
In contrast, the Census Bureau has reported a steady increase in median household income in the District, estimated at $58,000 in 2008. But there are big disparities between white and black families. Although white households had a median income of about $101,000 in 2008, the median income of black households was about $39,000.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/24/AR2010032403043.html |
Maybe it is time for the blacks of DC to get off their ass and go to work and give up the welfare check. That would fix the problem for sure. |
Agree. But white households are probably more likely to be double (or single high earning) income earned by well-educated college graduate transplants. I am guessing many black households are longtime residents without a college education and perhaps many are single mothers. |
Wow talk about a blast from the past. Some of these posts are so 1960. My household is both black and white. How do we fit into this data? Do they attribute my income to the black people in dc and his to the whites? Being born black doesn't make you poor, uneducated and destined for welfare. Just as being born white doesn't mean you're going to end up at Sidwell, Harvard and then "Big Law". These racial categories are ridiculous and out of date. 2010 is not 1960. The world is not black and white. People don't fit into neat little categories that only serve to reinforce negative stereotyping. |
My guess is that a major cause of the disparity is that DC has never attracted poor whites. Imbalance at that income level could account for the difference in medians, masking the fact that the professional levels of DC society are much better integrated.
Are there statistics, for example, of the racial breakdown of the income of DC lawyers or dentists? |
"Are there statistics, for example, of the racial breakdown of the income of DC lawyers or dentists?"
Women and minorities make up a small percentage of equity partners at firms. |
There are many poor whites in Baltimore. It has a different feel when you see that there are many white "welfare queens" in other parts of this country. |
I think it's a difference between "been heres" and "come heres", as they say in the South. African Americans have been here, and whites are constantly coming here (other folks, too, but whites are a majority).
So it's self-selecting, in a way. There are just as many poor white families in the town I grew up in as there are poor black families here in DC. People without means tend to stay where they grew up. People who have means tend to get higher education, then migrate to centers of power, such as DC. This is not a black/white thing if viewed across the board. It's a class/opportunities thing. Include my midwestern hometown in the analysis, and it becomes quite obvious. |
Might want to look up "redlining" too. DC has been the de facto ghetto for blacks of all economic classes until the 70s. Then the upper middle class moved out. The the middle class. As DC's black folks go from poor to middle class, they move out of the city. Most of who's left are poor.
I don't understand the sentiment that the disparity between black families and white families in the district is somehow sadder than the disparity in the US in general. Just seems very provincial for folks to bemoan different socioeconomic classes living together. I guess it would be better if DC were still a de jure ghetto, and only white people were allowed to live in the suburbs. |
I agree with your post, and I'm a NP from a midwestern city where the poorest, multi-generation welfare, dad-is-in-prison-for-drugs people are equal parts white, black, and native American. It's not sadder in the District than in Kansas City. What I find striking in the District, and only in the District, is the stark difference in skin tone and the correlation with HHI. (*not* causation all you haters, correlation. Don't post that you're AA and a Dr., I get that that's possible in 2010). |
I guess my point was that 20-30 years ago, there were almost no middle-class white people in DC. In another 20 years, there will be almost no poor blacks in DC. Not sure either one of those situations are worse than the present situation. |
And what is the problem? What are you accusing them of? They do not have access to the fancy private schools the 'others' are sending their kids to. What do you know about life ?? |
Not PP. But isn't Affirmative Action and use of different selection criteria meant to equalize the inequities? |
Affirmative action doesn't pay for private school. And to the "ass" poster, most well-off people would like to think it is their hard work and initiative that landed them where they are today. But the biggest statistical driver of their wealth and income is the wealth and income of their parents. So really, while rich white people might be doing better than their parents, the numbers say it has a lot more to do with the opportunity their parents gave them than their personal effort. How this translates: you busted your ass to get into a top law school. Some other kid busted his ass to make it through community college while paying his mom's rent. |
There is a little bit of affirmative action for the children of the priveledge Those with legacy status or great wealth get easier into the Ivies, and the fancy smanchy privates, and are sure to be set for life regardless of how lazy they actually are. I know that some neighbourhoods with a bad reputation actually have sensible young people. And some wealthy ones bratty kids that you would not want your kid to hang around with. The world is not such a beautiful place. A handfull of needy students get a charity break. |