Asian American Statistics

- For detailed Asian group alone, the US Census update in 2000 showed the total Asian population in the United States as 10,171,820 accounting for 3.61% of the total US population. For Asian group alone or in combination with other ethnic group the total population stood at 11,859, 446 accounting for 4.21% of the total US population. However, the Census Facts for Features Update issued in May 2006 showed the Asian American population currently at 14 million.

- Asians formed the fastest growing ethnic group in the US with a growth rate of 63.24% from 1990-2000.

- Five Asian groups number 1 million or more people: Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese and Korean. Together these five groups made up about 80% of the Asian population.

- Chinese was the largest Asian group making up for 24% of the Asian population followed by Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese and Korean.

- Based on percentage of the US population, the top six Asian groups were Chinese (0.86%), Filipino (0.66%), Asian Indian (0.60%), Vietnamese (0.40%), Korean (0.38%) and Japanese (0.28%) with other Asian groups together forming about 0.38% of the total US population.

- Asian population had proportionally more men and women then the total population in the young adult age group – age 20 to 39 years. This shows a recent trend towards more professionals and specialty occupation workers immigrating to US.

- 68.4% of the Asian population was in the age group of 18-64 years, 23.9% was in the age group of 0-18 years and 7.7% was in the age group of 65 and over.

- 60.2% of all Asians were married compared with 54.4% of the total population.

- About 62% of Asian households were maintained by married couples and the average Asian household had about 3 members.

- Asians showed a wide representation in combination with other races and Asian groups. Among top Asian groups, 91.7% of Vietnamese reported a single ethnicity (not in combination with other races or Asian groups) followed by Asian Indian (88.4%), Korean (87.7%) Chinese (84.6%), Filipino (78.2%) and Japanese (69.3%).

- The US native population for Asians stood at about 31% compared to 89% for the total US population. This constituted for about 69% of all Asians being foreign born.

- More then 3/4th (75.9%) of the Asian population came to United States over the last two decades showing a proportionally higher immigration trend for Asians over the last 20 years.

- Of the 9.5 million Asians aged 5 and over, about 79% spoke a language other then English at home and about 40% spoke English less than “very well”. Among top Asian groups - 93% of Vietnamese, 85% of Chinese and 80% of Koreans and Asian Indians spoke other then English at home. Japanese was the only group with over 50% who spoke English at home.

- Chinese – spoken by 2 million people - leads the top 10 languages, other then English and Spanish, spoken most frequently at home in the United States. It is followed by French (1.6 million), German (1.4 million), Tagalog (1.2 million), Vietnamese (1.0 million), Italian (1.0 million), Korean (0.9 million), Russian (0.7 million), Polish (0.7 million) and Arabic (0.6 million). Among other Asian languages in the top 20 are Japanese (no. 12), Hindi (no. 15), Persian (no. 16), Urdu (no. 17) and Gujarati (no. 18).

- About 44% of all Asians have a Bachelors Degree or higher compared to 24% for the total US population

- 25.3% for Whites, 13.6% for Blacks and 9.9% for Hispanics. Among top Asian groups, Asian Indians lead with about 64% people having a Bachelors Degree or higher, followed by Pakistani (54%)and Chinese (48%).

- About 71% of Asian men and 57% of Asian women aged 16 and over were in the labor force. Among top Asian groups, Asian Indian men had 79% participation in labor force and Filipino women a 65% participation in labor force.

- About 45% of Asians were employed in management, professional and related occupations, compared with 34% of the total population

- 21.4% for Whites, 12.3%for Blacks and 9.6% for Hispanics. Among top Asian groups, Asian Indians had most employment in management, professional and related occupations at 60%, followed by Chinese (52%) and Japanese (51%).

- The median earnings for Asian men ($40,650) and Asian women ($31,049) are higher then the national average for both men and women. Among top Asian groups, Asian Indian men lead with highest median earnings of $51,904 followed by Japanese ($50,876) and Chinese ($44,831). Among women, Japanese lead with highest median earnings of $35,998 followed by Asian Indian ($35,173) and Chinese ($34,869).

- The annual median income of Asian families was $59,324, about $10,000 higher then the national average. Among top Asian groups, Asian Indians and Japanese had annual median incomes of about $71,000 each, about $10,000 more then all other Asian groups.

- The annual median income of Asians at about $59,000 was also the highest of all other ethnic groups. The same was $48,500 for Whites, $36,000 for Hispanics and $33,300 for Blacks.

- In spite of higher median earnings, the poverty rate of Asians at 12.5% was same as the national average. Among top Asian groups - Filipinos, Japanese and Asian Indians had the lowest poverty rates.

- Home ownership was relatively lower for Asians at 53.2% compared to 66.2% as national average. Among top Asian groups – Japanese (60.8%), Filipino (60%) and Chinese (58.4%) had the highest rates of home ownership.

- The median value of single-family homes for Asian households - at $199,300 - more then 50% higher then national median home value. The same was $122,800 for Whites, $80,600 for African Americans and $105,600 for Hispanics.

- Asian householders with a mortgage had median selected monthly costs of $1,540, far above the national median of $1,088 for all householders, $1,094 for Whites, $937 for African Americans, and $1,061 for Hispanics.

- About 50% of Asians live in the West, 20% in the North East, 19% in the South and 12% in the Mid-West. Along with the highest total population, the West also accounted for the highest proportion of Asians at 9.3% compared to 4.4% in the North-East. 2.3% in the South and 2.2% in the Mid-West.

- Asians live in key US States and metropolitan areas; 51% of Asians live in just three States: California, New York and Hawaii; 65% of Asians live in just five States: California, New York, Hawaii, Texas and Illinois; and 75% of Asian live in just ten States: CA, NY, HI, TX, IL, NJ, WA, FL, VA and MA.

- Asians tend to concentrate in urban and coastal areas; 55% of Asians live in just six US Metropolitan Areas: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Washington DC-Baltimore and Chicago. Concentrations of Asians outside the suburbs of large metropolitan areas were typically located near colleges and universities.

- Among the US States, California had the highest number of Asians at 4.2 million followed by New York at 1.2 million and Hawaii at 0.7 million.

- Among the US Counties, Honolulu County had the highest proportion of Asians at 68%; Los Angeles County is the only county with over 1 million Asians.

- Among the largest US Cities, New York had the highest number of Asians (787,047) followed by Los Angeles (369,254), San Jose (240,375), San Francisco (239,565), Honolulu (207,588), San Diego (166,968), Chicago (125,974), Houston (103,694), Fremont (75,165) and Seattle (73,910).

- Among ten largest US cities, San Diego had the largest proportion of Asians at 15% followed by Los Angeles and New York at 11% each. Five other US cities, not among ten largest US cities, had the highest proportion of Asians.

- The top ten US cities of 100,000 or more people with the highest percentage of Asians were: Honolulu HI (67.7%), Daly City CA (53.6%), Fremont CA (39.8%), Sunnyvale CA (34.2%), San Francisco CA (32.6%), Irvine CA (32.3%), Garden Grove CA (32.2%), Santa Clara CA (31.4%), Torrance CA (31.1%) and San Jose CA (28.8%). All ten cities with the highest proportion of Asians were in the west and nine of them were in California.

- About 58% of the 8.1 million Asians age 5 and over changed to a new US residence from 1995-2000. Of these, 39% changed residence within United States and 19% came from abroad. From the 39% who changed residence within United States, 22.8% changed residence within the same County, 8% changed residence to a different County but within the same State and 8.2% changed residence to a different State.

- The number of Asian-owned businesses grew 24 percent between 1997 and 2002, approximately twice the national average for all businesses. The 1.1 million businesses generated more than $326 billion in revenues, up 8 percent from 1997. This is according to a new report, released on May 16, 2006 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

- Nearly half (47 percent) of all Asian-owned firms were Chinese-owned (290,197) and Asian Indian-owned (231,179). Korean-owned firms were the third largest at 158,031, followed by Vietnamese- (147,081), Filipino- (128,223) and Japanese-owned firms (86,863).

- Almost 1-in-3 of all Asian-owned firms had paid employees. These 319,300 businesses employed more than 2.2 million people and generated revenues of nearly $291 billion.