I was to move quickly from a brief review of the general history of Asians in America and rely heavily on statistical analysis of survey data to interpret the meanings of being Asian American as compared to other American groups. And I was not to question assumptions of their relative passivity and complacency, but to take them as a given. This approach soon crumbled as I tried to reconstruct the group’s history of community formation in the new land. I could not help but be drawn in by the sophisticated and audacious means the men and women who came before me used to adapt to and to fight the system. The stories of how these unsung heroes and heroines negotiated with both a repressive system and with other racial and ethnic groups have loomed larger in this project than I have planned. It is impossible to try to present a more comprehensive profile of the political participation of Asian Americans without paying proper attention to these decisions and actions. It has been a luxury and an awesome experience to share their stories and learn about myself, my community, and my adopted country. What is America? Part of any speculation about the future of America depends on developing a more accurate picture of the past and present status of its major racial and ethnic groups. Although Asian immigrants have resided in the United States since at least the mid1800s and they were the nation’s fastest growing minority group in the 1990s, their stories of exclusion, adaptation, and participation have been largely missing from scholarly discussions on such vital issues as race and diversity. This book aims to fill that void by offering an interdisciplinary interpretation of the political experience of Asians in America that bridges research in Political Science and Asian American Studies. It will unravel stereotypes and misconceptions about the supposedly monotonous, conformist, and uniformly inconsequential character of Asian American participation in U.S. politics and explore the meanings of political participation by Asians in multiracial/multicultural America and in both historical and contemporary settings.1 The last fifteen years have seen the emergence of excellent single authored historical accounts in Asian American Studies (e.g., Daniels 1988; Ichioka 1988; Jensen 1988; Takaki 1989; Chan 1991; Yu 1992; Wei 1993; Friday 1994; Okihiro 1991, 1994; Yung 1995; Takahashi 1997; Tchen 1999). But formal, quantitative analyses of the sociopolitical status of Asian Americans have been scarce. This book attempts to strike a balance between the two approaches. It opens with an overview of the multifaceted and multiethnic group history of political participation prior to 1965 and follows with an examination of issues at both organizational and mass political levels that relate to the creation of a distinct, socially constructed race and a transnational and multiethnic community in contemporary America. To compare the patterns of political attitudes and behavior between Asians and those of non-Hispanic whites, Blacks, and Latinos,2 I analyze an extensive set of archival data on American public opinion collected in the 1990s that contains a significant number of Asians in the sample. To account for the increasing diversity in the ethnic and national origin of Asian Americans, I make comparisons between populations of, for example, Chinese and Filipinos, and Chinese and Koreans and Vietnamese. I also pay special attention to the remarkable progress of Asian American women and the lingering barriers they face compared to Asian men and other groups of men and women in becoming equal partners in U.S. society and polity. The results of this project should provide not only benchmark data on the political participation of Asian Americans but also a more comprehensive understanding of the continuity and change in the status of Asian Americans and their relationships with other American groups in multiracial/multicultural America than has been available to date. One thesis of the project is that, contrary to a triangulated group image of cultural docility, socioeconomic success, and political complacency, peoples of Asian descent have always been able to interact with a transpacific system of multiple forms of repression to bargain for their best possible space in American society and polity. Rather than being passive objects of social forces, Asian American men and women have been pragmatic and calculating actors who have adopted a multifaceted style of politics to maximize their chances of survival and their interests. Prior to the eras of modern civil rights and electoral politics, they manifested a variety of political strategies ranging from active resistance to accommodation, of tactics ranging from protest to litigation, and of styles encompassing both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. Their explicit forms of political expression reflected the confluence of a complex dynamic between internal community structure and external legal, social, political, and international context. Their participation not only earned them a rightful place to survive and thrive in America but helped transform the identity of both the foreign- and the U.S.-born generations into one that is both ethnic and American. Based primarily on theories of racial formation and panethnicization, I argue in Chapter 2 that it takes a strand of coalition-building movements for liberation, justice, and empowerment at the organizational level in the post-1965 era to transform the ethnic-specific group identity into one that is panethnic in nature. The chapter depicts the onerous birth and growth of the pan–Asian American community and identity after 1965, in arenas moving from the margins to the mainstreams of American politics as well as from ethnic-specific group politics to panethnic and transnational politics. These transformations were made possible by the drastic expansion of the community population base since the passage of the 1965 U.S. Immigration Act, but they were also made more difficult by the subsequent rise in the diversification and fragmentation of the population. Nevertheless, concurrent changes in the domestic sociopolitical and global economic context threatening the primary identity and interests of the localized community created organizing momentum for a more coherent community, which demography alone does not predict. The fallacy of the cultural deficiency hypothesis in predicting Asian American political behavior is further attacked in Chapter 3 by examining the situation of Hawaiian Asians in mainstream electoral politics. The goal of the chapter, however, is to illustrate another thesis of the book: Political participation by Asian Americans matters, either as immigrants or citizens, men or women, leaders or followers of organized community, student, and labor groups, or as governing elites, voters, or other participants in the formal electoral process. Both the Asia-born and the U.S.-born protested immigration exclusion and other discriminatory legislative and administrative actions and contributed to the establishment of important precedents in civil rights litigation. Participation in community-based and social movement organizations helped construct and reconstruct ethnic identity in America. In this chapter, I argue that, whereas the presence of Asians in Congress was highly significant to the uplifting of Asian American political efficacy, the more important role of these men and women sent to Congress from the Pacific states has been their contribution to constructing a more viable political community for Asian Americans nationwide. Acting as more than a reflection of constituency opinions, many took it upon themselves to advocate for justice and rights for Asians and other communities of color. Their participation in government, in turn, helped mobilize mass participation in the electoral process. Evidence of support for the second thesis can be found in the remaining chapters. Both organizational- and mass-level results demonstrate, among other findings, that given proper social and political context and equal access to resources, political participation can help forge a larger sense of community beyond racial, ethnic, class, and gender boundaries for Asians as well as for other groups of Americans. Key to transcending primordial boundaries is the presence of bridging institutions such as interethnic or interracial couples and multiethnic or integrated organizations. These institutions have facilitated the forging of cross-ethnic and -racial coalitions in both historical and contemporary times based either on common class status, anti-racist ideology, shared neighborhoods, economic interest, or friendship and marital ties. I also find that becoming U.S. citizens and voters or getting integrated into the political system can help reduce the racial, ethnic, and gender gaps in political opinions between Asians and others as well as among Asian subgroups. Last but not least, I emphasize in Chapter 6 that, like Asian American men (whose presence dominated the majority of the group’s history), Asian American women engaged in numerous incidences of individual and collective political action to fight against repression based on ethnicity, race, class, and gender and for democracy and freedom in both the United States and their ancestral homelands. They were essential in preserving and transmitting ethnic cultures and enabling social and political mobility of the community in America. Nevertheless, for reasons arising from societies of both the East and the West, the political experience of Asian Americans has been mostly an uphill battle against multiple forms of oppression in race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Outside of Hawaii, there is a severe case of Asian underrepresentation in the American political system, even though the extent of political incorporation varies greatly from one locality to another and it does not necessarily correspond to Asian population share or size in each community. This reflects, in part, the lack of citizenship and voting registration of individual Asians. More importantly, it implies the reality of the American racial and class systems and the paradoxical and ambivalent racial status of Asian Americans as simultaneously superachievers in education and income, underachievers in politics and participation, and constant outsiders to mainstream culture and institutions. The participation potential of Asian Americans has been suppressed by discriminatory legislation regarding immigration, citizenship, education, and other social and economic rights throughout history. The divide-and-conquer policy has prevented Asians from forming partnerships with one another. In the post-1965 era, the transformations of community population structure as well as the political and economic restructuring on both sides of the Pacific have presented new opportunities for, but also challenges to, the conception of community identity and citizenship as well as the efficacy of panethnicbased empowerment strategy. Braving the confluence of these forces, how have Asian American men and women of various ethnicity, class, nativity, and other backgrounds been able to express themselves politically and cooperate with men and women of other racial and ethnic origins? The quantitative part of this project strives to provide a more accurate and sophisticated understanding of the contours of Asian American political attitudes and behavior than currently exists. I present in the tables summary statistics of behavior domains that are as diversified as data permit. I also discuss results of multivariate regression analysis to help distinguish or specify the unique influence of race, ethnicity, class, and gender and their interrelationships. However, because of the lack of nationally representative data and the multitude of methodological issues associated with the surveying of Asian American political opinion (as discussed in the Appendix), the answers provided in the statistical analyses can only be tentative, and readers are asked to exercise extreme caution when interpreting results.

IV. THE POLITICS OF RIGHTS: LEARNING FROM THE ASIAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE It is tempting to draw from my comments so far a fairly cynical view of law and rights. In short, law and rights simply reflect contests over power, at any moment just registering the ongoing trench war over who gets what and, specifically, who is included and excluded from full protection by the legal agents of dominant groups. I think there is much truth in such a skeptical view, but I also think it is simplistic. Framing struggles over power, position, and interest as claims of rights can impart a historically grounded ethical dimension to struggle. This framework can then open the possibility for changing relationships of power, in part by mobilizing the official legal establishment, but even more by potentially mobilizing citizens and organizations in civil society who stand up to challenge either the abuses of rights or the uses of rights to justify abuse, as in these two historical cases. Rights are words, often written on paper, but they become materially powerful when people, ordinary and extraordinary, invest in them meaning and faith through action to challenge the unjust and often arbitrary practices of dominant groups through and beyond states. And that is just the message preached and exemplified by Gordon Hirabayashi: rights must be mobilized and demanded routinely for them to matter in guiding governmental and social power. “As fine a document as the Constitution is,” Gordon Hirabayashi famously told a reporter, “it is nothing but a scrap of paper if citizens are not willing to defend it.”23 Such mobilization of rights in the cause of justice is hardly easy or natural, however, and Gordon’s legacy exemplifies what the struggle takes. For one thing, rights mobilization requires personal virtues of courage and willingness to make personal sacrifices. Gordon displayed such selfless bravery in his refusal to accept the order of internment, a defiant challenge to the illegitimate government denial of basic rights to him and other Japanese Americans. In waging his campaigns against criminalizing subjugation, he also had to resist the pressures of others in his community who discouraged “rocking the boat” and making a bad situation worse by challenging government injustice. Gordon made a “lonely stand” in his initial resistance.24 Young Filipino American activists in the 1970s, including Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, displayed that same type of independent courage and persistence in the face of many obstacles and dangers. Indeed, they not only challenged powerful corporations and the American legal establishment that protected their unjust practices, but the young activists boldly opposed a dictator (who declared martial law) as well as his elite supporters in the American government.25 The young reformers also persisted when other workers, especially senior manongs, 26 were wary about defiant challenges to the status quo. Gordon was willing to go to prison; Gene and Silme lost their lives to assassins. Defiant action to demand rights can be risky business, and often requires such commitment and willingness to make sacrifices for larger causes. Personal courage and persistence alone are rarely sufficient. Struggles for rights also require organizational support, financial resources, and allied experts, usually including cause-oriented lawyers. Indeed, struggles for rights typically require movements that enlist many forms of organized support. The struggle for the ruling on coram nobis and legislated reparations during the 1980s, in particular, illustrates the important role of committed lawyers, community mobilization, and organizational alliance, both within and beyond the Japanese American communities. The Filipino Americans workers who initially fought for citizenship and workplace organizing rights, and later for workplace justice and democracy in the Philippines, likewise understood the political imperative to build a movement within the union, as well as within the broader Filipino community and beyond, including among diverse progressive organizations. Finally, each of these legacies illustrates that struggles for rights must be willing to go beyond exclusive reliance on litigation to produce change. In each campaign, efforts to mobilize media support, to influence public opinion, and to lobby members of government, the business community, and the academy were critical to success. Struggles over rights are most productive when they can convince dominant groups that it is both a matter of public principle and in the political interest of the majority, including the dominant group, to do the right thing.27 As Gordon put it, “I never look at my case as just my own, or just as a Japanese American case. It is an American case, with principles that affect the fundamental human rights of all Americans,” and, I might add, all peoples.28 One tragedy of the campaigns by Silme Domingo, Gene Viernes, and their allies was that their aspiration to advance rights in the workplace for all minority and female workers found only limited success in winning over the mass public and, especially, dominant elites. In particular, the workers’ campaign linking civil rights to social rights and human rights—what eventually came to be called a “Third Reconstruction”—gained little traction. In this regard, however, it is notable that Gordon Hirabayashi also became an advocate for “human rights,” finding both more expansive substantive grounds for justice and potential leveraging power in internationally accepted conventions. All of these activists understood that advances in egalitarian justice and social rights entail a slow, uneven process in which short-term defeats or failures still serve the larger cause of keeping democratic visions alive and inspiring future generations to continue the struggle.29 These are the lessons regarding how rights have mattered for Asian American groups who have been marginalized, excluded, and oppressed in American history. Rights guarantee nothing, but in some historical circumstances they can be a useful resource for building a politics of legal mobilization that includes, but usually transcends, mere litigation and reliance on courts. We can learn a great deal from these courageous actors no longer with us—from Gordon Hirabayashi, and from Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes. Struggles for rights can make a huge difference for many people. These three individuals were giants whose struggles must be remembered, an enduring inspiration for all seeking human rights and social justice.

Halberstam's argument in The Queer Art of Failure rests on three theses, the first two of which pertain particularly well to Asian America. The first—the need to resist mastery—seems to concern only academic professionalization, as it originates in a rejection of disciplinarity's inherent conservatism: "We may, ultimately, want more undisciplined knowledge, more questions and fewer answers" (Halberstam 10). Halberstam argues that disciplinarity suppresses minoritized and indigenous knowledges—the examples of indigenous peoples' long-standing disputes with Western anthropology are pertinent here—and the pursuit of those knowledges necessarily moves inquiry outside the comforts of academia. This is almost, but not [End Page 112] quite, an argument for a kind of reverse ethnography—inquiry of colonizers from within colonized communities—that scholars are not trained to practice.

The second thesis—the need to privilege whatever is stupid, naïve, nonsensical (Halberstam 12)—seems almost to invite failure, if not to defend strident anti-intellectualism. Here Halberstam might usefully address contemporary American conservatives' distrust of higher education, expressed during the writing of The Queer Art of Failure in the rise of the Tea Party and more recently in a 2017 Pew Research Center survey finding that 58 percent of "Republicans and right-leaning independents think higher education has a negative effect on the country" (Turnage). But for Halberstam and other critics, the constrictions of disciplinarity and universities' investments in neoliberal economic principles1 make these institutions the allies of those very conservatives. This is nowhere better illustrated than in the so-called Paradise Papers disclosure, published in 2017 in The Guardian, that many "US universities and colleges have interests offshore where they pay little or no tax and seek to grow their already phenomenal riches away from public scrutiny" (Pilkington). This desire for secrecy hides agendas that subvert schools' public image. For example, "some of the offshore funds are invested in carbon-polluting industries, despite US universities playing a key role in the fight against climate change" (Pilkington). According to The Guardian, Northeastern University publicly boasts of a commitment to sustainable energy practices in its facilities and its scholars' well-funded research, yet it is heavily invested in a hedge fund described as the nation's leading benefactor of "oil and shale gas exploration and production … an aggressive financial backer of carbon-emitting industries" (Pilkington).2 Conservatives who distrust higher education may know nothing about these investments and may thus be unwitting allies of universities, but even if they know, their distrust is aimed at faculty and the curriculum, not at administrators. University leaders make their investments quietly, almost secretly, while the very purpose of research is to make knowledge public. Leaders may therefore be betraying a public trust, but their investments partake anyway of a neoliberalism that aims to privatize everything in the name of freedom. Whether conservatives know of these investments is irrelevant. Success—more financial than educational, more private than public—is the goal regardless. And success is as likely to be fiercely anti-intellectual as deeply intellectual and disciplinary.

In her book Asianfail, Eleanor Ty argues that Asian Americans can appropriate failure as a strategy for subverting norms. Her sense of failure derives from the work of queer theorists such as Judith/Jack Halberstam, for whom failure exists not as the paired opposite of mainstream success but rather as a family of evolving strategies for resisting governing structures. For Asian Americans, the stereo- typical “model minority,” strategic failure would therefore be especially appropriate as a rebuke to those structures.

For many people, it’s hard to get past the talking points to find out what the real impact of the Republican tax reform bill will have on individuals and their families. The tax bill passed by both houses of Congress Wednesday is supposed to be about pocketbook issues, but hidden in the 500-page bill are measures that will hurt Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In the end, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — the real targets of the GOP — are at risk. Instead of a real middle-class tax cut, the overwhelming majority of the benefits of this bill — an astounding 83% — go to the top 1% over the next decade. With corporate profits at an all-time high, this plan permanently lowers the corporate tax rate and increases taxes on 57% of middle-class Americans over the next decade. In states with a high number of Asian Americans, including California, New York and Hawaii, many families will also see a tax increase as a result of changes to the state and local tax deduction. Coincidentally, they also overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in 2016. Health care Unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act after over 70 attempts, the Republicans sought to sabotage the ACA by taking away its primary funding mechanism. Donald Trump gloated Wednesday when he pointed to the healthcare changes contained in the tax bill, saying the elimination of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate amounts to a repeal of Obamacare. “The individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get their money from the individual mandate,” Trump said. Uh … no. As usual, Trump is wrong. The bill doesn’t repeal Obamacare, but it does weaken it considerably. Potentially, over 1.2 million AAPI enrollees in the ACA could be adversely affected. “In order to include tax loopholes for the wealthy, this bill removes a crucial element of the Affordable Care Act – the individual mandate—and will undoubtedly destabilize health insurance markets and cause millions to lose coverage,” said Kathy Ko Chin, president and CEO of the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum. The loss of the mandate means younger, healthy people will think they don’t need insurance and will thus, opt out. Many people pay insurance premiums for years and never file a claim. In the case of the ACA, this can lead younger and generally healthier people to think they´re wasting money and cause them to cancel their coverage. In the event they suffer a loss, however, they must pay the full cost themselves. But, if you are young, you think you’re invincible and you’re willing to take that risk. When anyone buys an insurance policy, you´re buying protection. You´re protected against unexpected medical costs, whether you ever actually use the coverage or not. With the expected loss of younger people essentially supporting the system, insurance companies will have to raise their rates to the point where over 13 million people will no longer be able to afford health insurance. AAPI have always had a favorable view of the ACA. It’s difficult to determine why this is so but some say people are attracted to the ability to keep young adults (up to 26 years of age) under the family coverage and the fact so many AAPI have small businesses that can’t afford the expensive private insurance plans but can afford the ACA. The available data suggest that Asian Americans have obtained health insurance through the marketplaces created by Obamacare at a higher rate than other groups. Thus, if Obamacare were repealed, Asian Americans might see their dramatic gains in health insurance coverage reversed. The ACA has helped to reduce the national uninsured rates for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders by 59%, the greatest reduction of any racial or ethnic group. Before the ACA, many groups, such as Koreans, Cambodians, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi Americans had uninsured rates above 20%.

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 9, 2015 - Social Security is critical to the retirement security of older Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), according to AARP Public Policy Institute's new fact sheet. Sixty-five percent of AAPIs age 65 and older receive Social Security benefits, including twenty-eight percent who rely on it as their primary source of family income. Nine percent of older AAPIs rely on Social Security as their only source of family income. "Social Security: Who's Counting on It?" provides insight into how Social Security benefits all Americans. Last year, about 59 million people received Social Security, a federal program designed to protect individuals who can no longer work and their families from loss of income due to retirement, disability, or death. "Following the 80th anniversary of Social Security last month, it is a lifeline for many AAPIs that helps keep them and their families out of poverty," said Daphne Kwok, AARP Vice President of Multicultural Leadership, Asian American and Pacific Islander Audience. "AARP works to strengthen Social Security because the vast majority of Americans of all ages believe it is important to provide financial security for everyone." As recent immigrants, AAPIs have lower median Social Security incomes according to an AARP report issued last year. Therefore they are less likely than African Americans, Hispanics, and whites to depend on Social Security for 50 percent or more of their family income. Older minorities are less likely than whites to have family income other than Social Security. A little more than half (53.4 percent) of AAPIs age 65 and older own have income from assets, but only a quarter (24.4 percent) have income from pensions and retirement savings. Other key findings: a) Social Security income kept roughly 33 percent of older Americans, about 14.7 million people, out of poverty. The poor (income below poverty line) and the near-poor (income between 100 and 150 percent of the poverty line) rely on Social Security for a significant share of their family income. b) Social Security benefits are particularly important for women because, on average, women live longer and earn less than men do, so they are more dependent than men are on Social Security's progressive benefit and inflation-adjusted, lifetime income. Social Security is currently fully funded with $2.8 trillion in reserves, but in 2020 will begin to be drawn down these reserves in order to continue paying full benefits. At this rate, Social Security reserves will be depleted in 2034, less than 20 years from now.

Statistics on Asian Americans often present a population with high education levels, earning potential, and net worth, painting a picture of a young, educated, middle class. These numbers obscure a growing population of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander seniors, many of whom lack the financial resources of their younger counterparts. As a growing demographic with a rising poverty rate, Asian American seniors are being left behind in the narrative of a financially strong Asian American community.

The Asian American elderly population is a fast-growing demographic. In 2014, the older Asian population was 1.9 million, and it is projected to grow to 8.5 million by 2060. Estimates project the older Asian population to make up 9 percent of the older population by 2060, compared with 4 percent in 2014.

From an economic standpoint, Asian Americans are presumed to fare better than average, even during downturns—a perception that contributes to their reputation as “model minorities.” Indeed, from 2007 to 2010, Asian Americans had annual unemployment rates that were slightly lower than those of whites. But these numbers mask persistent disadvantages for Asian Americans. UPDATE: May 2012 supplement shows that Asian Americans continued to suffer the most from long-term unemployment in 2011 This issue brief begins by examining and explaining patterns in Asian American unemployment rates from 2007 to 2010. It then examines in detail a particular subset of unemployed Asian Americans: those who have been out of work for more than half a year, also known as the long-term unemployed. Principal findings include: Overall, Asian Americans have lower unemployment rates than whites, but this is due to Asian Americans’ higher education levels. Highly educated Asian Americans suffer from higher unemployment rates than similarly educated whites. Specifically, Asian American workers with at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely to be unemployed than white workers with the same level of education—a fact that is particularly salient because 57.2 percent of the Asian American labor force falls into this category. Highly educated Asian Americans’ higher unemployment rates when compared with highly educated whites are partly due to nativity—i.e., the fact that Asian Americans are more likely to be foreign born. In 2010, Asian Americans had the highest share of unemployed workers who were unemployed long term (for more than half a year) when compared with white, black, and Hispanic workers. That year, nearly half of all unemployed Asian Americans fell into this category. Being foreign born and residing in states with high long-term unemployment partly explains Asian Americans’ high long-term unemployment rates. Racial bias appears to be a factor in patterns of unemployment and long-term unemployment among Asian Americans. Compared with similar white workers, many Asian American workers are having a harder time finding employment. Patterns in unemployment rates among Asian Americans Asian Americans typically have lower unemployment rates than whites, contributing to the common belief that Asian Americans are more economically successful than average. Figure A shows unemployment rates by quarter from 2007 through 2010. Generally, Asian American unemployment tracks slightly lower than that of white Americans. During the last quarter of 2010, however, the Asian American unemployment rate was 7.5 percent, compared with 7.4 percent for whites.1 FIGURE A White and Asian American unemployment rates, by quarter, 2007–10 Year White Asian American 2007Q1 4.1% 3.1% 2007Q2 3.7% 3.1% 2007Q3 4.0% 3.2% 2007Q4 3.7% 3.6% 2008Q1 4.4% 3.3% 2008Q2 4.3% 3.9% 2008Q3 4.9% 4.2% 2008Q4 5.4% 4.5% 2009Q1 7.5% 6.4% 2009Q2 7.7% 7.4% 2009Q3 8.0% 8.0% 2009Q4 8.0% 7.7% 2010Q1 8.8% 8.2% 2010Q2 8.0% 7.4% 2010Q3 7.8% 7.5% 2010Q4 7.4% 7.5% 3.1% 8.2% 7.5% 4.1% 8.8% 7.4% Asian American White 2007 2008 2009 2010 ChartData Notes: These data are not seasonally adjusted and exclude biracial or multiracial individuals and Hispanics. Data refer to workers age 16 and over. Source: Author’s analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata Share Tweet Embed Download image TABLE 1 Educational distribution of Asian American and white labor forces, 2010 (age 25+) Asian American White Less than high school 7.2% 4.4% High school 18.6% 28.3% Some college 16.9% 28.7% Bachelor’s degree 33.7% 24.7% Advanced degree 23.5% 13.9% Notes: These data exclude biracial or multiracial individuals and Hispanics. Shares may not total 100 percent due to rounding. Source: Author’s analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata Share Tweet Embed Download image Asian American unemployment rates are generally lower because Asian American workers have higher education levels on average than white workers. As Table 1 shows, Asian American workers are more likely than white workers to have bachelor’s or advanced degrees. More than half (57.2 percent) of Asian American workers fall into this category, compared with slightly less than two-fifths (38.6 percent) of white workers. Workers with higher education levels generally have lower unemployment rates. As Figure B shows, unemployment rates are lowest for those with at least a bachelor’s degree, among both Asian American and white workers. FIGURE B Unemployment rates, by race and education, 2010 (age 25+) Asian American White Less than high school 10.9% 15.0% High school diploma or GED 7.7% 9.0% Some college 8.1% 7.4% Bachelor’s degree 6.8% 4.7% Advanced degree 3.7% 3.2% Asian American White Less than highschool High schooldiploma orGED Some college Bachelor’sdegree Advanceddegree ChartData Note: These data exclude biracial or multiracial individuals and Hispanics. Source: Author’s analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata Share Tweet Embed Download image Yet as Figure B also indicates, Asian Americans with higher education levels are disadvantaged when compared with similarly educated white workers. In 2010, 6.8 percent of Asian Americans age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree were unemployed, compared with 4.7 percent for similarly educated whites. Asian Americans with an advanced degree and with some college education also had higher unemployment levels: 3.7 percent compared with 3.2 percent for those with an advanced degree, and 8.1 percent compared with 7.4 percent for those with some college. In contrast, Asian American workers with a high school education or less fared better than similarly educated white workers. For example, the unemployment rate for Asian Americans with less than a high school education was 10.9 percent, compared with 15.0 percent for whites. Asian American high school graduates had an unemployment rate of 7.7 percent, compared with 9.0 percent for white high school graduates. But as Table 1 shows, only about one-fourth of Asian American workers have these education levels; the remaining three-fourths are disadvantaged relative to similarly educated whites. These patterns are consistent with those found by Austin (2010). Table 2 illustrates how these overall disparities generally started out very small in 2007 and 2008 but widened in 2009 and 2010 in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession. It is important to note that during every year examined, Asian Americans with a bachelor’s or an advanced degree were more likely to be unemployed than similarly educated whites. In contrast, over all four years, Asian Americans with a high school education or less were less likely to be unemployed than were comparable whites. TABLE 2 Unemployment rates of Asian Americans and whites, by nativity and education, 2007–10 (age 25+) * Calculations represent the percentage-point difference between the Asian American and white populations. Percentage-point-change figures may not sum properly due to rounding. Note: These data exclude biracial or multiracial individuals and Hispanics. Source: Author’s analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata Share Tweet Embed Download image Explaining patterns in Asian American unemployment rates What can explain these counterintuitive patterns—in particular, that of highly educated Asian Americans having higher unemployment rates than similarly educated whites? Could nativity play a role? In other words, could these patterns be driven by the fact that most Asian Americans in the labor force—more than three-fourths—are immigrants, compared with only 5 percent of white workers?2 Since the majority of Asian American workers are foreign born and the vast majority of white workers are U.S. born, it is useful to compare the rates for foreign-born Asian Americans with the rates for U.S.-born whites. This demonstrates that nativity does indeed help explain these patterns. For example, in 2010, 7.2 percent of foreign-born Asian Americans with a bachelor’s degree were unemployed, compared with 4.6 percent of similarly educated U.S.-born whites (as shown in Table 2). Among those with an advanced degree, foreign-born Asian Americans had an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, while U.S.-born whites had a rate of 3.1 percent.3 As noted previously, more than three-fourths of Asian American workers are foreign born, while 95 percent of white workers are U.S. born. Thus, the overall unemployment disparities between Asian Americans and whites with bachelor’s and advanced degrees are affected by highly educated, foreign-born Asian Americans having higher unemployment rates than similarly educated U.S.-born whites.4 Aside from nativity, another factor in these disparities in unemployment rates could be racial bias. Research finds discrimination at the top; in other words, Asian Americans with higher education levels face more discrimination in employment than those with lower levels (Sakamoto and Furuichi 2002). This would help explain the overall pattern of highly educated Asian Americans having higher unemployment rates than similarly educated whites. In particular, it would explain why highly educated native-born Asian Americans tend to have higher unemployment rates than similarly educated native-born whites (as shown in Table 2). In addition, experiments on implicit bias find that Asian Americans are usually perceived as foreign born.5 Thus, it is likely that less-educated Asian Americans are more able to obtain lower-paid jobs—jobs deemed appropriate for immigrants. This helps explain why, overall, Asian Americans with lower education levels have lower unemployment rates than less-educated whites. Explaining high long-term unemployment rates among Asian Americans After exploring overall unemployment trends among the Asian American population, this issue brief will now focus on a particular subset of unemployed Asian Americans: the long-term unemployed, or the share of the jobless who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks (more than half a year).6 Among the more troubling aspects of the Great Recession and its aftermath are the record-breaking levels of long-term unemployment. Despite their lower overall rates of unemployment, Asian Americans had higher rates of long-term unemployment in 2010 than whites, blacks, and Hispanics. Figure C shows that the share of unemployed workers who have been unemployed long term has steadily increased for all racial groups as a result of the recession. In 2007, 20.9 percent of unemployed Asian Americans had been jobless for more than half a year. This share increased to 35.5 percent in 2009 and to 48.7 percent in 2010. Asian Americans had the second-highest rate of long-term unemployment from 2007 to 2009, after African American workers. But in 2010, Asian Americans surpassed African Americans in this measure: 48.7 percent of Asian Americans who were unemployed were without work for more than half a year, compared with 48.5 percent for African Americans. Meanwhile, the rate stood at 42.7 percent for whites and 39.3 percent for Latinos. FIGURE C Long-term unemployment shares, by race and ethnicity, 2007–10 White Black Hispanic Asian 2007 16.20% 23.80% 14.30% 20.90% 2008 18.30% 26.00% 17.30% 22.10% 2009 30.20% 39.00% 28.20% 35.50% 2010 42.70% 48.50% 39.30% 48.70% 20.90% 22.10% 35.50% 48.70% 14.30% 17.30% 28.20% 39.30% 23.80% 26.00% 39.00% 48.50% 16.20% 18.30% 30.20% 42.70% White Black Hispanic Asian 2007 2008 2009 2010 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55% ChartData Notes: The data for whites, blacks, and Asians exclude biracial or multiracial individuals and Hispanics. The data indicate the share of unemployed workers who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. Data refer to workers age 16 and over. Source: Author’s analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata

Income Inequality in the U.S. Is Rising Most Rapidly Among Asians Asians displace blacks as the most economically divided group in the U.S. BY RAKESH KOCHHAR AND ANTHONY CILLUFFO From lowest to highest: Income inequality in U.S. increased most among Asians from 1970 to 2016Income inequality, a measure of the economic gap between the rich and poor, has risen steadily in the United States since the 1970s. More recently, the issue burst into public consciousness with the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 and subsequent calls for a $15 minimum wage. An important part of the story of rising income inequality is that experiences within America’s racial and ethnic communities vary strikingly from one group to the other. Today, income inequality in the U.S. is greatest among Asians. From 1970 to 2016, the gap in the standard of living between Asians near the top and the bottom of the income ladder nearly doubled, and the distribution of income among Asians transformed from being one of the most equal to being the most unequal among America’s major racial and ethnic groups. In this process, Asians displaced blacks as the most economically divided racial or ethnic group in the U.S., according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. While Asians overall rank as the highest earning racial and ethnic group in the U.S., it is not a status shared by all Asians: From 1970 to 2016, the gains in income for lower-income Asians trailed well behind the gains for their counterparts in other groups. An increase in income inequality matters because of the potential for social and economic consequences. People at the lower rungs of the income ladder may experience diminished economic opportunity and mobility and have less political influence. Researchers have also linked growing inequality to greater geographic segregation by income. In addition, there is evidence that rising inequality may harm overall economic growth by reducing consumption levels, causing excessive borrowing by lower- to middle-income families, or limiting investment in education. The income gap between Americans at the top and the bottom of the income distribution widened 27% from 1970 to 2016. Among all Americans, those near the top of the income ladder had 8.7 times as much income as those near the bottom in 2016, $109,578 compared with $12,523. In 1970, Americans near the top had 6.9 times as much income as those near the bottom, $63,512 compared with $9,212. (All income estimates are adjusted for household size and expressed in 2016 dollars.) This measure of inequality, known as the 90/10 ratio, takes the ratio of the income needed to place among the top 10% of earners in the U.S. (the 90th percentile) to the income at the threshold of the bottom 10% of earners (the 10th percentile).1 It is a simple measure of the gap in income between the top and the bottom of the income ladder and is commonly used by researchers and government agencies. (See text box for more on measuring inequality.) The 90/10 ratio varies widely by race and ethnicity. In 2016, Asians at the 90th percentile of their income distribution had 10.7 times the income of Asians at the 10th percentile. The 90/10 ratio among Asians was notably greater than the ratio among blacks (9.8), whites (7.8) and Hispanics (7.8). This pattern of inequality across groups represents a significant shift from the past. In 1970, the 90/10 ratio among Asians was 6.1, about as low as among whites (6.3). But the top-to-bottom gap in income among Asians increased 77% from 1970 to 2016, a far greater increase than among whites (24%), Hispanics (15%) or blacks (7%).2 This marked difference in the growth in inequality reflects the fact 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. Measuring inequality Most Asian adults in the U.S. are foreign born The Asian experience with inequality is partly driven by immigration.3 Immigrants accounted for 81% of the growth in the Asian adult population from 1970 to 2016, and the foreign-born share among Asians increased from 45% to 78% in this period.4 The surge in Asian immigration followed the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, which favored family reunification, and the end to the war in Vietnam in 1975, which brought in a wave of refugees. One result was that the share of new Asian immigrants working in high-skill occupations decreased from 1970 to 1990, and the share working in low-skill occupations increased.5 More recently, the Immigration Act of 1990 sought to increase the inflow of skilled immigrants. Coinciding with a boom in the technology sector, a new wave of Asian immigrants, many from India, followed under the auspices of the H-1B visa program. Thus, since 1990, there has been an increase in the share of Asian immigrants employed in high-skill occupations. Education levels and incomes vary widely among Asians living in the U.S. In 2015, the share with at least a bachelor’s degree, among adults ages 25 and older, ranged from 72% among Indians to 9% among Bhutanese, median household income varied from $100,000 among Indians to $36,000 among Burmese, and poverty rates ranged as high as 35% among the Burmese and 33% among the Bhutanese.6 This diversity in their origins and experiences is reflected in the relatively high level of income inequality among Asians. These are among the key findings from a new Pew Research Center analysis of American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with decennial census data. The period of analysis is 1970 to 2016, from the decade marking the rise in inequality in modern times to the latest available data. The sample for the analysis is the U.S. adult, civilian household population, with some omissions.7 The focus of this report is on income inequality within the major racial and ethnic communities in the U.S., and on the gaps in income across people in these groups at the bottom, middle and upper points of the income distribution. Income inequality is measured using the 90/10 income ratio and the Gini coefficient (see text box). The term “income” in this report refers to what is afforded a person by the combined resources of his or her household, whether the person had personal earnings or not. Thus, people’s incomes are represented by their household’s income adjusted for household size.8 All members of a household have the same income, or standard of living.9 The standard of living of lower-income Asians stagnated from 1970 to 2016 Incomes increased most for higher-income Asians, least for lower-income AsiansAs evidenced by the rise in inequality from 1970 to 2016, higher-income adults in the U.S. experienced more of an increase in income than lower-income adults within all racial and ethnic groups, and this disparity was most pronounced among Asians. The income of higher-income Asians – those at the 90th percentile – nearly doubled from 1970 to 2016, rising 96%. Asians at the median-income level (50th percentile) experienced a 54% increase in income. But the income of Asians at the 10th percentile increased only 11% over this period. Thus, inequality among Asians increased overall as those at the top of the income ladder pulled away from those at the middle and bottom, and Asians at the middle also pulled away from those near the bottom. Moreover, the gains for lower-income Asians lagged behind the gains for lower-income blacks (67%), whites (45%) and Hispanics (37%). Whites, blacks and Hispanics at the 90th percentile also experienced relatively large gains in income (80%, 79% and 58% respectively). These improvements in the standard of living were greater than the gains at the median: 52% for whites, 66% for blacks and 36% for Hispanics. Lower-income whites, blacks and Hispanics, while losing ground to those at the top, mostly kept pace with those at the middle of their income distributions. The trends in income growth also show that blacks made some progress in closing the gap with whites. Blacks at the median and at the 10th percentile experienced more of an increase in income than similarly situated whites, and blacks at the 90th percentile kept pace with whites.10 Hispanics experienced smaller increases in income than whites at all percentiles, however. Thus, lower-, middle- and upper-income Hispanics all lost ground to their white counterparts from 1970 to 2016. As it has with Asians, immigration has been an important part of the Hispanic experience in recent decades. In 2016, 47% of adult Hispanics were foreign born, up from 34% in 1970. The inflow of immigrants accounted for 50% of the total increase in the Hispanic adult population from 1970 to 2016 and was tilted to the lower ends of the income distribution.11 In 2015, 47% of foreign-born Hispanics 25 and older had not graduated from high school, compared with 13% of Americans overall of this age. The influx of lower-skill, lower-income immigrants likely exerted a drag on the measured growth in income for Hispanics. The majority of Asians have a higher standard of living than other groups, but some lag behind Asians have the highest earnings, except among lower-income adultsDifferences in income within racial and ethnic groups are not the only sources of inequality in the U.S., of course. The gaps in the standard of living across whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians are also sizable and longstanding. These gaps are usually measured through differences in the mean or median incomes of groups.12 However, the sizes of the gaps are different at different tiers of the income ladder. In 2016, Asians at the middle of their income distribution earned more than white, black or Hispanic adults at the middle of their income distributions. The median annual income for Asian adults was $51,288, compared with $47,958 for whites, $31,082 for blacks and $30,400 for Hispanics (incomes are adjusted for household size and expressed in 2016 dollars). Asians also held the edge in standard of living over other groups at the top of the income distribution. The income of Asians at the 90th percentile was 13% higher than the income of whites at the 90th percentile in 2016, $133,529 versus $117,986. Upper-income blacks ($80,502) and Hispanics ($76,847) had a similar standard of living in 2016, and both were outdistanced by Asians and whites by a wide margin. In contrast, lower-income Asians lagged behind lower-income whites. Asians at the 10th percentile of their income distribution lived on $12,478 in 2016, 17% less than the income of whites at the 10th percentile ($15,094). Lower-income blacks and Hispanics trailed by even more, with incomes of $8,201 and $9,900, respectively. Income inequality and income gaps: Two windows into the well-being of racial and ethnic groups The state of income inequality within racial and ethnic groups and the gaps in incomes across them provide complementary, yet distinct, insights into the well-being of these groups of Americans.13 The fact that inequality increased within each racial and ethnic group shows that no community was immune to the factors said to have raised U.S. inequality since 1970. These factors include technological change, globalization, the decline of unions and the eroding value of the minimum wage. At the same time, the drivers of income inequality appear to have had a disproportionate impact on some racial and ethnic groups, as evidenced by the differences in the level of inequality and the degree to which it increased for each group. That could be because of differences in the characteristics of workers, such as educational attainment (greater among Asians and whites) and the share foreign born (greater among Asians and Hispanics). Also, larger societal forces may have affected some groups more than others, such as the disparately high rate of incarceration among black men (see text box). The aforementioned differences in worker characteristics also contribute to the gaps in incomes across racial and ethnic groups. In addition, the historical legacy and current impact of discrimination are considered to be important factors in these gaps. Some scholars hold the view that discrimination not only distorts the hiring practices of employers but also contributes to gaps in skills across groups, disadvantaging racial minorities prior to their entry into the labor market. It is worth noting that overall income inequality in the U.S. would persist even if the gaps in income across racial and ethnic groups were eliminated. For example, suppose that blacks, Hispanics and Asians had the same income distribution as whites. In that case, everyone at any given rung of the income ladder – lower, middle or upper – would have the same income regardless of race or ethnicity. However, the 90/10 ratio for the U.S. would fall only from 8.7, its actual level, to 7.8, the level that currently prevails among whites.14 Conversely, easing income inequality within racial and ethnic groups may have little impact on the gaps across groups. Suppose that incomes at the lower rungs of the ladder are raised 10% and incomes at the top are reduced 10%. This would reduce inequality overall and within each group, but the gaps in income across groups would be unchanged. Inequality in the U.S. is higher than in other advanced economies Inequality in the U.S. is highest among G-7 countriesThe level of inequality in the U.S., and the fact that it is comparable with the levels that existed in the 1920s by at least one measure, is of concern to many. Then-Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen remarked in 2014, “The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me.” But others are more sanguine, arguing that the trends in U.S. inequality do not constrain opportunities for those at the bottom of the income distribution. In the midst of this debate, it is worth noting that income inequality in the U.S. is higher than among other advanced economies and has also increased more rapidly in recent decades. Cross-national comparisons of income inequality are often based on the Gini coefficient, a widely used measure of inequality (see text box). The Gini coefficient in the U.S. stood at 0.435 in 2016 (based on gross income and on a scale of 0 to 1), according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).15 This was the highest of any of the G-7 countries, which ranged from 0.330 in France to 0.388 in the UK. Indeed, OECD estimates show that the Gini coefficient for the U.S. is closer to the Gini for India (0.495) than to most of the G-7 countries. The level of inequality in the U.S. is also higher than the level of inequality in other OCED countries, with the exceptions of Chile, Mexico and Turkey.16 Globally, inequality is highest in countries in southern Africa (Gini coefficients of about 0.6) and lowest in eastern Europe and parts of northern Europe (Gini coefficients of about 0.25), according to World Bank estimates. Incarceration and economic inequality From 1970 to 2016, income growth skews to the top, more so among Asians Nationally, incomes near the top are rising at twice the rate of incomes near the bottomAmong Americans overall, those at the 90th percentile of the income distribution earned $109,578 in 2016. That compared with $43,049 at the median (the 50th percentile) and $12,523 at the 10th percentile. The income at the 90th percentile in 2016 was 73% higher than in 1970, compared with an increase of 44% in the median income and an increase of 36% in the income at the 10th percentile. (Incomes are adjusted for household size and expressed in 2016 dollars.) The pattern observed nationally is also present among whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians, but to varying degrees. Whites at the 90th percentile of their income distribution earned $117,986 in 2016. Meanwhile, the median income for whites was $47,958 and their income at the 10th percentile was $15,094. From 1970 to 2016, the 90th percentile income for whites increased 80%, notably greater than the increase of 52% at the median and an increase of 45% at the 10th percentile. Changes in income at the various points of the income distribution were somewhat more balanced among blacks. For blacks, the income at the 90th percentile was $80,502 in 2016, compared with $31,082 at the median and $8,201 at the 10th percentile. Compared with 1970, these income levels represented an increase of 79% at the 90th percentile, 66% at the median, and 67% at the 10th percentile. Income growth was greatest near top for whites and blacks, but middle- and lower-income whites lagged behind more than middle- and lower-income blacks did Hispanic incomes increased less than for most other groups; Asians at the top saw their income increase the most of any group, the least near the bottom Income growth for Hispanics lagged behind the growth for other racial and ethnic groups at most points of the income distribution. In 2016, Hispanics at the 90th percentile earned $76,847, some 58% more than in 1970. The income of Hispanics at the median stood at $30,400 in 2016, up 36% from 1970. Meanwhile, Hispanics at the 10th percentile earned $9,900 in 2016, 37% higher than in 1970. These gains in income were less than the gains for other groups at the three points of the income distribution, except for Asians at the 10th percentile. The Asian experience is distinguished by sharp differences in the growth in incomes across the distribution. In 2016, incomes for Asians ranged from $12,478 at the 10th percentile to $133,529 at the 90th percentile, with a median of $51,288. The income at the 90th percentile of the Asian income distribution in 2016 was roughly double the income at that percentile in 1970, rising 96% over the period. That stood in sharp contrast with the growth at the median (54%) and at the 10th percentile (only 11%). Income growth slowed for all from 2000 to 2016, but income inequality continued to rise Income growth slowed this century for all income tiersA hallmark of income growth in the U.S. this century is the marked slowdown that ensued with the economic recession in 2001 and the Great Recession of 2007-09. This slowdown affected people in all racial and ethnic groups and at all rungs of the income ladder. Nationally, the income at the 90th percentile increased 65% from 1970 to 2000, but it increased only 4% from 2000 to 2016. Likewise, the median income in the U.S. increased 47% from 1970 to 2000, compared with a decrease of 2% from 2000 to 2016. At the 10th percentile, an increase of 53% from 1970 to 2000 was followed by a decrease of 11% this century. The two periods are of different durations, of course. But the decrease in total growth at any percentile is well in excess of what the difference in years might explain. For example, the average annual rate of growth at the 90th percentile was 1.7% from 1970 to 2000 and fell to 0.3% from 2000 to 2016.17 The trend observed nationally repeated within each racial and ethnic group. Among Asians, for instance, the income at the 90th percentile increased 16% from 2000 to 2016, compared with 69% from 1970 to 2000; the median income increased 7% this century, compared with 44% from 1970 to 2000; and the income at the 10th percentile decreased 3% from 2000 to 2016, compared with an increase of 14% in the earlier period. The slowdown in income growth this century did not alter the general trajectory toward a rise in income inequality, however. Those at the top of the economic ladder fared better than those at the bottom through the economic slowdowns this century. The one exception was among blacks, with those at the 10th percentile experiencing slightly higher growth in income from 2000 to 2016 than those at the 90th percentile, 4% compared with 1%. The slowdown in income growth this century affected all racial and ethnic groups Following a rapid increase from 1970 to 2016, income inequality is highest among Asians Income inequality is highest among AsiansAsians are the highest-earning racial and ethnic group in the U.S., on average.18 However, their overall prosperity conceals a wide and rapidly growing economic divide between higher- and lower-income Asians. As noted, Asians at the 90th percentile had an income of $133,529 in 2016, compared with $12,478 for those at the 10th percentile. Thus, in 2016, the ratio of these two incomes – the 90/10 ratio – stood at 10.7 for Asians. The level of income inequality among Asians was greater than among other racial and ethnic communities in 2016. Income inequality among blacks was the second highest – with a 90/10 ratio of 9.8 – followed by whites and Hispanics, each with a 90/10 ratio of 7.8. Nationally, the 90/10 ratio in 2016 is estimated to be 8.7.19 The pattern of inequality revealed by the 90/10 ratio is mirrored in the Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient takes a value from 0 to 1, by construction. A value of 0 indicates a state of perfect equality, with everyone holding an equal share of aggregate income. A value of 1 implies that all income created in the economy is in the hands of one person, a state of absolute inequality. In essence, the estimated value of the Gini coefficient measures the deviation from perfect equality. (See the text box on measuring inequality.) Looking within racial and ethnic groups in 2016, the Gini coefficient for the distribution of income among Asians was 0.451, followed by blacks (0.446), whites (0.428) and Hispanics (0.425).20 Thus, as also revealed by the 90/10 ratios, Asians and blacks are more economically divided than whites and Hispanics and, in this respect, there is a meaningful degree of separation between these two pairs of racial and ethnic groups.21Income inequality is rising most rapidly among Asians Asians have not always experienced the highest level of income inequality, however. In 1970, the 90/10 ratio among Asians was 6.1, similar to the ratio of 6.3 for whites and lower than among Hispanics and blacks. But inequality among Asians increased every decade since 1970, propelling the 90/10 ratio for them to 10.7 in 2016, an increase of 77%. Blacks experienced the highest level of income inequality in 1970, and through most of the period examined. In 1970, the 90/10 ratio for blacks stood at 9.1, well above the ratios for the other groups. But after peaking around 10 in 1990, the 90/10 ratio for blacks edged down to 9.8 in 2016. Over the period from 1970 to 2016, income inequality among blacks increased only 7% by this measure. That was the smallest increase in inequality among the major racial and ethnic groups. The increase in inequality among whites and Hispanics was greater than among blacks. For whites, the 90/10 ratio increased from 6.3 in 1970 to 7.8 in 2016, a 24% increase. The 90/10 ratio for Hispanics increased from 6.7 in 1970 to 7.8 in 2016 (15%). Despite the increase, whites and Hispanics had the lowest levels of income inequality in 2016. Changes in the Gini coefficient show the same pattern of change in income inequality.22 Among Asians, the Gini coefficient increased from 0.353 in 1970, the lowest at the time, to 0.451 in 2016, the highest of all groups. A key difference is that the increase in the Gini coefficient for Asians is less than the increase in the 90/10 ratio, 28% compared with 77%. Nonetheless, the increase in the Gini coefficient for Asians was notably greater than the increase for other racial and ethnic groups. The Gini coefficient for whites increased 19%, from 0.361 in 1970 to 0.428 in 2016, followed by an increase of 14% for Hispanics, from 0.373 to 0.425, and an increase of 10% for blacks, from 0.406 to 0.446. These percentage changes are similar to the changes in the 90/10 ratios for these groups. Immigration looms large in defining the Asian experience Asians are America’s fastest growing major racial and ethnic population. The Asian adult civilian household population in the U.S. increased fourteenfold from 1970 to 2016, compared with an eightfold increase in the Hispanic population, the second-fastest growing group. The overall adult civilian household population roughly doubled from 1970 to 2016.23 The increase in the Asian population is fueled by immigration. From 1970 to 2016, immigrants accounted for 81% of the increase in the Asian adult population, and the immigrant share in the Asian population increased to 78% in 2016, from 45% in 1970.24 The change in the economic profile of the Asian population in recent decades reflects the immigrant experience to a large degree. Overall, Asian immigrants have higher levels of education than native-born Americans. In 2015, 29% of immigrants from South and East Asia,25 ages 25 and older, held a bachelor’s degree, compared with 19% of native-born Americans this age. Another 23% of these immigrants had an advanced college degree, about double the rate among native-born Americans (11%). As a result, many Asian immigrants are settling in at the top of the income distribution and likely stretching its boundaries into higher reaches. As of 2016, the foreign-born population among the top 10% of earners in the Asian income distribution had increased to 26 times what it was in 1970, compared with a nineteenfold increase in the overall Asian foreign-born population in the U.S.26 At the same time, the Asian immigrant population includes many with lower levels of education and income. From 1970 to 2016, the foreign-born population among the bottom 10% of earners in the Asian income distribution increased seventeenfold. This change is not as sharp as the change at the top of the income distribution but is of notable magnitude nonetheless.

In the early twentieth century, Asian Americans and Latinos organized along national origin lines and focused on assimilation; By the 1960s and 1970s, community organizers from both groups began to form panethnic community service organizations (CSOs) that emphasized solidarity. I argue that focusing on the rise of panethnic CSOs reveals an underappreciated mechanism that has mobilized Asian Americans and Latinos—the welfare state. The War on Poverty programs incentivized non-black minority community organizers to form panethnic CSOs to gain access to state resources and serve the economically disadvantaged in their communities. Drawing on extensive archival research, I identify this mechanism and test it with my original dataset of 818 Asian American and Latino advocacy organizations and CSOs. Leveraging the Reagan budget cut, I show that dismantling the War on Poverty programs reduced the founding rate of panethnic CSOs. I further estimated that a 1 percent increase in federal funding was associated with the increase of the two panethnic CSOs during the War on Poverty. The findings demonstrate how access to state resources forces activists among non-primary beneficiary groups to build new political identities that fit the dominant image of the policy beneficiaries. The power of racial minorities in the United States comes from the coordination of ethnic groups belonging to the same racial category. The United States is becoming a minority–majority nation driven by the population growth of Latinos1 and Asian Americans. Latinos have now surpassed African Americans as the second-largest racial group, and Asian Americans have become the fastest growing racial group in the United States. However, demographics are not destiny. Asian Americans and Latinos both encompass disparate national origin groups. If these subgroups do not have a sense of internal unity, their population increase does not translate into a growth of their political power. For this reason, understanding the conditions under which Asian Americans and Latinos became organized as coherent groups is important. Until a half-century ago, the terms “Asian Americans” and “Latinos” themselves did not exist. In the early twentieth century, Asian Americans and Latinos organized among their respective groups of national origin and focused on assimilation into American society. For instance, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)2 were exclusively concerned about their own groups despite the fact that racial discrimination knows no bounds. Furthermore, the two organizations seemed to only concentrate on the middle-class and American citizens among them (it was no coincidence that the term “citizens” was included in the names of both organizations). Only in the late 1960s and 1970s did national origin groups from Asia and Latin America begin to form panethnic3 organizations that emphasized solidarity. Ethnic and class dimensions informed this change. These new organizations strengthened their focus on marginalized members: the poor, women, elderly, and children. Figure 1 describes this transition systematically, drawing on my original dataset on 818 Asian American and Latino advocacy and community service organizations (CSOs). The data divide panethnic organizations into three categories: advocacy, community service, and hybrid organizations. Advocacy organizations are involved in public and electoral campaigns, litigation, and lobbying. CSOs provide social services to community members. Hybrid organizations are active in both advocacy and service.4 In the figure, the y-axis represents organizational population density,5 which measures the number of organizations founded in each decade per population of one million, and the x-axis indicates the decades.6 The figure presents three patterns: (1) Asian American and Latino organizations began to emerge in the 1960s; (2) among different types of organizations, panethnic CSOs were the clear majority; and (3) were the most densely populated in the 1970s. What explains the emergence and popularity of Asian American and Latino CSOs in the 1960s and 1970s? Figure 1. The founding trends of Asian American and Latino advocacy, community service, and hybrid organizations, 1960–2017. Source. The author. CSO = community service organization. Previous studies do not explain these patterns. Recent studies on panethnicity show how networked relationships shaped the formation and expansion of Asian American and Latino panethnic organizations (Mora 2014; Okamoto 2014). However, these studies share one common limitation: their exclusive focus on national panethnic organizations. CSOs, the majority of Asian American and Latino panethnic organizations, are mostly local organizations. Only 2 percent of Asian American and 4 percent of Latino CSOs are based in Washington, DC, or have “National” in their organization names (see Figure B.1 in Online Appendix B). Although most of these CSOs did not make headlines, they matter because they served marginalized members in the Asian American and Latino communities and trained new political activists and leaders by providing them with political knowledge, experience, and networks (D. Chin 2001; G. Chin 2015; Duarte 2016; Ishizuka 2016; Muñoz 1989). I argue that the key to explaining the origin of these panethnic CSOs lies in the expansion of the American welfare state. After World War II, the American public became aware of the millions of Americans living in poverty amid the nation’s postwar material prosperity (Harrington 1962). In response, in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the War on Poverty and Congress enacted the Economic Opportunity Act to support his agenda. Between 1961 and 1972, federal aid programs to cities increased more than sixfold—from US$3.9 billion to over US$26 billion. These federal grants outweighed local social expenditure. In 1968, the total non-defense federal spending in Oakland, California, was US$95.5 million, twice the city’s budget (Pressman 1975, 1–18). The War on Poverty programs sparked an expansion of panethnic CSOs by disrupting the political hierarchies within the national origin groups from Asia and Latin America. In the wake of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a major division emerged within these groups between, on one hand, a relatively affluent old guard focused on pursuing assimilation and, on the other, a rapidly expanding and more economically disadvantaged base focused on gaining access to resources. The War on Poverty programs, which included community action agencies and the Model Cities Program, effectively tipped the scales toward the latter faction comprising Asian American and Latino activists by giving Asian American and Latino activists an opportunity to build their own organizations and transform the agenda of their communities (Orleck and Hazirjian 2011). Although founding these organizations required substantial and long-term investment, these organizers took on this challenge to increase their groups’ access to state resources. The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) was the agency responsible for the War on Poverty programs. The OEO allocated federal funds across states using a poverty index (see Online Appendix A). The spending within each state was strongly associated with both the poverty rate and the share of non-white people in each county (Bailey and Duquette 2014). However, Asian Americans and Latinos were non-primary beneficiary groups. According to the U.S. Census, more than 99 percent of the U.S. population was either black or white in 1960. Consequently, the federal government paid little attention to non-black minority groups. To gain federal support, the younger generation activists needed to document their conditions and increase the number of poor members in their grant proposals (Kuramoto 1976; Orozco, Schwartz, and Austin 2011). For them, Asian American and Latino CSOs were a strategic instrument that could be leveraged to take advantage of the federal funding and serve the economically disadvantaged in their communities. In the rest of the article, I first develop a theory that explains the formation of panethnic CSOs as a strategic response to two organizational environmental changes: the availability of external financial resources (i.e., federal funding) and the extent of population growth. The underutilized archival materials at the Asian American7 and Chicano Studies Collections8 at the Ethnic Studies Library at the University of California, Berkeley provide rare insights into how Asian American and Latino community organizers strategically responded to the War on Poverty funding and policy implementation. Next, I test the theory with my original dataset of 818 Asian American and Latino advocacy organizations and CSOs. Using interrupted time-series design and regression analysis, I establish the effect of federal grants on the founding rate of panethnic CSOs. Leveraging the Reagan budget cut, I show that dismantling the War on Poverty programs reduced the founding rate of panethnic CSOs. I further estimated that a 1 percent increase in federal funding was associated with the increase of the two panethnic CSOs during the War on Poverty. Past studies mentioned the impact of the War on Poverty on Asian American and Latino community organizing using interviews and case studies (Espiritu 1992; Herrera 2013; Padilla 1985, Võ 2004; Wei 1993). However, these examples are limited to demonstrating how generalizable the connection was. Based on the large-scale original data collection, my findings provide the first systematic evidence of how the expansion of the welfare state transformed Asian American and Latino politics by activating the politics of recognition. It has long been argued in policy feedback literature that new policies, through vested interests, create a new politics (Campbell 2011; Pierson 1994; Schattschneider 1935). The case of Asian Americans and Latinos shows that for these historically disadvantaged groups, gaining access to—not protecting vested interests—motivated them to become politically active. Asian American and Latino activists organized the poor in their communities and began to form panethnic CSOs in the 1960s and 1970s to fit the dominant image of policy beneficiaries. This conclusion that access to state resources forces activists among non-primary beneficiary groups to take new political identities has broad implications for scholars of racial ethnic politics, intersectionality, policy feedback, and inequality, as well as activists and organizers. Theory Although interrelated, advocacy organizations and CSOs are two different species. Commitment to social justice played an important role in the founding of both types of organizations in Asian American and Latino communities (Muñoz 1989; Wei 1993). It is, however, crucial to note that founding a CSO is more capital-intensive than founding an advocacy organization. Building affordable houses, providing accessible healthcare, and expanding educational and employment opportunities all require substantial and long-term investments. Conversely, the variation in political advocacy activities is more strongly influenced by structural changes in political opportunity vis-à vis repression and openness of the government rather than funding availability (Eisinger 1973; McAdam 1982; Tilly 1978; Zepeda-Millán 2017).

Asian Americans in social work In the wake of the surge of anti-Asian racism in the U.S. during the pandemic, we are reminded of the enduring presence of racism experienced by Asian Americans. Within the field of social work too, Asian Americans have routinely experienced anti-Asian racism. Social workers were instrumental in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII by facilitating their removal from their homes to internment camps (Park, 2015). Asian American social work students are also routinely invisibilized and often experience racial discrimination (Kwong, 2018). A qualitative study examining the experi-ences of Asian American social work students in the U.S. found common impressions of belittlement and second-guessing their own cultural experiences and knowledge due to being invalidated by educators or field instructors (Chung, 2008). These anti-Asian racist experiences in social work may potentially contribute to the underrepresentation of Asian Americans in the field and social work programs. According to the 2020 labor force statistics, only 3.7% of employed social workers in the country are Asian Americans, much lower than the percentage of Asian Americans (6%) among the U.S. labor force in general (Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Department of Labor, 2020a, 2020b). This statistic is reflected in the pipeline of Asian American social work students who comprised a minority across various social work programs in 2019: 2.2% in BSW, 3.5% in MSW, 3.3% in DSW, and 9.9% in Ph.D. programs, although those with a PhD degree is not reflective of the labor force statistics (Council on Social Work Education, 2020). Among social work faculty, 6.8% of full-time and 2.4% of part-time faculty are Asian Americans (Council on Social Work Education, 2020). It is imperative to understand further the disaggregation of these percentages by Asian American ethnic groups. While this is not a comprehensive list of all the key events in the long history of discriminatory policies and practice, this provides a glimpse of just how entrenched Anti-Asian racism has been at multiple levels including in the field of social work. Anti-racist social work practice, education, and research for Asian Americans? In reflection of the current racial climate in the U.S., it is critical to re-visit the experiences of Asian Americans in the U.S. and the social work profession. The rapid surge of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic calls for more active practice, educational, and academic responses. First, in order to address anti-Asian racism, social work scholars and practitioners need to reflect on their own biases toward people of Asian ancestry and to raise their own awareness of racial experiences of Asian Americans. Based on the understanding of racial positions of Asian American, social workers can challenge anti-Asian racism in their multiple roles. For example, social workers can develop culturally specific evidence-based interventions that can address the detrimental effects of anti- Asian discrimination. They can also promote and advocate for anti-racist policies and programs that disrupt anti-Asian racism. Social work educators can develop implicit and explicit curriculums that raise awareness of Asian American groups and their racial experiences. Social work researchers can build rigorous scientific evidence regarding the prevalence and negative impacts of anti-Asian racism and its mechanism. Below, we provide recommendations and implications for social work educators, researchers, and practitioners to uplift the lived experiences of Asian Americans and tools to address anti-Asian racism. Conceptualize and position Asian Americans Social work scholars must acknowledge the complexity of the Asian American identity and the positionality of Asian Americans in the U.S. Race as a social construct was conceptualized to purport a false belief of white superiority over other racial groups to justify the inequitable allocation of resources and the colonization and enslavement of people (Cooper & David, 1986). Whereas people of Asian descent have been historically described with labels, such as Oriental and Asiatics; inspired by the Black Power Movement and the fight for Ethnic Studies, Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee founded the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) at the University of California, Berkeley in 1968, which first used the term Asian American (Dirlik, 2010; E. Lee, 2015). The term challenged Oriental cultural hegemony and recognized the shared history and struggles of Asian Americans (Dirlik, 2010). The term Asian American has evolved and has been used to access funding, resources, and political power. Numerous iterations have also emerged to encompass other racial groups such as Asian Pacific Islander (API), Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI), Asian Pacific Islander, and Desi Americans (APIDA), and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander (AANHOPI). However, it is essential to acknowledge that Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians have distinct histories and experiences from Asian Americans (Kauanui, 2005). Thus, using such terms needs to be weighed carefully lest identities, groups, and lived experiences are lumped together. Understanding the positionality of Asian Americans in the U.S. is integral in comprehending the workings of white supremacy. Extant theoretical frameworks like the Racial Triangulation Theory & Racial Position Model illustrate how Asian Americans have been placed in proximity to whiteness and racial superiority while simultaneously being othered as perpetual foreigners (C. J. Kim, 2016; Zou & Cheryan, 2017). This is operationalized through concepts such as the Model Minority Myth (MMM) that suggest that Asian Americans are academically and economically successful through hard work, therefore, implicating the inability of other nonwhite racial groups (e.g., Black, Latinx, Native Americans, etc.) to achieve similar success as Asian Americans (E. D. Wu, 2014). In fact, through 294 the overrepresentation of some Asian groups in select fields, the MMM erases and makes invisible, many of the disparities within Asian and Asian American groups (Shih et al., 2019). The MMM also pits Asian Americans against other Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities to compete for the limited resources available to them and deters inter-solidarity organizing to challenge and eradicate white supremacy. Some Asian Americans may also internalize the MMM, which has been associated with anti-Blackness and lack of support for affirmative action (Yi & Todd, 2021), thus advancing the agenda of white supremacy, which also negatively affects Asian Americans and, in the process, disregards disparities within the Asian American population. More importantly, while we discussed the positionality of Asian Americans in the U.S., we recognize the role of Asian Americans as colonial settlers and encourage the importance of working alongside Indigenous communities to shift material wealth back to the original stewards of this land. We also acknowledge the crucial need to challenge the role of the U.S. in propagating imperialism, militarization, and (neo)colonization of countries in Asia that influence the economies, (im)migration, and well-being of Asians.

*** can also be read as a TvA – explicitly says “wealth redistribution” is key

In his May 2014 commencement speech to Yale’s Asian-American alumni, jazz musician and Harvard professor Vijay Iyer said, “To succeed in America is, somehow, to be complicit with the idea of America — which means that at some level you’ve made peace with its rather ugly past.”

House Republicans are pushing back on the idea of providing a minimum guaranteed income to Americans amid the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed an openness to the concept on Monday during an interview with MSNBC while discussing the financial aid recently approved by Congress to help bolster the economy.

A narrow majority of U.S. adults (54%) say they would oppose the federal government providing a guaranteed income – sometimes called a universal basic income (UBI) – of about $1,000 per month for all adult citizens, whether or not they work; 45% favor the proposal.

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To be sure, fear of an impending global pandemic resulting from a novel coronavirus was not the reason Mr. Yang spent months insisting the federal government provide American adults with a universal basic income of $1,000 per month. But a global pandemic has arrived. And the fallout from the outbreak has plunged the country into a grim and uncertain reality.

So only now — with millions of Americans facing the prospect of no work and wondering how they will pay the bills — have proposals similar to Mr. Yang’s signature policy prescription gained wide, bipartisan approval. In the sort of political turnabout that may only be possible when society faces dire need, giving free money to Americans suddenly appears not only rational but critically necessary to many Democrats and key Republicans.

A new survey from Hill-HarrisX has found that bipartisan support for a universal basic income (UBI) has risen. According to the survey, 55% of registered voters are in favor of a UBI system — up 12% from the 2019 survey.

Democratic and young voters saw the largest increases in support. 36% of Republican voters are in favor, along with 71% of Democratic voters and 56% of Independent voters.

A year ago, gas prices on the East Coast surged after the operator of America's biggest fuel pipeline shut down amid a ransomware attack. The five-day-long cyber siege was a wakeup call: The country's infrastructure was vulnerable to criminals anywhere in the world. Colonial Pipeline paid millions dollars to restore its systems, which had been frozen by alleged associates of the REvil ransomware gang. Some of the payment, made in bitcoin, was eventually recovered. But memories of panic buying at the pumps linger to this day. Vincent D'Agostino, a former FBI agent who now leads cyber forensics and incident response at cybersecurity company BlueVoyant, says he knew Colonial Pipeline was going to be a big deal when he heard everyday people talking about it in the barber shop, adding that it was the first time he'd ever heard anyone there so much as mention bitcoin. "That's a really bad thing when you're a criminal, when you have regular people talking about the hack, and you have people unable to get fuel," says D'Agostino, who investigated both traditional organized crime and cybercrime while at the FBI. In the year since the Colonial attack, corporate America, the Biden administration and federal agencies like the Transportation Security Administration have taken steps to secure the country's critical infrastructure, which in addition to energy companies includes schools, cities and hospitals. They had to because Colonial Pipeline wasn't an outlier. Transit authorities, a meat processor and a business software company were all taken down as REvil roamed free for months on the internet. The number of successful ransomware attacks surged to new highs last year. Sixty-six percent of the organizations surveyed by Sophos for its annual State of Ransomware report admitted that they were hit with a ransomware attack in 2021, up from 37% in the year before. And 65% of those attacks succeeded in encrypting their victims' data, up from 54% the year before.

Help Net Security, “Ransomware attacks, and ransom payments, are rampant among critical infrastructure organizations.” February 10, 2022.

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/02/10/critical-infrastructure-ransomware/

Construction firms are struggling to find workers to such a degree that it’s threatening the success of federal investment in infrastructure and manufacturing projects, the Associated General Contractors of America said Wednesday.

Citing its annual construction workforce survey of nearly 1,300 employers commissioned with tech provider Autodesk, AGC said 93% of construction firms have open positions, and 91% are having trouble filling them, particularly among the craft workforce that performs the bulk of onsite construction work.

Amid increasing competition for frontline workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, BTF and LBA sought to better understand the current levels of engagement and priorities among tradespeople working on residential construction job sites. The levels of engagement of this group as measured in this study are comparable with the average engagement levels for all US companies in all industries and were higher than those in the Healthcare and Manufacturing industries, according to 2021 data from Perceptyx. BTF and LBA will use this data to address the concerns illuminated by the study, create resources to disseminate throughout the industry, and work with trade partners who employ these tradespeople so that levels of engagement and retention can be improved at this critical time and into the future.

The results of the inaugural Homebuilding Workforce Engagement Survey are: