Posted on 11/13/2007 6:28:17 AM PST by shrinkermd
Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans.
Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children.
Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle class in 1968 -- a stratum with a median income of $55,600 in inflation-adjusted dollars -- grew up to be among the lowest fifth of the nation's earners, with a median family income of $23,100. Only 16 percent of whites experienced similar downward mobility. At the same time, 48 percent of black children whose parents were in an economic bracket with a median family income of $41,700 sank into the lowest income group.
This troubling picture of black economic evolution is contained in a package of three reports being released today by the Pew Charitable Trusts that test the vitality of the American dream. Using a nationally representative data source that for nearly four decades has tracked people who were children in 1968, researchers attempted to answer two questions: Do Americans generally advance beyond their parents in terms of income? How much is that affected by race and gender?
"We are attempting to broaden the current debate" beyond the growing gap between higher- and lower-income Americans, said John Morton, Pew's managing director for program planning and economic policy. "There is little out there on the question of mobility across generations, and we wanted to examine that."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Movin' On Up - (A Treasury study refutes populist hokum about "income inequality.").
You can thank the snake Johnson and his Great Society give away, why work?
More entitlements I sense.
It is Bush’s Fault, Hurricane Katrina, the 2000 selection, not election, Republicans and Reagan, I think I covered it all.
Adding to your list: divorce...sexual promiscuity and resulting pregnancies...expansion of welfare programs...encouragement of the victim mentality...generalized decay of the culture
And, how many tried to better themselves by working hard, studying, going to school, joining the military & gaining an education THAT way, like me?
How many just sat back & waited for the gov't to help them?
Frankly, since white folks are not permitted to discuss such issues without being labeled a racist or bigot, I have ceased to be concerned why it is that the dream is not being realized.
The Great Society, a creation of Lyndon Baines Johnson, was an attempt to eliminate poverty, but in reality, provided African Americans with an easy, fast-track to a place where they became wards of the state and had their, until that time, strong nuclear family ethic destroyed by government money that encouraged out-of-wedlock births. Unemployment was encouraged by relatively high welfare payments and African-American men started to provide "stud service" to African-American women who were interested in the welfare checks awarded for each child in poverty. A certain percentage of the check was to be forwarded to the man. This resulted in large numbers of African-American families without strong, male role models and self-perpetuating "underclass".
I consider it an act of genocide inflicted on the African-American society by the Democrat Party.
The parents who were middle class in 1968 would presumably have had their formative years in the 40's and 50's, pre-civil rights era. The children, on the other hand, would have grown up in the 60's and 70's. A working hypothesis would be that the civil rights agenda has not been kind to black children.
I call BS.
About 55% of my clients are Black. Many of them are “ordinary” people that have a higher net worth than I do and certainly higher than their parents do.
Do some fall to poverty? Sure. I think just as many move UP from it.
70% born out of wedlock.
It’s election time. The MSM and liberal think tanks must create some more black and minority victimhood.
Bingo!
How many now?
That's the answer.
Most white families have two bread-earners in the household much of the time, while most African-American households have one.
It is really not that perplexing. The downward trend coincides with the rise in popularity of the civil rights movement in which blacks were convinced they were a victim of the white man's society, coupled with the ever popular welfare system and affirmative action plans.
They haven’t been watching “My Sweet 16” show. At least half the snotty little rich kids on there are black.
BTW, I don’t watch it but when channel surfing it’s pause for a snort of disgust.
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