It's little things, like the cubic zirconia ring on her wedding finger; that's all her husband, Jammie, could afford.
It's big things, too, like the $80,000 her family owes in student loans, car loans and credit cards. That's about four times the median debt of a minority family and twice that of whites, according to the latest Federal Reserve figures.
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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Even with her husband's income -- he earns about $21,000 as a librarian assistant and $5.45 an hour as an usher and maintenance man at a movie theater -- the household is run on a razor-thin margin.
"I feel like I'm one step away," she says, from becoming the welfare recipients she tries to help.
Ground Gained and Lost
If it looks tough from Cobb's perspective today, the past century has told a story of progress for blacks and other minorities. The first two World Wars created new opportunities for factory jobs in the North, and blacks migrated by the millions from the Jim Crow South, creating the backbone of a nascent middle class, with relatively secure jobs and benefits. Coupled with the desegregation of colleges and universities and the increasing influence of black communities in urban centers like Washington, African Americans began to find firmer economic ground. Immigrant groups, particularly Hispanics, have also been absorbed into that generally rising economy.
Since 1967, the earliest year for which statistics are available, median household income for blacks has increased by nearly 47 percent, to $29,645 in 2003. That's much faster than the 31 percent growth rate for white households during that time. But the median for black households is still $16,000 less than for white ones, a point reinforced by a study released this week by two Duke University professors who found that African Americans in the baby boom generation have not closed the income gap.
Hispanics have made gains, too, with household median income rising to $32,997 in 2003, up 13 percent since 1972, the earliest year for which Census has tabulated data for that minority group. Asians have a household median income of $55,699, although their rate of growth, at 12 percent since 1987, the earliest year available, has not been as dramatic as it has been for blacks.
Within the trend, however, there are some troubling footnotes. The unemployment rate for blacks remains nearly double the national rate of less than 6 percent. In addition, two of the job categories that have historically helped boost black income -- manufacturing and the public sector -- are stagnating, or worse.
Public-sector jobs opened up to blacks in greater numbers in the wake of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but cuts in government spending throughout the United States in recent years have limited growth. Black employment in such jobs rose 66 percent from 1983 to 1995 but has been essentially flat since then.
The number of manufacturing jobs, meanwhile, has been sliding for a quarter-century, falling by 10 percent between 1992 and 2002 alone. Blacks lost ground at an even quicker pace: Over that same 10 years, the number of African Americans in manufacturing declined by 18 percent.
