Lilette Mocio

Professor Smith

February 28, 2015

The Socioeconomic Status of Middle Easterners in the United States

Key Words: Middle Easterners, Arab Americans, Socioeconomic status (SES), Education, Income, Employment

Description: This issue brief details the experience of Middle Easterners in the United States through the lens of socioeconomic status, with emphasis on education, income, and employment.

Key Points:

  • Middle Easterners are generally more educated than Americans and other immigrants, attaining more advanced degrees than the non-Middle Eastern population
  • It is not uncommon for Middle Easterners to immigrate to the United States to pursue a high-level education or a professional career, particularly in the legal and medical field
  • Middle Eastern householdsgenerally have higher incomes than American households
  • Americans typically have higher unemployment rates than the Middle Eastern population
  • It can be difficult to obtain specific data regarding Middle Eastern Americans because of the classification of Middle Easterners as “White” in the US Census and various other studies

Brief: Although associating immigrants with low education levels and low incomes might be considered a fairly standardized practice—especially since immigrants face the multitude of challenges related toadjusting to life in a foreign country, such as assimilating to a new culture, finding employment, and overcoming language barriers—this is a misconception with regard to the Middle Eastern immigrants in America.While it can be difficult to analyze Middle Easterners separately from their ethnoracial categorization as “White,” (which results in the conflation of various ethnoracial groups),the data that is available showsa strong Middle Eastern commitment to education.The Middle Eastern population in the United States is extremely well-educated, with very few individuals having just high school degrees, and 21.2% of Middle Eastern immigrants having a graduate or professional degree, while only 10% of locals and natives each have such a degree, as shown in Figure 2 (Camarota). Figure 2 also indicates that 27.5% of Middle Easterners have a Bachelor’s degree, compared to 19.1% of Americans and 17.6% of other immigrants (Camarota).More than 87% of Middle Easterners in the US have a high school degree, and over 64% of the Middle Eastern population is employed (Arab American Institute).

According to the Arab American Institute, there are more than 1.9 million Middle Easterners in the United States, with these individuals being scattered throughout each of the 50 states. More than 80% of these Middle Eastern immigrants are citizens of the United States, and these citizens areemployed in each of the major sectors of the American economy (Arab American Institute). According toTable 5, nearly half of the Middle Eastern population had a college or graduate degreein 2000 (Camarota). Only 28.2% American citizens, contrarily, had attained a degree at the college or graduate level at the turn of the century(Camarota).Many of the Middle Eastern Americans who immigrate to the US do so in pursuit of attaining a professional degree, particularly in the legal and medical fields, which accounts at least partially for the high percentage of Middle Eastern individuals with graduate degrees relative to the generic American population.

Though factors other than education obviously impact an individual’s ability to obtain employment(such as experience level, ability to network,availability of careers in the job market, and various other elements),higher levels of education tend to be correlated with higher income levels (Camarota). This seems to be the case among Middle Easterners, sincethe highly-educated Middle Eastern population tends to have lower unemployment rates than the general American population, boasting an unemployment rate of roughly5% (Smith). Additionally, the average Middle Easternerhas a higher median household income than the average US citizen. An average American household earns approximately $52,000annually, while a Middle Eastern household income is about $59,000 (Smith). Individually, Middle Easterners have an average salary of about $39,000, exceeding the average American salary by $1,000 (Camarota). When analyzed more specifically, Table 5 indicates that Iranians are the wealthiest Middle Easterners, earning a median salary of $60,000. This high income correlates directly with high percentage of individuals having a college or graduate degree, as 60.9% of Iranians are college or graduate-school educated (Camarota). This percentage makes Iranians the second most educated Middle Eastern immigrant group, with only Egyptians being a more educated population—and just slightly so at that—with 63.4% of the Egyptian populationhaving attained a college or graduate education (Camarota).

As the status of minority groups in the United States continues to change over time, the Middle Eastern population should certainly not be ignored, as immigrants from the Middle East continue to play a crucial role in American society and will surely continue to do so in the future.The high levels of Middle Eastern education and income, paired with the low levels of Middle Eastern unemployment,have cemented the role of the Middle Eastern immigrant in the American economy, and thesocioeconomic status of Middle Easternersin the United States will gradually become more entrenched in American culture.

Works Cited

Camarota, Steven A. "Immigrants from the Middle East." Center for Immigration Studies, Aug. 2002. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.

"Demographics.” Arab American Institute, 2015. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.

Smith, Raymond A. “A Study of Socioeconomic Status of Arab Americans.” Columbia University Academic Commons. Columbia University, 2010.

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