Fil-Ams Constantly Growing in the U.S.

The two fastest-growing populations in the United States are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). According to the State of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Series by the Center for American Progress, the said residents are growing by an average of 46% and 40% respectively, between 2000 and 2010.

There has been an observed growth in various regions during the past decade even if AAPIs are primarily massed in limited states. The top states of origin differ across detailed origin groups, with Filipino Americans clustered in California.

On English proficiency, it is notable that the Filipino Americans is one of those detailed origin groups with a very high rating, in consideration of the fact that Asian Americans are among those who are most likely to be Limited English Proficient.

This allows them to better engage in different transactions including business ownership. The Survey of Business Owners identified Filipinos owning up to 18.5% of firms. Filipinos possessed 193,336 firms (10.1%), with receipts of $25.8 billion (3.7%). Overall, the rate of increase between 2007 and 2012 in the number of firms that Asian groups owned outpace the national average.

Moreover, the AAPIs have the highest average household incomes where Asian Americans hold the top spot among all racial groups. Along with Indian Americans and Japanese Americans, the Filipino Americans are among the highest earners of all detailed origin groups. It is important to note that the per-capita income among Asian Americans is much closer to whites, since the latter have smaller household sizes.

Apart from the abovementioned capacities of the Filipino Americans, they are also continuously increasing in number rapidly with their size now about equal as Indians. This is only largely  because of the 76% growth rate of Indian Americans from 2000 to 2012, compared to the growth rate of Filipino Americans of only 52%  during the same period.

It is no secret that Asian Americans have a long history in the United States with the earliest settlements composed of Filipino sailors in the mid-1700s when they debarked in Mexico as part of the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade and consequently settled in Louisiana.

Today, the Asian American community consists of new groups that constitute the majority of the population. The top six groups—Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese—account for 85% of all residents.

The AAPIs are also remarkably younger and are higher in the labor-force participation rate than the national average. Filipinos and Indians tend to have the highest rates of labor-force participation, and they are particularly high for Asian Indian men and Filipino American women.

Adding up all these factors, it is in plain sight that Indians and Filipinos have the highest levels of household income, reflecting their relatively high levels of educational attainment and selective patterns of high-skill immigration to the United States.

The Filipino Americans have a significantly high purchasing power as one of the fastest-growing well-educated groups in addition to the settlement history of their ancestors. It is perceptible that they are one of the first groups who have made themselves at home in the United States.

Indeed, they hold much potential not only in advancing themselves as a community but the economy of the United States as a whole.