Are Blacks Better Off Than Their Parents? One Study Says No...

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
Associated Press
Published on: 11/13/07

Washington — Decades after the civil rights movement, the income gap between black and white families has grown, says a new study of the incomes of some 8,000 families.

Incomes have increased among both black and white families in the past three decades — mainly because more women are in the work force.

But the increase was greater among whites, according to the study being released today that tracked the incomes of 2,367 families for more than 30 years, surveying parents and children, who are now grown.

One reason for the growing disparity: Incomes among black men have actually declined in the past three decades, when adjusted for inflation. They were offset only by gains among black women.

Incomes among white men were relatively stagnant, while those of white women increased more than fivefold.

"Overall, incomes are going up. But not all children are benefiting equally from the American dream," said Julia Isaacs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Isaacs wrote a series of three reports that looked at the incomes of parents in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and of their grown children 30 years later.

Parents have long hoped that their children would grow up to be more successful than they were. Hopes were especially high for black children who came of age following the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The reports found that about two-thirds of the children surveyed grew up to have higher family incomes than their parents had 30 years earlier.

Grown black children were just as likely as whites to have higher incomes than their parents. However, incomes among whites increased more than their black counterparts.
The result: In 2004, a typical black family had an income that was only 58 percent of a typical white family's. In 1974, median black incomes were 63 percent those of whites.

"Too many Americans, whites and even some blacks, think that the playing field has indeed leveled," said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League.
It has not, he added.

"We are like fingers on the hand," Morial said of black and white Americans. "We are on the same hand, but we are separate fingers."

Morial blamed the disparities on inadequate schools in black neighborhoods, workplace discrimination and too many black families with only one parent.

"The public policy commitment to this has been sketchy over the last 30 years," Morial said. "There has not been a real focus on this."

Perhaps most disturbing, middle-income black families do not appear to be passing on higher incomes to their children in the same way that white families have, Isaacs said.
She found that only one in three black children from middle-income families grew up to have higher incomes than their parents.

"That means a majority ended up slipping down," Isaacs said.

Among whites, about two-thirds of the children from middle-income families grew up to have higher incomes than their parents, she said.

On a positive note, black children from poor families were much more likely to grow up to have higher incomes than their parents, Isaacs said.

Isaacs compiled the reports for the Economic Mobility Project, a collaboration of senior economists and researchers from four Washington think tanks that span the ideological spectrum. The project is funded and managed by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Read more ...

Nov. 2 BlackOut: Good or Bad Business?

Chicago-based attorney and talk show host Warren Ballentine is leading an effort to initiate federal legislation for hate crimes through a National BlackOut this Friday. Ballentine and others, including Radio One talk show hosts Michael Baisden and Al Sharpton, want Americans to show their economic power by refusing to spend money all day. Ballentine’s premise is that Americans should show solidarity against present inequities against black youth and adults by the American justice system, notably against Georgia’s Genarlow Wilson, the Jena 6 and West Virginia rape and assault victim Megan Williams.

More can be read at http://thetruthfighters.blogspot.com/

Is this the first you've heard of this movement? Do you plan to participate by not spending on Friday? Have you participated in other movements like wearing all black on Sept. 20 or traveling to Jena, Louisiana?

Economically speaking, will America feel a pinch due to a 24-hour stoppage in spending? Are people conditioned to not spend money for that period of time? And are we REALLY supposed to wait until Saturday to see the new Denzel movie?

Feel free to answer one or all of these questions, or present your own as AULYP joins the blogosphere. Read more ...