The wealth of immigrants in the US increased sharply during the coronavirus pandemic, benefiting from broad gains for households overall. Yet immigrant households continue to lag far behind those headed by the U.S. born in terms of their overall wealth.
Here are four key facts about the wealth of immigrant households during the pandemic, based on the latest data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).
1. The median wealth of immigrant households increased by 42% from December 2019 to December 2021. Meanwhile, the median wealth of U.S.-born households increased by 29%.
Nonetheless, in 2021, immigrant households had much less wealth than those headed by a U.S.-born person, $104,400 vs. $177,200. This gap was not significantly different from that in 2019. (Dollar amounts are expressed in December 2021 prices.)
Household wealth in the U.S. also varies depending on whether the head of the household is Hispanic or not.
Among Hispanics, households headed by an immigrant had a median net worth of $35,400 in 2021, the lowest among the groups analyzed. Those headed by a Hispanic person born in the U.S., by comparison, had a median net worth of $68,000.
Among non-Hispanics, immigrant households had a net worth of $234,000 in 2021, and U.S.-born households held $194,900. Most non-Hispanic immigrant households trace their origins to Europe and Asia and have higher levels of education and income than other immigrants. As a result, they have some of the highest levels of wealth among U.S. households.
2. Household wealth is much higher among U.S.-born people with immigrant parents than among immigrants themselves, suggesting that wealth accumulation is largely completed within one immigrant generation. The median net worth of U.S.-born people with immigrant parents was $162,900 in 2021, compared with $104,400 among all immigrant households. Their median wealth, in fact, was nearly on par with that of all other U.S.-born people ($179,600).
3. The longer an immigrant has been in the U.S., the more wealth their household typically has. Immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before 1979 had a median wealth of $261,700 in 2021 – almost seven times the median wealth of immigrants who arrived in 2009 or later.
This is partly because it takes time to accumulate wealth, beyond what may be inherited. It also suggests that economic mobility is not just for the children of immigrants; immigrants themselves see gains in wealth the longer they live in the U.S.
It should be noted that immigrants who came to the U.S. decades ago are less likely to be Black, Hispanic or Asian. In 1980, about half of immigrants (49%) identified as White alone and not Hispanic. In 2018, just 18% identified the same way. Thus, some of the differences in the wealth of immigrants by year of arrival may reflect these differences in origins and demographics.
4. U.S. citizenship and proficiency in English are among the key attributes of immigrants with higher levels of wealth, while region of origin also plays a role. Those with U.S. citizenship had much greater wealth than noncitizens in 2021, $212,000 vs. $35,300. Similarly, those who reported being proficient in English had about three times as much wealth as those who were not English proficient, $129,200 vs. $37,100.
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