Americans of Asian origin are the highest earners among the foreign-born population in the US, according to a latest census data.
The Census Department's data for 2004 says the Asian-born had the highest median incomes at $62,551, compared to $42,677 for the total foreign-born, and $55,714 for the European-born and $33,962 for the Latin American-born.
The Asian-born had a higher proportion of those working in management, professionals or related occupations, compared to 26.3 percent among total foreign-born, and 41.6 percent among the European-born.
The census says 91.5 percent of those who immigrated from Asia before 1970 have become naturalised citizens.
Of those who came during 1970-79, 89 percent are naturalised, while 68.9 percent of those who came between 1980-89 became citizens.
Barely 36.3 percent of those who came during 1990-99 have got citizenship.
The US Census Bureau in its report titled "Foreign-Born Population of the United States Current Population Survey - March 2004" does not give a breakdown according to the nation of origin but gives some figures on world regions of origin.
The nation's foreign-born population numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the total US population.
The number of foreign-born is 2.3 percent higher than it was in 2003.
Within the foreign-born population, the majority - 53 percent - were born in Latin America, 25 percent in Asia, 14 percent in Europe and the remaining eight percent in other regions of the world, such as Africa and Oceania
(Australia, New Zealand and all of the island nations in the Pacific).
Second-generation Americans, natives with one or both parents born in a foreign country, numbered 30.4 million, or 11 percent of the total US
population.
However, no region-of-origin data for this second-generation group has been made available.
The Asian-born also have the highest percentage of people with bachelors degrees (30 percent) and advanced degrees (19.7 percent) compared to the 10.2 percent with bachelors and 17.1 percent with advanced degrees among all foreign-born, and higher than those of European origin (20.4 percent bachelors and 15.9 percent advanced).
Interestingly, these higher figures carry into not just the foreign-born Asian men but also women, where 30.7 percent of Asian-born women had bachelors degrees compared to 19.9 percent of European-born women. A similar difference exists in advanced degrees.
But all is not well with any of the foreign-born groups so far as poverty levels are concerned.
Some 12 percent of Asian-born in the US live at or below the poverty level, compared to 9.9 percent of those born in Europe.
Data in the report came from the Current Population Survey, and the Census Bureau warns that "statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and non sampling error".
