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RIGHTS-US: Economic Ladder Shaky for African Americans

Ali Gharib

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 2007 (IPS) - Black families in the United States lag significantly behind whites in economic mobility over the past 35 years, says a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts released Tuesday.

The report, titled "Black and White Families", is one of three parts of a study on the state of generational mobility since 1968, when the project began to follow over 2,300 participants, interviewing them and their descendants about their economic standing up until the early 2000s.

"The report calls into question whether the American Dream is a reality for black and white families alike," said a summary of the findings. "In every income group, blacks are less likely than whites to surpass their parents&#39 family income and more likely to fall down the economic ladder."

Alarmingly, nearly 70 percent of blacks whose parents were in the middle fifth of incomes fell into the lower two income groups. Only 40 percent of white adult children showed a drop in the same circumstances.

"Children from middle- and upper-middle-class black families experience a drop in income that is in sharp contrast to the traditional American expectation that each generation will do better than the one before it," said the study.

But the report did show some laudable progress. Roughly two-thirds of both whites and blacks had higher incomes than their parents.

The author of the report urged against reading this optimistically for the African-American population – the number is skewed because of the disproportionate amount (62 percent) of blacks born into the lowest income quintile, and in reality African-Americans have done poorly in terms of inflation adjusted incomes compared to their parents.

"It&#39s consistent with what we&#39ve seen in terms of disparity with income between blacks and white in this country," said Philip S. Hart, executive director of the Urban Land Institute&#39s district council in Los Angeles and former director of the Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at University of Massachusetts, Boston. "It&#39s discouraging but not surprising."

When asked about the report&#39s statement that a "startling 45 percent" of solidly middle income black children fall into the lowest strata as adults, Hart responded that, "It&#39s probably surprising to them because they&#39re of the mind that there is less racism in this country than their parents&#39 time. Racism in terms of economic standing is increasing."

"One of the issues is that because you have a number of high-profile blacks – primarily sports and entertainment people – making a considerable amount of money," said Hart, "people get a distorted perception about what the reality is for the average black person."

Hart said that there is a group of black Americans who are among the most famous people in the world – a list that included rapper and music mogul Jay-Z and sports stars Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.

"People think that black people are doing better but really they&#39re doing worse," said Hart.

While the white population has accumulated wealth, black families – due to income disparity – have not. This provides them with less to pass on to their children and grandchildren and causes the lack of generational mobility, or the movement of people across economic status in relation to their parents.

"That prospects are worse for poor black children than other poor children is not surprising," said Julia Isaacs, the author of the report and a economics studies fellow at the Brookings Institution. "There is literature on that."

While Isaacs said that her other work does make policy recommendations, that was not in the mission of the Economic Mobility Project – the Pew Charitable Trusts initiative that released the findings.

"The Economic Mobility Project sets out basic statistics and encourages policy makers to make change," said Isaacs.

The report has started that dialogue rolling.

Dr. Alix Cantave, associate director of the Trotter Institute, said that while this research is important, and more like it needs to be done, steps could be taken to look at some of the societal factors that contribute to the dearth of upwards-generational mobility among blacks.

He said that important factors determining these problems that can be studied to make improvement include quality of education through the university level and institutional racism which precludes blacks from certain jobs.

"What opportunities do you lack access to because of involvement in the criminal justice system?" said Cantave. "For example, in Massachusetts you have CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information). It doesn&#39t mean you have a conviction, it means you have an appearance in court. If you have one, no [employer] will look at you."

In a press release from the Trotter Institute, Cantave and institute director Dr. Barbara Lewis criticised the report for making the assumption – perhaps by omission – that black and white middle-income children start from the same standing in terms of opportunities available to them.

"We&#39re not all starting from same point," said Cantave. "If you look at income of parents in the inner-city versus the suburbs, the schools available to people – these all effect racial minorities, in particular blacks, more than whites."

Cantave also criticised the sample size of the report, cautioning against talk of a collapsing black middle class and a bleak predictions of a vicious cycle ensnaring black America.

"In this study we have a small size sample. In that sample, there were no blacks in the upper quintile to begin with," said Cantave. "There has to be more research on this."

But all the voices echoed that this is an alarming and important piece of statistical data.

"This is an important report," said Hart. "Hopefully people in the public and private sector can understand the damage that income inequality does in this society and become more proactive about doing something about income inequality between the races."