Median Worth of U.S. Households
Why are white Americans recovering from the recession so much better than black Americans?
The CEPR study points out that the recession made it difficult for all young people to get jobs, and racial prejudices in the U.S. have always skewed the labor market against black applicants. Employers are less likely to call back applicants with names that sound African American, according to some studies.Additionally, black U.S. graduates who are working are more likely to be overqualified than other Americans. Of the black college graduates ages 22 through 27 who were working in 2013, 55.9 percent had jobs that didn’t even require four-year degrees, up from 45 percent in 2007. For all recent college grads, that number has hovered around 44 percent for the last decade. (It was 45 percent in 2013, according to the report.)
And even black Americans who are wealthy recovered from the recession at a lower level than their white counterparts—at least in part because the two groups invest their money differently. Stocks, in which white Americans invest more so than black Americans, have done well since the recession ended. Meanwhile, black Americans tend to pursue more conservative investments such as certificates of deposit, life insurance, and savings bonds.
Article Appeared @http://blackstarjournal.org/?p=4561