Posted on 02/26/2008 7:27:45 AM PST by Cinnamon Girl
Jews are the highest-earning religious group in the United States, with 46 percent of the working population earning a six-digit figure every year, according to a study released this week.
In terms of annual earnings, the only other group to even come close to the average Jewish income was the Hindus, with 43 percent earning over $100,000.
No other group reached even the 30 percent mark, and the overall US average was only 18 percent earning six-figure digits annually.
The study, conducted by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, also showed that, after Hindus, the Jews were the second most educated religious group in the US. 35 percent of Jews were found to have done at least some graduate work, as opposed to 48 percent amongst Hindus.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
They obviously didn’t look at the Asian population.
Jewish people emphasize education and hard work. Another few generations and Asians will be in the same position.
“They obviously didn’t look at the Asian population.”
They did look at Hinduism, which they ranked as the most highly educated religious group (ahead of Judaism), but I guess Jews on average make more money than Hindus (probably because of the cities in which the two groups are concentrated, as mentioned by a poster above).
One statistic in the article should be a concern- Jews also have the lowest birth rate among religious groups. That does not bode welll for the future.
That is very disconcerting, but this poll does not distinguish observant Jews, who have a much higher birth rate and a much lower divorce rate than the national average.
>>Jewish people emphasize education and hard work<<
Bingo!
And the Jewish people I know start saving early for their children’s education. Generation upon generation, they set themselves up to be sucessful, with hard work and family priorities. I wish I would have had a Jewish mother to help us out.
My sisters would have been human beings.
Oops. I looked at the headline, but not at the article.
I know a lot of Chinese people who came here in the late '80's and through the '90's. I also had a lot of Jewish friends when I was growing up, including my first serious girlfriend.
In my opinion, the Chinese are almost exactly like Jews, except without the religious component (although many Chinese are attracted to Christianity). There are many parallels. A remarkable selfless devotion to family and children, an intense, unconditional faith in the value of education for their children, including education in music (I don't know a single Chinese kid who is not forced to take piano or play an orchestral stringed instrument), an almost fanatical will to save money (coupled with... ahh... shall we say... a certain degree of frugality).
In my opinion, the Chinese first-generation immigrants are much like the Jewish immigrants who came before them.
I think the explanation (as if one is really needed to justify anything) is fairly similar for both Jews and Hindus.
In America, the Jews form a relatively small minority group which placed a high emphasis on education and working hard - specifically because they wanted to overcome the early 20th century stereotype of the "dirty, ignorant Jew" from Eastern Europe. This was assisted by the fact that the portion of Jewry which America got back in those days was more suited to succeed - they were the percentage who were willing and able to take the risk to leave the village, get on a boat, cross an ocean, and settle in a completely alien society where they didn't speak the language and didn't fit into the dominant religious culture, and having little to no "fallback" to being able to go back home if things didn't work out. In a sense, what America get was the "upper crust" of European Jews, if not in an economic sense, then in a temperamental and ability sense. This was augmented by the influx of Jews from Nazi Germany and the rest of threatened Europe before Europe was closed and the camps opened, though these Jews were usually already well-educated and financial successful. Both groups, however, had a strong work ethic and a motivation to overcome negative prejudicial stereotypes, as well as a culturally conditioned predisposition towards overcoming obstacles by keeping your head down, working hard, and plugging away until you succeeded (as opposed to the UNsuccessful efforts by certain groups today to scream about discrimination and be generally as boisterous and obnoxious as possible in trying to get others to give you things while not being willing to work hard for them yourself).
Hindus who come to America are in some ways similar. The Hindus who come here are generally those who are already in the upper-crust 5% of Indian society - the ones who could afford to get an education, and who rightly realised that America has a lot more to offer a person like that then does India. They have a strong work ethic as well, not having had generations of welfare and unions to convince them that every worker is "owed" the good life by their employer and the government.
Conversely, however, if you look at the other 95% of the Hindus in India, you won't find the same potential for success, for whatever reason, just as you wouldn't have found very many who could or would be successful if you'd taken those that were left in every Jewish village back home in 1910s Ukraine or Galicia and transplanted them in toto into the Lower East Side.
Non-Orthodox Jews have a very low birth rate, Orthodox and particularly Hasidic Jews have a very high birth rate.
That percentage of 100k+ earners could be even higher. Many/most of the brightest Jewish women choose to go into non-profits or public sector jobs.
The wife of John Derbyshire of National Review is Chinese, and Derb always writes on The Corner about how his kids can never miss school no matter how sick they are or what else is going on (including the day they had to put to sleep the dog they’d had for their entire lives) because that’s just the way it is when you have a Chinese mom.
They obviously didn’t look at the Asian population.
What do you think Hindus are? Chopped liver?
Well, there you go!
Simple explanations have a reputation for making some sense at first look, but usually being wrong. Many non-Jews live near urban centers also, so according to your reasoning they should also be in the high-income group.
I don't think so...it's much more than simple geography.
Well the author of the “Bell Curve” states that the Jews score higher in IQ than any other ethnic group
One half to a full standard deviation higher than the norm
So it makes sense they would be higher earners
“There’s a simple explanation for this, and it’s not the one about us ruling the world. Most Jews live in expensive cities like NYC and LA, where you HAVE to earn a six figure income just to get by.”
A valid point, of course. (The largely urban population also helps explain why Jewish people are disproportionately Democratic — no differnent than other urban dwellers, per capita.)
That said, Jewish people do, on average, do have higher IQ (and lower EQ, interestingly) than the population at large.
Each 10 pts. of IQ equates to something like another $10,000 per year and greatly enhances the possibility of graduate education.
“Jews are the highest-earning religious group in the United States”.
Wow, Big Surprise.
I agree. Many evangelical Christians are not aware that 10 percent of their membership is Asians of Chinese and Korean descent. That was a recent poll done by the evangelical churches. Over 40 percent are college educated and many have technical degrees (engineering and sciences), thus the stereotype that evangelical Christians are white blue collar high school grads are a misnomer.
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