There's one segment of the black population that suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only 13.7 percent of their under-5-year-olds are poor. There's another segment of the black population that suffers a 39.5 percent poverty rate, and 58.1 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor.
Among whites, one population segment suffers a 6 percent poverty rate, and only 9.9 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor. Another segment of the white population suffers a 26.4 percent poverty rate, and 52 percent of its under-5-year-olds are poor.
What do you think distinguishes the high and low poverty populations? The only statistical distinction between both the black and white populations is marriage. There is far less poverty in married-couple families, where presumably at least one of the spouses is employed. Fully 85 percent of black children living in poverty reside in a female-headed household.
I tend to think that race is over-rated as a predictive factor in America. For instance, in education, they always talk about the "black-white test gap." They never talk about the "unwed mother vs. two-parent test gap." I'll bet that the latter is larger.
I agree, but I also think there is a real shortage of black men for black women to marry. Sadly, this is a racial issue and it has a large negative effect on wealth outcomes. For whatever reason, lack of marriage is a problem affecting the Afircan American community in a harmful way.
As this National Center for Policy Analysis report indicates, if you do four simple things, you are virtually guarunteed to stay out of poverty:
- Stay in School
- Get a Job
- Get Married
- Don't Have Children Out of Wedlock
The great thing is that none of these things is out of the reach of most people. (I'm still working on #3 and have way overdone #1.) The tragic thing is that #3 seems to be increasingly difficult for African American women, leading to a lot of #4.
Read all of Dr. Williams' article. It's really good.
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