Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Black children are nearly three times as likely to be poor as whites, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.
In 1993, 46 percent of black children were living in poverty, compared with 17 percent of white children, the bureau reported, a trend Commerce Secretary Ron Brown described as disturbing.
``This information provides further evidence that we are in danger of becoming a society of haves and have-nots. This is unacceptable,'' said Brown.
And the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which researches trends in the black community, noted that while the growth of out-of-wedlock childbearing seems to have stabilized among black teens, the share of black youngsters in two-parent households is at an all-time low of 36 percent. One-parent families tend to have higher poverty rates than those with two parents.
``This situation constitutes a grave threat to the future of African-Americans and society at large,'' the center said in a statement.
The overall poverty rate for black families was 39 percent in 1993, the studies found, up from 32 percent in 1969. During the same period the poverty rate for white families climbed from 8 percent to 14 percent.
The new studies - ``The Black Population in the United States: March 1994 and 1993'' and ``Characteristics of the Black Population: 1990'' - provide hundreds of pages of tables and charts.
There was some good news, in the finding that blacks are increasingly finishing school and moving into good jobs. But despite that progress, they continue to earn less than whites.
The studies found a 5 percent annual high-school dropout rate for blacks, close to the 4 percent for whites.
Between 1980 and 1994, the percentage of blacks age 25 and over who had completed high school rose from 51 percent to 73 percent; and 13 percent had bachelor's degrees, up from 8 percent.
Among college-educated full-time workers, about 28 percent of black men held executive, administrative or managerial jobs in 1993, close to the 30 percent of white men.
But the median earnings of those blacks were 86 percent of what the whites received, $46,980 compared with $54,680.
The reports also noted the 1993 median income of black families was $21,550, not statistically different, when adjusted for inflation, from 1969. Whites' median income was $39,310, up 9 percent.
And they found that more black women than men were employed - 6 million compared with 5.4 million. About 51 percent of college-educated black women held professional, executive, administrative or technical jobs, compared with 34 percent of black men with college degrees, the report said.
Between 1970 and 1990, the share of unmarried black teens who had babies climbed only slightly, from 78 per thousand to 81 per thousand. Among white teens the rate jumped from 8 per thousand to 20 per thousand.
by CNB