Racial Dimensions of Inequality
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The U.S. has a persistent and troubling racial income and wealth divide. What follows are several charts with the most recent data available on the racial divide. The extreme inequalities of the last thirty years have exacerbated these racial disparities.
Since 1968, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the income gap between blacks and whites narrowed by just 3 cents on the dollar. In 2005 the median per capita income in the United States stood at $16,629 for blacks and $28,946 for whites. At this slow rate of progress, income equality will not be achieved for 537 years.
These disparities remain shockingly wide, and especially evident when we examine the polarization of assets and wealth. The black home ownership rate, for instance, sits at 47 percent and the Latino at 49.7 percent, compared with 75 percent for whites.
African-American families in the United States have a median net worth of $20,600, only 14.6 percent of the $140,700 median white net worth. The median net worth for Latino families is $18,600, only 13.2 percent of median white net worth. Between 1983 and 2004, the most recent year with official federal data available, median black and Latino wealth inched up from 7 percent to 10 percent of median white wealth. At this rate, wealth equality will not be attained for 634 years.
For more information, see:
United for a Fair Economy, Foreclosed: The State of the Dream (January 2008)
Institute for Policy Studies, Forty Years Later: The Unrealized American Dream (April 2008)
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Statistics, Table P-1.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Statistics, Table P-1.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Statistics, Table F-5.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Statistics, Table F-5.
Source: Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, 2006-07, Table 5.6, p. 258. Based on analysis of Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data.
Source: Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, 2006-07, Table 5.6, p. 258. Based on analysis of Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data. Financial wealth is household wealth minus home equity.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancies and Ownership, Annual Statistics: 2006, Table 20.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation Historical Table A-2.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Educational Attainment Historical Tables, Table A-2.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Educational Attainment Historical Tables, Table A-2.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Educational Attainment Historical Tables, Table A-2.
Source: Analysis of U.S. Department of Education data. 1968-98: Gary Orfield, “Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation,” Harvard Civil Rights Project, July, 2001, Table X. 2003: Orfield and Chungmei Lee, “Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation,” Harvard Civil Rights Project, January 2006, p. 10, Table 3. 2005: Orfield and Lee, “Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need for New Integration Strategies,” UCLA Civil Rights Project, August 2007, p. 29, Table 10.
