"In a sense, it's a legacy of the racism that kept today's black families' grandparents out of good paying jobs," Warren says. "That echoes through the generations."
To be sure, there are more African Americans in the upper income bracket than ever before. The portion of black households making $75,000 to $99,999, for example, increased nearly fourfold between 1967 and 2003, rising to 7 percent of the black population. The portion of white households in that income range merely doubled, to 11.5 percent.
Carla Harris, chief executive of HeavenSent Consultants Inc., left, talks with operations manager Kayasa Cobb in their Miami office. Cobb, who has a master's degree, briefly considered taking on a second job to help make ends meet.
(David Adame For The Washington Post)
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About This Series
This is the fifth in a series of occasional articles about changes in the middle of the U.S. workforce -- the disappearance of many jobs that pay near the national average of $17 an hour, with such benefits as health care and pensions. Previous articles addressed topics such as the growth in itinerant workers and the tough decisions faced by businesses trying to preserve jobs. The next article will look at the prospects for jobs to take the place of those lost.
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_____Live Discussion_____
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Transcript: Post reporter Alec Klein was online to discuss this article.
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The Gap Remains: African Americans have made economic strides in the past few decades, but still lag in income and experience higher unemployment.
_____Post Series - $17 An Hour_____
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A Rough Ride for Schwinn Bicycle (The Washington Post, Dec 3, 2004)
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Slowdown Forces Many to Wander for Work (The Washington Post, Nov 9, 2004)
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Permanent Job Proves An Elusive Dream (The Washington Post, Oct 11, 2004)
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As Income Gap Widens, Uncertainty Spreads (The Washington Post, Sep 20, 2004)
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But for African Americans, the picture overall is of a group with a tenuous hold on economic health, even for those ostensibly in the middle class.
"Even for blacks who are following the model of the American middle class, going to college, getting a white-collar job, blacks have taken it on the chin," says labor economist William Spriggs, former executive director of the National Urban League Institute for Opportunity and Equality, which analyzes African-American issues.
One Step Away
That's how Cobb feels.
She grew up in the shadow of the nearby Miami projects in a small, three-bedroom home with as many as 15 relatives packed in at once. Her mother worked as a state foster care secretary for 32 years, a testament to the type of career security that generation relied on to raise their families. Cobb says her father was killed during a robbery in his home when she was 10 years old.
Cobb was the first in her family to get a college degree. When she was hired in June by HeavenSent Consultants Inc., she was thrust into the biggest job of her life. She had no experience in image consulting -- giving clients advice about how to dress and look better. But as operations manager, she handles accounting and vendor relations and oversees the company's three staffers. On occasion, she also teaches a welfare-to-work class sponsored by the firm.
The job pays $2,000 a year more than what she earned before as an assistant director of human resources at Florida Memorial College. But Cobb didn't take the consulting job because of the money. What she was looking for, she said, was "room for growth," a job that promised the possibility of owning her own business one day. Cobb would like to start a temporary employment agency, and even has a name for it: K's Temporary Service.
"I want to change my life," she says, "so my children won't have to go through this."
By "this" she means the barrage of phone calls, demanding she write a check for her overdue car payments ($346 monthly). There's day care for Kennedy, her infant daughter, at $520 a month. The family's health-insurance premium is approaching $400 a month.
