There is a huge assumption in American society that somehow White folks have it better than Black, Latino and even Asian folks. Most high income places in America are predominantly White. The quite and safety of the suburbs is associated with White people. The face of affluence in America is very White. Oprah was the only Black person in Forbes 400 richest Americans list. Asians also only made 4% of the Forbes list as well. But how much truth is there really to this stereotype that Whites really have it better, as a whole? America is vastly White, yet some estimates suggest that 50% of Americans qualify as low-income earners.
Almost 50% of Americans Live in Poverty | Alliance for Sustainable Colorado
This study may not be entirely accurate. Still, some recent studies have concluded that income disparity between Whites and Blacks and Latinos are at an all-time high. This study concluded that the median White household worth is a whopping twenty times more than the median worth of Black households and eighteen times that of the median worth of Latino households.
Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics | Pew Social & Demographic Trends
These findings may obviously be a bit exaggerated and skewed. Many cynical people will chalk up these vast income differences between Blacks and Whites to a lack of education and or work ethic. But even Blacks who do pursue higher education have much higher unemployment rates and more student loan debt than White college graduates. Black college grads have double the unemployment rate of White college grads.
Black college grad unemployment rates double White counterparts
Black College Grads Have More Student Loan Debt | Essence.com
Employment, in general, is poorer for Blacks than Whites. Blacks have the highest unemployment of any racial group. Some studies suggest that a White man who is a convicted felon is more likely to get a job than a Black man with a clean record. Other studies conclude people with Black sounding names (i.e. Tenisha, Tamika, Diquan) do not get calls for interviews after sending their resumes to employers.
Study: Black man and white felon – same chances for hire – Anderson Cooper 360 - CNN.com Blogs
Ethnic Names Can Hinder Job Search | Black Radio Network
However, an overlooked fact is that outside of large cities and metro areas is made up of massive swaths of nothing but middle to low-income White people living in the middle of nowhere. Chris Rock would agree. The entire state of West Virginia is an example of the great White rural poverty that exists in America.
BUT, Blacks and Latinos do have higher poverty rates than Whites. Approximately one out of four Black people officially live below the poverty line compared to one out of ten Whites. Most Black households are led by single mothers. Also, the homicide rate for Black men is exponentially higher than that of White men. Black men are nearly seven times more likely to be murdered than White men. Black men are also much more likely to go to prison than Whites. Black men are six times more likely to go to prison in their lifetime than White men. Black men also make up over 50% of all drug arrests in the United States.
Poverty in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Truth About Black Crime
Study: Black Homicide Rate Stands Nearly Seven Times that for Whites | EURweb
Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate - Health - Women's health - msnbc.com
A dirty little secret is that many Asians are actually statistically not that much different from similarly situated Blacks in many cases, economically-speaking. In fact, Asians living some urban areas have similar to worse poverty rates as Blacks.
Poverty Index
Cities where Asians are actually statistically significant (i.e. San Francisco, Long Beach, Fresno, Oakland) have bad problems with Asian gangs and violent crime in the Asian American community.
Inside Chinatown's gangs
Despite the fact that Blacks, Hispanics and certain subsets of Asians and Pacific Islanders may have higher poverty and violent crime/victimization and incarceration rates than Whites, there are more Whites on welfare than any other group, in terms of raw numbers. At the end of the day, Whites, like any race, are not a monolithic group. A dirt poor White person living in a trailer park in Mississippi has
nothing in common with a wealthy White person descending from old money living in Georgetown in DC aside from their common ethnicity/race. Can anybody here argue that Whites do have it better? Or anybody want to argue the opposite?
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