State of the Dream 2004.
The typical Black family had 60% as much income as a white family in 1968, but only 58% as much in 2002.
One in nine African Americans cannot find a job. Black unemployment is more than twice the white rate – a wider gap than in 1972.
Black infants are almost two-and-a-half-times as likely as white infants to die before age one – a greater gap than in 1970.
White households had an average net worth of $468,200 in 2001, more than six times the $75,700 of Black households. In 1989 (the oldest comparable data available), average white wealth was five-and-a-half times Black wealth.
At the slow rate that the Black-white poverty gap has been narrowing since 1968, it would take 150 years, until 2152, to close.
For every dollar of white per-capita income, African Americans had 55 cents in 1968 – and only 57 cents in 2001. At this pace, it would take Blacks 581 years to get the remaining 43 cents.
While white homeownership has jumped from 65% to 75% since 1970, Black homeownership has only risen from 42% to 48%. At this rate, it would take 1,664 years to close the homeownership gap – about 55 generations.
If current rates of incarceration continue, one out of three African American males born today will be imprisoned at some point during their lifetimes.
At the current pace, Blacks and whites will reach high school graduation parity in 2013, six decades after the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. And college graduation parity wouldn’t be reached until 2075, more than 200 years after the end of slavery.
| United for a Fair Economy's "Black-White Gaps Still Wide — Some Even Widening — Since Dr. King's Death" press release alerts readers to the nonprofit's "State of the Dream 2004: Enduring Disparities in Black and White" report (downloadable in PDF format)
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on January 15, 2004 9:38 AM
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