WASHINGTON — Most Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders do not agree with the strategy of putting entire federal agencies on the chopping block, nor are they broadly on board with mass layoffs of federal workers, according to a new poll.
The survey, released Wednesday from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, shows that AAPI adults want the government to concentrate more on everyday costs. They feel the federal government should do more to address high prices. About 8 in 10 AAPI adults say the federal government should make health care costs “a high priority," while about 7 in 10 say the same about the cost of food, and roughly 6 in 10 feel similarly about housing.
The poll is part of an ongoing project exploring the views of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, whose views are usually not highlighted in other surveys because of small sample sizes and lack of linguistic representation.
The results come as President Donald Trump continues what his administration says are cost-cutting measures under the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by adviser Elon Musk. This has included layoffs of thousands of government workers and discussion of dismantling entire agencies like the Department of Education.
About 6 in 10 AAPI adults “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose eliminating entire federal agencies, while about 1 in 10 are in favor, which is slightly below the roughly 2 in 10 U.S. adults overall who expressed the same sentiments in a January AP-NORC poll. About 3 in 10 are neutral, saying they neither favor nor oppose this move. Nearly half oppose eliminating a large number of federal jobs, while about one-quarter are in favor.
The recent cuts have left Celeste Hong, a 56-year-old registered Democrat living in Los Angeles, feeling angry about where the cost-saving efforts have focused.
“Understandably, people don’t like inefficiency and waste. Well, I kind of feel the Pentagon is the most wasteful area of our federal government,” Hong said.
She thinks the government isn't concentrating enough on lowering the costs of health care, child care and food. Hong worries Trump's tariff policies will end up increasing costs.
“You know, I can afford to absorb an extra cost,” said Hong, who is semi-retired. “But, what about the family of four whom you know is living paycheck to paycheck?”
The poll found that — amid nationwide problems that often cannot be solved easily — there are about two-thirds of AAPI adults who think the country is “spending too little” on improvements for the nation's education system. Around 6 in 10 say the same about improving the nation's health, protecting the environment and addressing the problem of homelessness.
There is one area where more AAPI adults see spending as excessive: Like Hong, about half of AAPI adults say “too much” is being spent on the military, armaments and defense.
Stacy Armstrong, 61, and a registered Republican in Bay City, Michigan, is an exception — he thinks the government is not spending enough on defense. He thinks more money should also go toward higher education and health care. Spending inefficiencies, in his view, stem from aid to other countries like Ukraine.
“We need to take care of our own,” said Armstrong, who is half Japanese. “I think it’s an important thing, but I think there’s other countries that can help out, too. We need to at least reduce it drastically, if not cut it off altogether.”
But Armstrong, who voted for Trump last year, thinks it's wrong to excise federal agencies. To him, it would be better if the Trump administration could instead work to streamline or consolidate operations. However, he added he's not privy to information the administration has and said every president has to make hard choices to get results.
“I know he’s going to do some good things,” Armstrong said.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, executive director of AAPI Data and researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, said it's not surprising that some conservative AAPI adults would hold nuanced views on government spending, including opposition to dismantling federal agencies or a desire for greater government spending in some areas.
AAPI adults “tend to be focused on solutions and less so on partisanship,” Ramakrishnan said.
At the same time, they may be willing to give the Trump administration a chance to keep trying new strategies to save money. AAPI voters, who are more Democratic-leaning than the electorate as a whole, shifted slightly to the right in November.
“A certain chunk of voters were persuaded that the Republican Party would do a better job on the issues and the economy,” Ramakrishnan said.
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The poll of 1,170 U.S. adults who are Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders was conducted Feb. 4-11, 2025, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based Amplify AAPI Panel, designed to be representative of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander population. Online and telephone interviews were offered in English, the Chinese dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese, Vietnamese and Korean. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
