Asian-Americans more satisfied with life, Pew report finds

Christian Gooden / AP file

Ying Zhou, originally from China, waves to well-wishers after receiving her certificate of citizenship on April 25. A new Pew report says Asian Americans are more satisfied than the general public with their own lives.

By James Eng, msnbc.com

Asian-Americans, the fastest-growing racial group in the country, are more satisfied than the general public with their own lives and the nation?s direction, a new national survey finds.

The Pew Research Center survey and accompanying report says Asian-Americans now make up 5.8 percent of the nation?s population, up from less than 1 percent in 1965, when the modern immigration wave from Asia began.

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Asians recently passed Hispanics as the largest group of new immigrants to the U.S. In 2010, 36 percent of new immigrants to the U.S. were Asian, up from 19 percent in 2000, according to Census figures.

The Pew report, titled ?The Rise of Asian Americans,? finds that Asians are the highest-income and best-educated racial group in the U.S. Nearly half (49 percent) of Asian-American adults have a college degree, and they boast a median annual household income of $66,000 (versus the U.S. median of $49,800).

The survey says Asian-Americans are more satisfied than the general public with their lives overall (82 percent vs. 75 percent), their personal finances (51 percent vs. 35 percent) and the general direction of the country (43 percent vs. 21 percent).

Video: Asian Americans an untapped voter group?

On a wide range of dimensions, Asian-Americans say conditions in the U.S. are better than those in their country of origin; a large majority say if they had to do it all over again they would still come to America.

The survey is based on telephone interviews with 3,511 Asians ages 18 and older living in the United States. The interviews were conducted from Jan. 3 to March 27, in English and seven Asian languages. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points

You can read the full report here.

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