Asian and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Child Poverty and Economic Well-Being

Many indi­ca­tors of socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus by race and eth­nic­i­ty lump all Asian Amer­i­can (AA) and Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander (NHPI) chil­dren togeth­er and, as a result of aver­ag­ing out dif­fer­ences, they often sug­gest that these kids are doing bet­ter than oth­ers. In real­i­ty, the diverse AA and NHPI child pop­u­la­tions expe­ri­ence vast­ly dif­fer­ent socioe­co­nom­ic out­comes.

To shed light on these dif­fer­ences, the KIDS COUNT^® Data Cen­ter com­mis­sioned a spe­cial analy­sis of the lat­est data on child pover­ty and parental edu­ca­tion lev­els dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by AA and NHPI pop­u­la­tion. These data are avail­able as five-year esti­mates for 2019–2023 from the Cen­sus Bureau’s Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty Sur­vey.

Asian Amer­i­can Chil­dren in Poverty

As expect­ed, when pover­ty data are bro­ken out by spe­cif­ic pop­u­la­tion, the fig­ures exposed wide dis­par­i­ties across groups. First, the dif­fer­ence between AA and NHPI chil­dren is stark: The NHPI child pover­ty rate is 20% — dou­ble the rate (10%) for AA children.

Look­ing across AA pop­u­la­tions, even wider dis­par­i­ties emerge. Close to 1 in 3 (29%) Burmese Amer­i­can chil­dren and more than 1 in 5 Thai (22%) and Bangladeshi (21%) Amer­i­can chil­dren were liv­ing in pover­ty in 2019–2023, com­pared with 5% of Asian Indi­an, Bhutanese and Tai­wanese Amer­i­can kids. Pover­ty rates are also high for Hmong, Cam­bo­di­an, Laot­ian and Pak­istani Amer­i­can chil­dren, with at least 16% of kids in each group liv­ing below the pover­ty level.

Table 1: Asian Amer­i­can Chil­dren Under 18 in Pover­ty, Dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by Asian Pop­u­la­tion (2019–2023)

Note: Esti­mates shown have 90% con­fi­dence inter­vals with mar­gins of error below five per­cent­age points. Source: PRB analy­sis of 2019–2023 ACS PUMS 5‑year data.

The data revealed vary­ing lev­els of pover­ty among NHPI groups, too. The low­est child pover­ty rate was 11% for Ton­gan kids, less than half the rate (25%) for Samoan children.

Table 2: Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Chil­dren Under 18 in Pover­ty, Dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by Pop­u­la­tion (2019–2023)

Note: Esti­mates for Mar­shallese and Fijian chil­dren are not shown because the mar­gins of error were above five per­cent­age points. See the note below Table 1.

All of these AA and NHPI kids are not, in fact, far­ing bet­ter than the nation­al aver­age or their peers in oth­er racial and eth­nic groups, as aggre­gat­ed data often suggest.

Asian Amer­i­can Chil­dren and Eco­nom­ic Well-Being

Oth­er mea­sures dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by AA and NHPI pop­u­la­tion show sub­stan­tial socioe­co­nom­ic dif­fer­ences among groups as well.

Chil­dren in Fam­i­lies Where the House­hold Head Did Not Com­plete High School

As illus­trat­ed in Table 3, 62% of Burmese chil­dren lived in a fam­i­ly where the head of house­hold lacked a high school degree — over six times the aver­age for all AA chil­dren (10%). Among NHPI pop­u­la­tions, this fig­ure ranged from 7% for Native Hawai­ian and Samoan kids to 12% for Ton­gan chil­dren, among groups with avail­able data.

Table 3: Asian Amer­i­can Chil­dren Whose House­hold Head Lacks a High School Degree, Dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by Pop­u­la­tion (2019–2023)

Note: Esti­mates includ­ed have 90% con­fi­dence inter­vals with mar­gins of error below five per­cent­age points. Source: PRB analy­sis of 2019–2023 ACS PUMS 5‑year data.

Table 4: Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Chil­dren Whose House­hold Head Lacks a High School Degree, Dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by Pop­u­la­tion (2019–2023)

Note: Esti­mates includ­ed have 90% con­fi­dence inter­vals with mar­gins of error below five per­cent­age points. Source: PRB analy­sis of 2017–2021 ACS PUMS 5‑year data.

Chil­dren in Pover­ty Whose Par­ents Did Not Com­plete High School

One in 3 (33%) Asian Amer­i­can chil­dren liv­ing in pover­ty have par­ents who did not fin­ish high school, accord­ing to a 2022 report from the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics. Among Asian-alone pop­u­la­tions with data,* the share of chil­dren in pover­ty whose par­ents lacked a high school degree was:

• Pak­istani: 48% in 2021
• Burmese: 40%
• Chi­nese, includ­ing Tai­wanese: 37%
• Viet­namese: 26%
• Asian Indi­an: 25%

Among Pacif­ic Islander kids whose par­ents did not fin­ish high school, more than 2 in 5 (42%) were liv­ing in pover­ty (not dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by population).

*Data for a few addi­tion­al Asian pop­u­la­tions are pro­vid­ed by the source, not­ing that those fig­ures should be inter­pret­ed data with cau­tion due to coef­fi­cients of vari­a­tion between 30% and 50%. Data avail­abil­i­ty for each pop­u­la­tion varies by year.

Unsta­ble Housing

The Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion’s 2023 Youth Risk Behav­ior Sur­vey found that NHPI high school stu­dents were more like­ly than stu­dents of oth­er racial and eth­nic back­grounds to have unsta­ble hous­ing. This is defined as not hav­ing a usu­al place to sleep or sleep­ing in some­one else’s home, in a shel­ter or emer­gency hous­ing, in a motel, in a car or anoth­er pub­lic place dur­ing the past month. While these data are not dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by spe­cif­ic pop­u­la­tion, they high­light con­cern­ing hous­ing needs for NHPI fam­i­lies. The share of U.S. high school­ers with unsta­ble hous­ing was: 

• Total: 3%
• Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islanders: 11% and
• Asian-alone: 3%.

These exam­ples rein­force the need to dis­ag­gre­gate data by pop­u­la­tion — espe­cial­ly indi­ca­tors mea­sur­ing child or youth well-being — as they reveal the dis­parate con­di­tions of chil­dren and fam­i­lies among Asian-alone and NHPI groups. By con­trast, aggre­gat­ed data for ​“Asian and Pacif­ic Islander chil­dren” treat this incred­i­bly het­ero­ge­neous group as a sin­gu­lar block and mask dis­par­i­ties among these pop­u­la­tions. The data pre­sent­ed here clear­ly show that cer­tain groups are fac­ing greater socioe­co­nom­ic needs.

Lead­ers and ser­vice providers can use these data to inform poli­cies and pro­grams, strength­en­ing out­reach to pop­u­la­tions with the great­est needs and ensur­ing that fam­i­lies receive ade­quate safe­ty net sup­port and oth­er services.

Read the Rest of Our Series on AA and NHPI Young People

• Asian Amer­i­can, Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Chil­dren Are Not a Monolith
• Edu­ca­tion and the Mod­el Minor­i­ty Myth
• Men­tal Health and Asian Amer­i­can and Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Youth
• The Adverse Effects of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion on Asian Amer­i­can Kids

A Note About Language

We use the term ​“Asian Amer­i­cans” in this post to refer to both Asian immi­grants and U.S. cit­i­zens of Asian descent, as the term reflects the vast major­i­ty of this pop­u­la­tion, espe­cial­ly among children.