Hudlin's Huddle >> David Evans
Family Assets in U. S. ( Whites: $100K; Blacks:$5K )

This link is to an article in the May 17, 2010 issue of The Guardian in which are reported some startling results from a Brandeis University study on the disparities between white family assets and African American family assets.  The following quotation captures the essence of the findings:
 
“White families typically have assets worth $100,000 (£69,000), up from $22,000 in the mid-1980s. African-American families' assets stand at just $5,000, up from around $2,000.”
 
Given the troubling conditions of too many schools attended by African American students and the intense and glittery consumerism beamed to them by television and other media, I’m compelled to ask:  What does all of this portend for the future?  How can students from families with such limited economic resources and prepared in schools that are too often substandard and chaotic, replenish the workforce?  How will they acquire their expensive, media-defined “toys” when they will have neither the money to buy them nor the skills to earn them?
 
Given current demographic trends in the United States, we should all contemplate how these economic and educational disparities will affect the long-term maintenance of Social Security, pension funds, tax bases, etc.

Posted Jun 11 2010

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