From: Arthur_T_Hu@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,soc.culture.african.american,ca.politics
Subject: When Asian income is less than Blacks
Date: 30 Jul 92 06:05:17 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

doc923:percapin.doc
key: poverty,asian,minority,black,per-capita income,census
Arthur Hu
1194 Fargate Circle
San Jose CA
day 415-968-4800 x240
eve 408-452-1873

Blacks Make Less, Asians Make More - Not!

The New York Times recently noted that Blacks in the borough
of Queens, New York reached household income parity with
whites in the 1990 Census. Rush Limbaugh was one of the few
who pointed out that nobody was celebrating since good news
is bad news in the advocacy business. Numbers in the 1980
California Census show this was true ten years ago in
Cerritos, Carson, and Rancho Cucumonga, with incomes above
$27,000 when the state average was only $21,537. Simi
Valley, that hotbed of suburban white racism, is also
another one of the few places in the state where blacks make
as much as their affulent white neighbors. I dare the LA
Times to print that.

The May 12 SF Examiner headlined "Bay Area has steep black-
white disparity". But only bias toward black advocacy and
ignoring the less colored poor can explain this headline
when the largest number of people who make even less money
are Hispanic, Native American, and often Asian. In
everywhere but Marin County, where the black population is
dominated by housing projects surrounded by the rich,
Hispanics have the lowest per capita incomes, and a much
larger population.

In San Francisco, Asian per-capita incomes are within 10
percent, and even less  than African Americans in San
Leandro, and Santa Clara County. The San Jose Mercury
highlighted the poorest census tract in San Jose, number
5036.02, where Hispanics make only $3,904 per person, and
Asians make just $6,892. Yet the proud residents interviewed
didn't want to characterize themselves as "poor" even though
they made less than half the state average of $11,578 for
Blacks.

In Massachusetts, I called the State Data Center for figures
that show that Hispanics there also have the lowest p/c
incomes. Asians fall below Blacks in urban centers such as
Boston, Lowell, Worcester, Revere, and even affluent Newton.
If we average in the affluent Asians in areas like
Massachusetts state-wide, and Metro Boston, Asians are still
much closer to Blacks than Whites. Now that Carlton Sagara
and friends have released their study of Asian poverty in
Boston, I'm no longer the only one who has documented Asian
have-nots in Massachusetts.

Yet, household incomes for most California Asians fall
nearly even with whites (they make 25% more nationally,
validating the theory that Asians are concentrated in areas
with high incomes and high living costs), while Hispanics
fall just above Blacks. The San Jose Mercury nicely
illustrated how a community that is rich can look the same
as a much more modest community with the same household
income. If you rank people by the per capita incomes of the
cities they live in, Palo Alto is in the top 2.5 percent,
with high school test scores to match, while Milipitas falls
only in the top 30 percent.

The trick is although they have comparable family incomes,
Milpitas has more Asians and families with children,
multiple workers, and extended family while Palo Alto has
more wealthy white families whose children have grown and
left. Evidently, the same caveat applies when white and
Asian families have similar household incomes. Per-capita
income is a much better measure of how much money each
person actually has to spend. Blacks families are more
likely to be headed by single women with no workers at all.
Asians have on average nearly one more person per household,
who is often another worker and/or parent.

Similarly, poverty levels are as much a function of family
size and structure as money per person, so Asian poverty
levels appear to be only slightly worse than whites while
making no more money per person than the African Americans.
1980 California Census figures show that young single
mothers of children under three all have a poverty rate of
about one-half regardless of race, while Asian married
couples had the same poverty rate as Blacks at about ten
percent. The big difference was the 90 percent of Asians,
but only 64 percent of Black families had two parents. If
Blacks had the same family structure as Asians, and simply
waited until the age of 25 and marriage to have children
their poverty rate would be no worse than the Asian
Americans. I'd be laughed off the floor if I ever proposed
this in the Senate, but its an idea propounded by some
Afrocentrists, who aren't always crazy.

Dan Quayle was called a fool for saying that dissolution of
family was the biggest cause of welfare dependency, and
marriage was the best antipoverty program. Yet nobody has
commented on the House Ways and Means Committee finding that
the biggest reason 75% of families start welfare is because
of children born to unmarried women, divorce, and
separation. Nearly half of families who leave welfare do so
because of either marriage or children leaving home. Only 21
percent leave because the mother got a better job.

The Democrats really think they can win the middle class
when they've just finished turning "family values" and
"middle-class suburban white" into fighting words. Their
idea of centrism is to condemn criticism of abortion, single
motherhood, divorce, and valuing career over family first.
Rich liberals like Murphy Brown can well afford to abandon
traditional families, but it's a formula of genocide for the
underclass.

Some believe that forced reparations can equalize black
incomes and political power. But what if we simply gave them
as much money per head as Asians? Money can't be the answer
because that's already the case in the major areas I've just
pointed out. Once you equalize for income, the social
scientists explain, then the disparities in health, AIDS,
and crime will disappear. Not so.

Asians are dead last in politics, and school
admininstration. In San Francisco and Boston, Asians are far
less likely to be covered by health insurance, or get
prenatal care. Yet Asians outshine the whites with the
highest test scores and grades, household incomes, rates of
professional employment and education, longest life
expectancy, and lowest rates of many cancers, alchoholism,
imprisonment, foster home placement, child abuse,
homelessness, infant mortality, and unmarried/unwanted
births. The Native Americans share the Asian distinction of
having the lowest per-capita incidence of AIDS, while the
Mexican Americans have largely intact families, and a high
percentage of employed persons. The human capital inherent
in a moral system based on "individual excellence" instead
of "social justice" can't be bought with any amount of
money, or instilled by any government program, but that's
what splits up the winners from the losers.

If you take money away from a rich person, he'll make it
back again. If you give money to a poor person, he may spend
himself back into poverty. That's why so many Koreans and
Vietnamese who came with nothing (and ambitious African
Americans who came up from nothing) became millionaires
without a cent of government aid, while the poor have
collected trillions since the 60s with little to show for
it. It's not race, it's not income, it's not gender, or any
other flavor of arbitrary class division. It's values,
skills and human capital that makes the difference. Now,
more than ever, we must dump old Marxist-driven notions of
civil rights race heirarchies if we are ever to effectively
combat poverty and social pathology.

----------- Tables

Asian Per Capita Income by City
               White   Black   Asian   HispanicNAm
California     $19,028 $11,578 $13,733  $8,504 $11,809
Alameda Co     $21,105 $11,661 $14,226 $11,474
Oakland        $23,461 $10,285  $8,537  $8,537
Berkeley       $23,045 $11,134 $12,829 $10,281
Richmond       $20,133 $11,156 $13,797 $10,696
SanLeandro     $18,275 $17,918 $15,409 $13,156
ContraCostraCo $22,964 $12,054 $16,451 $12,412
Marin Co       $30,213 $10,524 $20,573 $12,673 $16,798
SanFrancisco   $26,222 $11,829 $12,665 $11,400 $11,485
SanMateoCo     $25,278 $13,564 $16,887 $11,576 $16,713
SantaClaraCo   $23,222 $15,153 $16,179 $10,917 $14,478
Los Angeles Co $20,531 $12,018 $14,584  $8,066      NA
Santa Cruz     $18,850 $10,325 $14,334  $8,263      NA
S.Jose 5036.02      NA      NA  $6,892  $3,904      NA

Massachusetts  $18,003 $10,867 $12,665  $7,833 $11,176
Boston City    $18,939 $10,420  $9,406  $8,364      NA
Boston Area    $20,455 $11,323 $13,470  $9,461 $12,347
Lowell         $14,110  $9,497  $6,619  $6,311  $9,691
Worcester      $14,282  $9,120  $8,681  $5,605  $6,107
Revere         $15,243 $13,179  $5,080  $9,708  $2,721
Newton         $29,675 $20,516 $17,833 $18,081  $7,731

Household Incomes
               White   Black   Asian   HispanicNAm
Alameda Co     $50,673 $30,687 $47,040 $39,449
Calf           $49,103 $32,958 $47,974 $34,298
SanFrancisco   $50,397 $29,287 $40,966 $35,518
SanMateoCo     $61,727 $39,969 $59,293 $44,194
SantaClaraCo   $60,097 $43,951 $58,306 $42,658
Los Angeles Co $52,936 $33,228 $48,555 $33,586
Santa Cruz     $48,081 $32,146 $47,057 $35,546