North Carolina town ranks among top US places for Asian Americans to thrive financially
North Carolina is home to one of the places where Asian Americans have the most economic success, a national report finds.
The town of Cary, just outside of Raleigh, ranks No. 6 on a list that measured income, home ownership and other signs of financial wellness, according to results released this month from SmartAsset.
The personal finance website said it studied census data from 120 of the largest U.S. cities to determine the rankings. Analysts compared each city based on home and business ownership, earnings, poverty rates and education for Asian Americans in 2019, the latest year available.
Cary earned a top spot after scoring high in several categories, results show.
About 83% of Asian Americans ages 25 and older living in Cary have a bachelor’s degree, the fourth-highest percentage in SmartAsset’s study. Also, the median household income for Asian Americans in Cary was found to be one of the highest in the nation at $135,371.
But Cary missed the mark when it came to some other measures of economic success.
“Though only about one in 20 business owners in the metro area surrounding Cary is Asian, the city ranks 26th out of 120 for its Asian American homeownership rate of about 69%,” SmartAsset said.
Cary is home to more than 170,000 residents, including roughly 18% who are of Asian decent, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates from 2019. The town lies partly within Wake County, which has among the state’s highest shares of Asian American residents, including many who identify as “Asian Indian,” Carolina Demography said as of 2018.
The Asian American population is the ”fastest-growing demographic” in North Carolina and has been seen as an important group for helping to decide the political future of the swing state, The News & Observer reported.
In the latest SmartAsset study, no other North Carolina cities made it into the top 25.
Nationally, income inequality has grown among Asian Americans in the past decade as that community has seen earnings increase more than any other group, according to the personal finance website.
“Though the median Asian American household income has risen significantly, it remains low in several large cities,” SmartAsset said in its report. “In fact, the median Asian American household income is less than $50,000 in 13 of the 120 cities in our study, suggesting that Asian Americans are falling behind in some places.”
Overall, results show the place where “Asian Americans fare best economically” was Frisco, Texas, north of Dallas. Other cities that landed in the top 10 were in Arizona, California and Illinois.
