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The State of the Dream 2004: Enduring Disparities in Black and White

Key Findings

America has endured the unendurable for too long. More than 35 years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, his vision of justice and equality remains on the distant horizon.

In some areas, the racial gap has actually widened since the 1960s.

• One in nine African Americans cannot find a job. Black unemployment is more than double the white rate, 10.8% versus 5.2% in 2003 -- a wider gap than in 1972.

• The typical Black family had 60% as much income as a white family in 1968, but only 58% as much in 2002.

• Black infants are almost two and a half times as likely as white infants to die before age one - a greater gap than in 1970. The 2001 mortality rate was 14 deaths per 1,000 live births for Black infants, and 5.7 for white infants.

Where progress has occcurred in closing the Black-white divide, it has been so slow that is would take decades, or even centuries, at the same pace of progress for African Americans to reach parity with white Americans.

• For every dollar of white per capita income, African Americans had 55 cents in 1968 - and only 57 cents in 2001. At this pace, it would take Blacks 581 years to get the remaining 43 cents.^]

• In 2001, the typical Black household had a net worth of just $19,000 (including home equity), compared with $121,000 for whites. Blacks had 16% of the median wealth of whites, up from 5% in 1989. At this rate it will take until 2099 to reach parity in median wealth.^]

• A Black high school graduate working full time from age 25 through age 64 would earn $300,000 less on average than their white counterpart during their working years. A Black college graduate would earn $500,000 less.

• The Black poverty rate was three times greater than the white poverty rate in 2002. At the slow rate that the Black-white poverty gap has been narrowing since 1968, it would take 150 years, until 2152, to close.^]

• While white homeownership has jumped from 65% to 75% of families since 1970, Black homeownership has only risen from 42% to 48%. At this rate, it would take 1,664 years to close the homeownership gap - about 55 generations.

• If current rates of incarceration continue, one out of three African American males born today will be imprisoned at some point during their lifetimes.^]

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United for a Fair Economy • Racial Wealth Divide Project 1