Black MBA - Fall 2008 - (Page 30) FEATURE Is the Middle Class Disappearing? middle-income parents fell to the bottom-income quintile, compared to the 16 percent of white children who hit rock bottom. “Many middle-income Black parents have seen their children’s incomes fall below their own, and disturbingly high numbers of Black children have fallen from the middle to the bottom of the income distribution,” Isaacs reports. “Economic success in the parental generation – at least as measured by family income – does not appear to protect Black children from future economic adversity the same way it protects white children.” This downward mobility amid the backdrop of tremendous civil rights gains is disturbing enough, but the Black middle class’s tenuous position has gotten even shakier given the current housing crisis and conservative policy environment. An alarming number of today’s Black middle class parents are themselves at high risk of falling down the economic ladder and bringing their children along with them. 30 BlackMBA • Fall 2008 • www.nbmbaa.org SLIPPERY SLOPE The middle-income designation obscures a broad array of financial, social, political and even cultural factors that make Black middle-class status peculiarly fragile. In fact, many middleincome Blacks lack the degrees, occupational status and other attributes that many think of as middle-class. Black families are concentrated in the lower-income levels within the middle class, and even at equal income levels they tend to lag far behind whites in educational attainment and wealth accumulation – two factors that bolster one’s ability to navigate tough economic times like these. Members of the Black middle class have just 15 cents of wealth for every dollar their white counterparts possess and most of their wealth is held in their home or car equity. Middle-class Blacks are more likely to live in close proximity to high school dropouts and the unemployed than comparable whites. College-educated Blacks frequently contend with worse schools and greater levels of crime, drug abuse and urban decay in their neighborhoods. A disproportionate number of middle-income Blacks work in blue-collar professions, which have been hit heavily in the current economic slump. Recent research from the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University and Demos, a New Yorkbased public policy research firm, found that only a quarter of Black middle-class families have the assets, education and income after expenses and health insurance that is needed to maintain their middle-class status. One in three is at high risk of falling out of the class. Roughly 95 percent of Black families don’t have the net assets to cover their essential living expenses for three months if their income were interrupted, compared with 78 percent among the middle class as a whole. Just 2 percent could manage for nine months, compared with the already low national average of 13 percent. A full 68 percent of Black middle-class households have no net financial assets at all. http://www.nbmbaa.org
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