Title: INCOME GAP BETWEEN RACES WIDE AS IN 1960, STUDY FINDS - The New York Times
Headings: INCOME GAP BETWEEN RACES WIDE AS IN 1960, STUDY FINDS
INCOME GAP BETWEEN RACES WIDE AS IN 1960, STUDY FINDS
By John Herbers, Special To the New York Times
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Content: Education Nearly Equal
The study showed that the educational level of blacks climbed so fast over the last two decades that it is now very close to that of whites. That has generated the movement of many blacks into the middle class, although the income earned by black college graduates is about the same as that earned by white high school graduates. But those gains were offset by the large number of black families in which there is not a husband present to earn money. Fourteen percent of white families with children under 18 are headed by women, while 47 percent of black families are in that category, up from 8 percent in 1950 and 21 percent in 1960. The problem is compounded, the study showed, by the fact that only 55 percent of black men over the age of 16 are employed today, as against 74 percent in 1960. As a consequence, the median income of black families in 1981 was 56 percent of the whites' median. In 1960, the figure was 55 percent; the difference of one percentage point is statistically insignificant. Women and Poverty
The report said that families headed by women were nearly twice as likely to be poor as two-parent families, regardless of race, and that half of all black families headed by women had incomes below the poverty line. ''Despite the fact that black Americans have made some gains since the civil rights movement,'' the report said, ''the economic gap between blacks and whites remains wide and is not diminishing.