Immigrant groups vary widely in their financial success and assimilation into American society. Financial success is easier to measure than assimilation. The Manhattan Institute’s assimilation index, developed by economist Jacob Vigdor, defines assimilation as the degree to which foreign-born adults can no longer be distinguished from the native-born population.
The index combines economic factors such as employment and education, cultural factors such as English proficiency and intermarriage, and civic factors such as citizenship and military service.
Other common measures include movement out of ethnic enclaves, fertility rates approaching native-born levels, and whether later generations still identify with their ancestry.
Two of the largest immigrant groups of their respective eras offer a useful comparison: Italians who arrived during the mass immigration wave of 1880–1920 and Mexicans who arrived in large numbers from the late 20th century onward. Researchers assess assimilation across generations by measuring how closely each group approaches the educational and economic levels of the native-born population.
The Immigration Act of 1924 sharply restricted arrivals from southern and eastern Europe but imposed no quotas on the Western Hemisphere. As Italian immigration declined, community averages increasingly reflected the second and third generations. Continued Mexican immigration adds first-generation arrivals to that community’s averages, but it does not explain gaps among U.S.-born descendants.
Italian Americans, numbering about 16 million, are sometimes considered model immigrants because of their educational and economic integration, English proficiency, patriotism, and adoption of American holidays and customs.
They perform better than national averages on the following economic and educational measures. According to Census Bureau data for 2017–2021, 42.7% of Italian Americans ages 25 and older held a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 33.7% of all Americans. Their median household income was $90,487 in 2022, compared with $74,755 nationally.
In 2017–2021, the Italian American poverty rate was 7.7%, compared with 12.6% nationally. Among children, the rates were 7.9% and 17%, respectively. Homeownership stood at 70.3%, compared with 64.6% nationally, while 7.1% of Italian American households received food stamps, compared with 11.4% of all households.
Language assimilation is nearly complete. Only 3.5% of Italian Americans are foreign-born, 93.4% speak only English at home, and 1.5% speak English less than “very well,” compared with 8.2% of all Americans.
This integration was evident decades ago. UCLA sociologist Vilma Ortiz noted that by 1980, Italian Americans had reached the education and occupational levels of other third-generation Europeans.
Although Italian Americans have largely lost their ancestral language, they maintain their heritage through festivals, food, and family traditions. That heritage also has a prominent place in American public life. Italian American leaders lobbied for Columbus Day, which President Roosevelt proclaimed in 1937. New York’s Columbus Day parade, billed as the world’s largest celebration of Italian American heritage, draws nearly one million spectators.
Mexican Americans are the country’s largest Hispanic-origin group, numbering roughly 40 million in 2024. In 2021, 71% were born in the United States. Among Mexican immigrants, 62% had lived in the country for more than 20 years, but only 35% were U.S. citizens, according to Pew Research Center. English proficiency was widespread: 74% of Mexican Americans ages 5 and older spoke only English at home or spoke English at least “very well.”
Educational and economic gaps remain. In 2024, only 10% of Mexican immigrant adults held a bachelor’s degree, compared with 37% of U.S.-born adults. Mexican immigrant households had a median income of $68,700, compared with $81,400 for U.S.-born households. About 16% of Mexican immigrants lived in poverty, compared with 12% of the U.S.-born population.
Among U.S.-born Mexican Americans, only 21% held a bachelor’s degree in 2021, compared with 35% of all Americans. Their poverty rate, at 18%, was slightly higher than the 17% rate among Mexican immigrants.
A March 2026 Center for Immigration Studies analysis of Census Bureau data found that 67% of non-citizen Mexican households use at least one means-tested program or have incomes low enough to qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit or Additional Child Tax Credit. The comparable figure for U.S.-born households was 31%.
Long-term research tracks these outcomes across generations. UCLA sociologists Edward Telles and Vilma Ortiz followed Mexican American families in Los Angeles and San Antonio from 1965 to 2000. Among the families studied, they found that economic progress halts at the second generation, poverty remains high in later generations, and educational attainment peaks in the second generation before declining in the third and fourth. Most fourth-generation Mexican Americans in the study still lived in Hispanic neighborhoods, married other Hispanics, and identified as Mexican.
Examining foreign-born adults, Vigdor’s Manhattan Institute index found very low rates of economic and civic assimilation among Mexican immigrants, linking their slow progress to the large share living in the country illegally.
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