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Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners
BACKGROUND: Economic inequality in the United States is extreme, but little is known about the national origin of affluent households. Households in the top one percent by total wealth own vastly disproportionate quantities of household assets and have correspondingly high levels of economic, social...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5322981/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28231335 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172876 |
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author | Keister, Lisa A. Aronson, Brian |
author_facet | Keister, Lisa A. Aronson, Brian |
author_sort | Keister, Lisa A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Economic inequality in the United States is extreme, but little is known about the national origin of affluent households. Households in the top one percent by total wealth own vastly disproportionate quantities of household assets and have correspondingly high levels of economic, social, and political influence. The overrepresentation of white natives (i.e., those born in the U.S.) among high-wealth households is well-documented, but changing migration dynamics suggest that a growing portion of top households may be immigrants. METHODS: Because no single survey dataset contains top wealth holders and data about country of origin, this paper uses two publicly-available data sets: the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Multiple imputation is used to impute country of birth from the SIPP into the SCF. Descriptive statistics are used to demonstrate reliability of the method, to estimate the prevalence of immigrants among top wealth holders, and to document patterns of asset ownership among affluent immigrants. RESULTS: Significant numbers of top wealth holders who are usually classified as white natives may be immigrants. Many top wealth holders appear to be European and Canadian immigrants, and increasing numbers of top wealth holders are likely from Asia and Latin America as well. Results suggest that of those in the top one percent of wealth holders, approximately 3% are European and Canadian immigrants, .5% are from Mexico or Cuban, and 1.7% are from Asia (especially Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and India). Ownership of key assets varies considerably across affluent immigrant groups. CONCLUSION: Although the percentage of top wealth holders who are immigrants is relatively small, these percentages represent large numbers of households with considerable resources and corresponding social and political influence. Evidence that the propensity to allocate wealth to real and financial assets varies across immigrant groups suggests that wealth ownership is more global than previous research suggests and that immigrant groups are likely to become more prevalent in top wealth positions in the U.S. As the representation of immigrants in top wealth positions grows, their economic, social, and political influence is likely to increase as well. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5322981 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53229812017-03-09 Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners Keister, Lisa A. Aronson, Brian PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Economic inequality in the United States is extreme, but little is known about the national origin of affluent households. Households in the top one percent by total wealth own vastly disproportionate quantities of household assets and have correspondingly high levels of economic, social, and political influence. The overrepresentation of white natives (i.e., those born in the U.S.) among high-wealth households is well-documented, but changing migration dynamics suggest that a growing portion of top households may be immigrants. METHODS: Because no single survey dataset contains top wealth holders and data about country of origin, this paper uses two publicly-available data sets: the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Multiple imputation is used to impute country of birth from the SIPP into the SCF. Descriptive statistics are used to demonstrate reliability of the method, to estimate the prevalence of immigrants among top wealth holders, and to document patterns of asset ownership among affluent immigrants. RESULTS: Significant numbers of top wealth holders who are usually classified as white natives may be immigrants. Many top wealth holders appear to be European and Canadian immigrants, and increasing numbers of top wealth holders are likely from Asia and Latin America as well. Results suggest that of those in the top one percent of wealth holders, approximately 3% are European and Canadian immigrants, .5% are from Mexico or Cuban, and 1.7% are from Asia (especially Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and India). Ownership of key assets varies considerably across affluent immigrant groups. CONCLUSION: Although the percentage of top wealth holders who are immigrants is relatively small, these percentages represent large numbers of households with considerable resources and corresponding social and political influence. Evidence that the propensity to allocate wealth to real and financial assets varies across immigrant groups suggests that wealth ownership is more global than previous research suggests and that immigrant groups are likely to become more prevalent in top wealth positions in the U.S. As the representation of immigrants in top wealth positions grows, their economic, social, and political influence is likely to increase as well. Public Library of Science 2017-02-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5322981/ /pubmed/28231335 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172876 Text en © 2017 Keister, Aronson http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Keister, Lisa A. Aronson, Brian Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners |
title | Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners |
title_full | Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners |
title_fullStr | Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners |
title_full_unstemmed | Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners |
title_short | Immigrants in the one percent: The national origin of top wealth owners |
title_sort | immigrants in the one percent: the national origin of top wealth owners |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5322981/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28231335 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172876 |
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