Ann Givens contributed to this story. Children are living messages we send to a time we will not see. Just two decades ago, barely half of African-Americans age 25 and older had finished high school or college. There have been more opportunities to provide for my family. Wilson logged two years of college.
Analysts say the higher education rates are only partly responsible for the higher incomes.
As unemployment has dropped and employers reach out to pools of labor they might be less likely to have tapped in earlier years, they are hiring or giving better jobs to blacks and Hispanics. The 1990s posted particular economic gains for African-Americans, who last numbered about 35.5 million. Black median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose 15 percent between 1989 and 1999, the latest available figures, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis. Over the same decade, median household income for whites increased by 6 percent. Hispanic household income increased by 4 percent, and Asian household income grew by 5.6 percent, the analysis shows.