While perusing the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. (link)(table 686) (don’t ask), I came across some data that show the progress made by black families over the last 25 years. In 1980, 49% of black families earned under $25,000 per year. In 2001, in constant dollars 37.4% did. That’s a 24% reduction in the poor and working poor. At the other end, black families earning over $100,000 per year went from 1.9% of families to 7.2% of families. That’s still well under the 17.6% of white families earning over $100,000, but the gap has narrowed. In fact, that puts the percent of high income black families about where white families were in 1980. Is it crazy to think that in one more generation — call it 25 years — the income profile of black families will be at the national average? What if you excluded the very poor, damaged by bad schools, bad families, and bad examples? In the long view, is this country that close to eliminating that disparity?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 14th, 2005 at 11:14 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.