The black community is not better off today – I would like to think so but its misinformed optimism. Wide spread black community success is a façade, yes, you hear black voices on the radio and hear the occasional first black news story, but do not be mislead for one moment. The black community, in general, is producing children in worse shape than the parent and that parent is in worse shape than their parents. The next 50 years will produce the greatest opportunities of this nation, but will bypass over 80 percent of the black population, unless we address the following issues Individually and with the community.
1) 53 PERCENT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS DO NOT REGULARLY USE A BANK ACCOUNT
2) 34.5 PERCENT OF YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN ARE UNEMPLOYED
3) AFRICAN AMERICAN DEBT IS INCREASING FASTER THAN INCOME
4) ONLY 48% OF AFRICAN AMERICANS OWN A HOME
5) 48% OF AFRICAN AMERICANS HOME REFINANCE APPLICATIONS WERE REJECTED
6) ONLY 5% OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS EARN OVER 100,000 A YEAR
7) AFRICAN AMERICAN REPRESENTS HALF OF ALL AMERICANS WITH HIV
8) AFRICAN AMERICANS EARNED ONLY 3% MORE BACHELOR DEGREES THAN IN 1977
9) 41% OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN HAVE NEVER BEEN MARRIED
10) 10% OF COUNTRY’S ENTIRE BLACK MALE POPULATION, BETWEEN 25 AND 29, WERE IN PRISON
11) 69% OF AFRICAN AMERICAN BABIES BORN IN 2004 WERE TO UNMARRIED PARENTS.
12) 14% OF ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS AGED 20 OR OLDER HAVE DIABETES.
DETAILS BELOW:
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53 PERCENT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS DO NOT REGULARLY USE A BANK ACCOUNT
“More than one in four American households, including more than half of black households, use check cashers, payday lenders or pawnbrokers rather than a bank, according to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation report to be released today.
Nearly 30 million households have no bank account or have one but also use alternate financial services at least occasionally, according to the FDIC report. The survey, the FDIC's first in-depth study of the issue, was conducted by the Census Bureau.
The problem is most acute among minorities: 53 percent of African-American households and 43 percent of Hispanic households use check cashers or similar services instead of or in addition to banks.
Buying money orders and cashing checks are the most frequent transactions, the survey shows. Those using check cashers and other services say they are faster, cheaper and more convenient than banks - even though they pay a fee to cash a check they could deposit in a bank account for free.”
Read the article:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/200... _____________________________________________________________
34.5 PERCENT OF YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN ARE UNEMPLOYED
Joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population.
Read the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... _____________________________________________________________
AFRICAN AMERICAN DEBT IS INCREASING FASTER THAN INCOME
African American White
CREDIT CARD DEBT
AS % OF INCOME
FOR CARDHOLDERS 8.5 5.7
TOTAL DEBT
AS % OF
NETWORTH 42.3 16.5
SOURCE: BASED ON FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD OF GOVERNORS 1989 AND 2001
SURVEYS OF CONSUMER FINANCES
Read the article:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m136... ____________________________________________________________________
ONLY 48% OF AFRICAN AMERICANS OWN A HOME
After peaking at 69 percent in 2004, the rate of homeownership for all American households declined to 67.8 percent in 2008. For African-American households, it fell to 47.5 percent in 2008 from 49.4 percent in 2004.
Read the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/us/13hom... 48% OF AFRICAN AMERICANS HOME REFINANCE APPLICATIONS WERE REJECTED.
Nationwide, black people seeking home loans were rejected more in 2008 than any other racial or ethnic group—48 percent of their applications to purchase or refinance owner-occupied homes were rejected. That’s 22 percent more than the rejection rate for white people, 21 percent more than the rate for Asians and 6 percent more than the rate for Latinos.
According to the Fed study, for every dollar in wealth the median white family had in 2007, the median black family had one dime. Several years earlier, in 2004, the black median family had 14.5 cents for every dollar accumulated by the median white family.
Read the article:
http://www.chicagoreporter.com/index.php/c... __________________________________________________________
Buying Power Among African-Americans to Reach $1.1 Trillion by 2012 - 5% of African-Americans earn over 100,000 a year
45% of that trillion is spent by 17% of African American households earning over 75,000 a year.
What is notable is that in the U.S. there are 2.4 million affluent African-American households with household incomes of $75,000 or more. They account for 17% of all African-American households but 45% of total African- American buying power.
Read the article:
http://emergingminds.org/Buying-Power-Amon... Read the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_inc... _______________________________________________________________________
AFRICAN AMERICAN REPRESENTS HALF OF ALL AMERICANS WITH HIV.
To date, over 225,000 African Americans have died of AIDS - nearly 40% of total deaths - and of the more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States of America today, around half are black. And yet, as a racial group, African Americans represent just 13% of the US population
Read the article:
http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans... ________________________________________________________________________
AFRICAN AMERICANS EARN ONLY 3% MORE BACHELOR DEGREES THAN IN 1977.
Only about two out of every five black students who enroll as freshmen in college go on to graduate within six years from the same institution they entered.
For blacks, business management was by a large margin the most popular major; however, Businesses owned by African Americans made up 4 percent of the 20.8 million nonfarm businesses in the nation and 0.4 percent of the $18.6 trillion in receipts for all businesses.
Read the article:
http://www.jbhe.com/features/64_degreeleve... Read the article:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/20... ________________________________________________________________________
41% OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN HAVE NEVER BEEN MARRIED
The marriage rate for African Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, we have the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. In 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 43.3 percent of black men and 41.9 percent of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 27.4 percent and 20.7 percent respectively for whites. African American women are the least likely in our society to marry.
3.7% of married Black American women and 8.4% of married Black American men had a non-Black spouse. 6.6% of married Black men and 2.8% of married Black women had a White spouse. 0.1% of married Black women were married to Asian American men, representing the least prevalent marital combination.
Read the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... Read the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_m... ________________________________________________________________________
10% OF COUNTRY’S ENTIRE BLACK MALE POPULATION, BETWEEN 25 AND 29, WERE IN PRISON
According to the report dated December 31, 2002, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported 10.4 percent of the country's entire black male population, between the ages of 25 and 29, were in prison.
That is in comparison to 2.4 percent of Hispanic males and 1.2 percent of white males in the same age group.
Read the article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/9... _____________________________________________________________________________
69% of African American babies born in 2004 were to unmarried parents.
Blacks in U.S. Year
Families headed by married parents 36.4% 2005
Families headed by single fathers 8.6% 2005
Families headed by single mothers 55% 2005
Unemployment rate for ages 16+ 13.2% 2005
Median household income $30,939 2005
Children ages 0-17 in poverty 56.2% 2005
Households owning their home 45.8% 2005
18-year-olds with high school diploma* 73.3% 2004
Students in gifted and talented programs** 9% 2006
Infant deaths N/A 2004
Babies born at low birth weight 13.4% 2004
Babies born pre-term 17.7% 2004
Babies born to unmarried parents 68.8% 2004
Number of libraries per 1,000 children age 0-19 1.4 2005
Number of teen births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 63.1 2004
*Estimate based on 2004 National Center for Education Statistics data and 2004 American Community Survey population data. Calculation by the Indiana Youth Institute. **U.S. comparison statistic is for 2005
________________________________________________________________________
14% of all African Americans aged 20 or older have diabetes.
• 3.7 million, or 14.7 percent of all African Americans aged 20 years or older have diabetes.
• African Americans are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes as non Hispanic whites.
• 25 percent of African Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have diabetes.
• 1 in 4 African American women over 55 years of age has diabetes.
“Diet, is also a major factor responsible for causing diabetes.
Eating too much of Carbohydrates, fats, proteins, are all harmful to the body. Our body in general needs a balanced diet to produce energy for performing vital functions. Too much of food, hampers the pancreas from performing its function of insulin secretion. Hence, with insufficient insulin secretion, the blood sugar level rises, leading to diabetes mellitus. Normally, people are in habit of eating foods rich in refined carbohydrates, like biscuits, bread, cakes, chocolate, ice creams, pudding, etc. So, the incidences of diabetes are increased in such persons”
Read the article:
http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabet... Read the article:
http://www.diabetesmellitus-information.co...
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Thursday, December 10th 2009 at 2:15AM
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