WASHINGTON - The income gap between black and white families has grown, says a new study that tracked the incomes of some 2,300 families for more than 30 years.
Incomes have increased among both black and white families in the past three decades - mainly because more women are in the workforce. But the increase was greater among whites, according to the study, being released today.
One reason: Incomes among black men have actually declined in the past three decades, when adjusted for inflation. They were offset only by gains among black women.
Incomes among white men, meanwhile, were relatively stagnant, while those of white women increased more than fivefold.
"Overall, incomes are going up. But not all children are benefiting equally from the American dream," said Julia Isaacs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
Isaacs wrote three reports that looked at the incomes of parents in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and of their grown children 30 years later. Isaacs compared the incomes of parents who were in their 30s with the incomes of their children, once they reached the same age group.
Parents have long hoped that their children would grow up to be more successful than they were. Hopes were especially high for black children who came of age following the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
The reports found that about two-thirds of the children surveyed grew up to have higher family incomes than their parents had 30 years earlier.
Grown black children were just as likely as whites to have higher incomes than their parents. However, incomes among whites increased more than those of their black counterparts.
The result: In 2004, a typical black family had an income 58 percent of a typical white family's. In 1974, median black incomes were 63 percent of those of whites.
