Washington – Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and homeownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing.
White households had incomes that were two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Latinos last year, according to data being released today by the Census Bureau.
White adults were also more likely than black and Latino adults to have college degrees and to own their own homes. They were less likely to live in poverty.
“Race is so associated with class in the United States that it may not be direct discrimination, but it still matters indirectly,” said Dalton Conley, a sociology professor at New York University and the author of “Being Black, Living in the Red.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful just because it’s indirect,” he said.
Homeownership grew among white middle-class families after World War II when access to credit and government programs made buying houses affordable.
Black families were largely left out because of discrimination, and the effects are still felt today, said Lance Freeman, assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University and author of “There Goes the ‘Hood.”
Homeownership creates wealth, which enables families to live in good neighborhoods with good schools.
It also helps families finance college, which leads to better-paying jobs, perpetuating the cycle, Freeman said.
“If your parents own their own home, they can leave it to you when they pass on or they can use the equity to help you with a down payment on yours,” Freeman said.
Three-fourths of white households owned their homes in 2005, compared with 46 percent of black households and 48 percent of Latino households. Homeownership is near an all-time high in the United States, but racial gaps have increased in the past 25 years.
Black families have also been hurt by the decline of manufacturing jobs – the same jobs that helped propel many white families into the middle class after World War II, said Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington office for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Among Latinos, education, income and homeownership gaps are exacerbated by recent Latin American immigrants. Latino immigrants have, on average, lower incomes and education levels than people born in the United States. About 40 percent of U.S. Latinos are immigrants.
The Census Bureau is releasing 2005 racial data on incomes, education levels, homeownership rates and poverty rates today.
The data are from the American Community Survey, the bureau’s new annual survey of 3 million households nationwide.
The Associated Press compared the figures with census data from 1980, 1990 and 2000.
