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This is a list of differences in average income by ethnicity (in the USA).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Indian Americans are on the top. Russian Americans are 12th in the list. Dutch Americans are 54th.

Do you think that this is a proof of Indian supremacy and Dutch mediocrity? Or is there a policy that systematically oppresses whites of Dutch ancestry and elevates whites of Russian ancestry?

Obviously none of those is true.



sort by: page size:

And by remarkable coincidence, Finland's GDP per capita is roughly equivalent to GDP per capita for white Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

Maybe, just maybe, the differentiating factor is poverty, not race?


Whoa I didn't realise how insanely true that was.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the...


So you give the example of Britain plundering India. Explain to me why Indians in America are the most successful ethnic group in the country then, at almost twice the median income of white people?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

By your logic of white "holy ground" whites should obviously be at the top of the list, no? Instead Indians and East Asians are.


There’s a lot of confusion caused by thinking that “white people” are a coherent group. For example, we talk about racial income gaps as if incomes among white ethnic groups are uniform. But there’s a huge gap between those who report themselves on the census as “American” Americans (usually Scots Irish folks who came here long ago) rank near the bottom of the income distribution, lower than recent immigrant groups like Bangladeshis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

White people descended from Europeans are the seventh most successful ethic group in this country. The "luckiest" are Indian Americans, they beat Jewish Americans nearly 10k a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...


Yes. Though admittedly the different ethnicities do have quite different average incomes and that is fairly well known.

Even after controlling for ethnicity and income there are quite big geographical variations. White people in the upper mid-west are a lot healthier and long lived than whites elsewhere, for example.

Comparing an extremely heterogeneous country like America to ethnically monolithic countries like Finland or Japan is always an error.


Ok, let $ETHNICITY = white Americans.

I checked your link. It says the exact opposite of what you claim.

The second list says - Sweden Ethnic Fractionalization : 0.060000

US EthnicFractionalization: 0.490100

So it says America is 8 times more diverse than Sweden.

Sounds about right. That makes Sweden a lot more homogenous than the US.

The first list is really screwed: it lists Italy and China as among the least diverse - which is rubbish.

That’s because it only includes linguistic diversity- not ethnic diversity. So Sicilians and Milanese are grouped together, as are Han and Tibetans.

Latin America becomes much less diverse, because the many ethnicities speak Spanish, etc.

Look at how undiverse Cuba is!

America has a large number of different cultures, ethnicities and religions, but to get a decent job you need to English.


https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222

About half of Americans (59%) are not white and it’s still becoming more diverse.

Quick Google search shows Italy to be 92% white, Sweden 86% (80% Swedish!), France 85%, and England 82%.


Yup, you must be right, there are only rich white people in America. I was commenting that although the vast majority of European countries and also Canada tend to have single-digit percentages of visible minorities compared to 34% of the United States, they are often quick to accuse the U.S. of racism, or fail to understand the implications of a truly multicultural society. Germany has 6% of its population with ancestry outside of Europe, yet there is this "Integrationsfrage" that gets a more lip service than you can imagine. Basically, it is encouraging a lot of countries quite literally to look in a mirror before judging. The U.S. education system has failings, but its populace is fundamentally different what the above commenter was trying to compare it to.

"not white" isn't a race or demographic. african americans aren't the same as african-africans, and those are different from mexican, indian, asian, native american, etc.

and given how indians and east asians tend to be the overall wealthiest demographics, plus the "hispanic paradox", suggests that this is a way more complex issue then you're framing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_paradox


Comparing ethnically homogenous countries to the US is meaningless and downright deliberately misleading at best. There is significant variation in every state by race.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...


> The 99% of white Americans for whom all ancestors were from Europe, are European.

“White Americans” average a little under 99% Eurooean ancestry, but far fewer than 99% have exclusively European ancestry.


The correct comparison is European ancestry to European ancestry, excluding first and second generation, not "American whites" vs. Finns.

True. But since the number of European immigrants to the US and non-white native Finns is very low, the correct comparison is unlikely to differ significantly from the numbers given. So technically you are right, but I don't think there will be much difference in practice. Do you disagree?

It's also the best comparison currently possible, since I don't know of any data set that provides more granular data than what Sanandaji used. Do you?


And non-Dutch Caucasians, for that matter.

As a race, yes, but many tend to be immigrants that came to the US after the breakup of the USSR and come from different backgrounds than American-born whites, with mainly western-European backgrounds. They constitute a sizable bloc of their own that would be interesting to see the data from.

Oh, this is pretty interesting:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Unit...:

  Fifteen largest ancestries in the United States as self reported 
  in the 2000 Census:[58]

  Rank    Ancestry        Number  Percent of total
  population
  —       U.K. (1801–1922) 66,224,627[59]  23.3%[59]
  1       German           42,841,569      15.2%
  2       Irish            30,524,799      10.8%
  3       African          24,903,412      8.8%
  4       English          24,509,692      8.7%
  5       American         20,188,305      7.2%
  6       Mexican          18,382,291      6.5%
  7       Italian          15,638,348      5.6%
  8       Polish           8,977,235       3.2%
  9       French           8,309,666       3.0%
  10      American Indian
            and 
          Alaskan Native   7,876,568       2.8%
  11      Scottish         4,890,581       1.7%
  12      Dutch            4,541,770       1.6%
  13      Norwegian        4,477,725       1.6%
  14      Scotch-Irish     4,319,232       1.5%
  15      Chinese          4,010,114       1.4%

I don't think the posts specified the ethnicities of the people who made the lists. Are you sure it is intra-group and not inter-group?
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