Posted on 04/12/2011 8:55:35 PM PDT by flowerplough
...Household wealth -- what is owned minus what is owed -- is important to children because it allows their parents to afford high-quality early education, save for their college tuition, help them with a down payment or leave them an inheritance. According to the latest data, black households with children hold only 4 percent of the wealth of white households. And things keep getting worse.
A new study from the Insight Center for Community Economic Development looks at U.S. households with young children. More than half of white families had incomes that were more than 185 percent of poverty levels and owned multiple assets, such as savings accounts, homes and investment portfolios, but only 14 percent of African-American families were similarly situated.
Following the same children over 13 years, it was found that the gap increased as the children grew older. In 1994 white households had $25,000 more in median wealth than African-American households, but by 2007 the gap had nearly doubled to $47,000 -- enough to pay for one child's college tuition and fees for four years.
Besides not being able to afford college, an economically vulnerable child of color is less likely to be prepared for a postsecondary education. The Insight Center study connects the dots between levels of wealth and various markers of a child's readiness for school, using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, which followed the same 14,000 children from their birth in 2001 until age 5.
(Excerpt) Read more at theroot.com ...
If any minority that is considered disadvantaged manages to make it out of high school they can get a free college education.
It is up to them and the ball is in their court. Problem is many of them come from broken homes or single parent homes.
Maybe if they were to stay in school, take responsibility, and do something besides take drugs, pah-tay and dance, they might get the money to raise their kids.
How much does that tenured Harvard professorship pay, Prof. Gates? Maybe you should pay 100% of your income to the government, call me when you’re ready to write that check.
Many rich people have horrible and or non-existent “moral fiber”. One cannot simply blame a supposed lack of morals for one’s economic status.
As a “person of color”, I will share my observations and comments on why I stated the key in this debate is moral fiber. Being rich is not the same as being wealthy, and YES lack of morals does matter.
Please do not take my points to infer that I am a communitarian, collectivist or believe in simple foolishness like social justice or collective salvation. You can infer that I am a believer and know that right and wrong exist and that there are moral absolutes! You, of course are more than free to believe what you wish.
Blame and responsibility are concepts that are crucial both to conservative thought, but also economic prosperity. They work that way in an individual and not collective manner. We have folks across America, blaming others and not taking responsibility for their actions. I do not have to point them out since you can Google their blogs, scan you-tube or read their articles in the New York Times. I was raised NOT to blame others for choices and actions that I am responsible for. That in a nutshell, is moral fiber.
Sure we often have celebrities and (those evil) rich folks that wallow in moral turpitude, decadence and self-indulgence, but still seem not to lack for material items. This talk is not about that! It is about people that make choices not grounded in morals and then wanting the system to bail them out. (Like GM. AIG and the State of California). The comment I posted was directed at an article that wants to excuse poor behavior and I was not going there….
The most of the comments that followed were far more enlightened than the article.
You should have put “free” in quotes.
What hurts “children of color” is being stuck in a dysfunctional culture.
Why? Poor people don’t pay anything for public schooling.
But people who pay property taxes do so it’s not “free.”
The problem would mostly go away if the mothers would stop having children out of wedlock.
It’s free to the people this article is about.
Isn’t it ashame they don’t take advantage of it? It’s the least they could do.
Yes, that is the point I was making.
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