![]() “She’s really positive and makes me believe that I can do anything.” I look to her for a good example,” she said. Grant’s role model is her mother, an electrical engineer in the DC Metro system. “The lives that they seem to have are not how they actually live.” “The image of celebrities is false,” says Ariel Grant, a 16-year-old student at Banneker High School. Schools and colleges need to do more to identify, recruit, and support young black men so they are accepted, attend, and graduate from four-year colleges and universities in the US.Among today’s teenagers, celebrities are losing out to parents as role models. What’s more: right now, only a small minority of black men graduate from college: 17%. Given that racial segregation, poverty, and bias affect the odds that young black males get caught up in the criminal justice system, systemic racism limits the economic fortunes of black men. The odds of black men in their 50s making it to the middle class were about 60% lower for those who were charged with a crime as a young adult. Black men are significantly less likely to make it into the middle and upper class than their white and Asian-American peers. Of course, the story our report tells is not all rose-colored. This marriage advantage played a role in boosting their later odds of success. Moreover, the US military is also known for its marriage-oriented culture, and we found that black men who served in the military as young men were much more likely to be married later, at ages 29-37, compared to their peers who did not serve. ![]() My only crime was being a black man in America We found that serving in the military was associated with a 72% increase in the odds that black men made it into the middle class or higher as 50-something men.īy providing stable work, good health care, housing, and opportunities for advancement, by championing virtues such as duty, responsibility, loyalty, and perseverance, and by pushing racial integration, the US military has served as an important route into the middle class. Their financial well-being is higher partly because married black women contribute a higher share of income to the household than other married women.Īdding to the chances of black men achieving middle class and higher status is the US military. ![]() We found, for instance, that the odds that black men make it to the middle or upper class are at least three times higher for those men who marry, compared to their peers who never married. Tracking black men from young adulthood through their 50s using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we identified three factors that are associated with their success: education, work, and marriage.īlack men who worked full-time, had some college education, or were married were much more likely to be members of the middle or upper class by the time they got to their 50s. So, what routes are black men taking to make it in America? Alan Jenkins, executive director of Opportunity Agenda, a social justice organization, noted that “Research and experience show that expectations and biases on the part of potential employers, teachers, health care providers, police officers, and other stakeholders influence the life outcomes of millions of black males.” Racial bias is not just a Starbucks problemĬorrecting overly negative depictions and attitudes regarding black men is important because they shape how black men are treated, and how black men view their potential. In other words, about one-in-two black men in America have reached the middle class or higher. Second, and more importantly, the share of black men in the middle or upper class – as measured by their family income – has risen from 38% in 1960 to 57% today. Our new report, “ Black Men Making It In America,” spotlights two pieces of particular good news about the economic well-being of black men.įirst, the share of black men in poverty has fallen from 41% in 1960 to 18% today. In fact, millions of black men are flourishing in America today. Mincyĭespite a portrait of race relations that often highlights the negative, especially regarding black men (many Americans, according to a 2006 study by the Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University, believed that crime, unemployment, and poverty are endemic among African-American men), the truth is that most black men will not be incarcerated, are not unemployed, and are not poor – even if black men are more likely than other men to experience these outcomes.
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