WASHINGTON — Decades after the civil-rights movement, the income gap between black and white families has grown, says a new study that tracked the incomes of about 2,300 families for more than 30 years.
Incomes have increased among black and white families in the past three decades, mainly because more women are in the workforce. But the increase was greater among whites, according to the study out today.
One reason for the growing disparity: Incomes among black men have declined in the past three decades, when adjusted for inflation. They were offset only by gains among black women. Incomes among white men, meanwhile, 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. 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. But incomes among whites increased more than those of 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.
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, blamed the disparities on inadequate schools in black neighborhoods, workplace discrimination and too many black families with only one parent.
Numbers
2 of 3
Americans with higher inflationadjusted family incomes than their parents 30 years earlier.
1 of 3
Black children who grew up to earn incomes higher than their parents.
10%
The increase in income for black families.
400%
The increase in income for white women.
Source: The Associated Press
