Life in America: How much are Vietnamese immigrants making?

By VnExpress   November 5, 2016 | 04:00 am PT
Life in America: How much are Vietnamese immigrants making?
Vietnamese students from local high schools meet with a US college representative during a U.S. Higher Education Fair in Hanoi. Photo by AFP
In terms of household income, the Vietnamese are doing quite well, new data suggest.

In the U.S., Vietnamese immigrants tend to have lower educational attainment than other groups but their average household income is higher, the U.S. Migration Policy Institute has reported.

Data showed that as of 2014, there were about 1.3 million Vietnamese immigrants living in the U.S., more than twice the figure of 1990. They accounted for 3 percent of the total number of immigrants, the sixth largest immigrant group after Mexico, India, China, the Philippines and El Salvador.

A Vietnamese immigrant household earned nearly $60,000 on average in 2014, as opposed to $54,500 for a U.S. native family and $49,400 for an immigrant family in general. This is attributed to the larger-than-average size of many households headed by Vietnamese immigrants, the institute explained.

The Vietnamese community was also less likely to be in poverty than the overall immigrant population and the native born, with 14 percent living in poverty compared to 19 percent and 15 percent respectively.

Within the group of Vietnamese immigrants, 31 percent were involved in services occupations. The other 31 percent worked in management, business, science and art areas, while the rest were employed in sales, construction, maintenance and transportation.

The institute also revealed that Vietnamese immigrants had slightly lower educational attainment compared to others.

In 2014, about 25 percent of Vietnamese immigrants aged 25 and over held a bachelor’s degree or higher. The figure for foreign-born and native-born populations were 29 and 30 percent respectively.

The majority of Vietnamese immigrants weren’t proficient in English, with the rate reaching 67 percent, while the average rate of all U.S immigrants was 50 percent.

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