Census: Asians, Pacific
Islanders earn more

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By Christine Donnelly
Star-Bulletin

Asians and Pacific Islanders tend to earn more money and attain higher education than other ethnic groups, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 1999 median income of Asians and Pacific Islanders across the United States was $51,205, the highest of any racial group, the bureau said. The poverty rate was 10.7 percent for Asians and Pacific Islanders that year, the lowest ever measured for the category.

The bureau found that 78 percent of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the high school graduating class of 1999 went directly to college, the biggest percentage of any racial group.

Forty-four percent of all Asians and Pacific Islanders over age 25 held a college bachelor's degree or higher in the year 2000. Last year, one million Asians and Pacific Islanders, or one in seven, held advanced degrees (master's, doctoral, medical or law degrees).

Hawaii has the largest percentage of Asian and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

The U.S. Census Bureau compiled and released the statistics to commemorate Asian and Pacific American Month, which lasts through the end of May.

The 2000 Census marked the first time Asians and Pacific Islanders have been counted separately, meaning more information about each ethnicity will be released. Policy makers, social scientists and others hailed that change because they said the old classification wrongly lumped together disparate populations.