Disaggregation Matters: Asian Americans and Wealth Data

This policy brief explores the usefulness and limitations of existing federal government data sets in better understanding the wealth position and asset-building needs of Asian Americans. As Asian Americans continue to be one of the fastest-growing racial groups in the United States, it is critical for federal data sets to disaggregate Asian Americans by ethnicity and by immigrant versus nonimmigrant status, in order to provide a more accurate and nuanced analysis of the Asian American experience with asset accumulation. The lumping of all Asian American ethnic groups under the aggregate “Asian” category masks a high degree of variation in social and economic status across these subgroups