State of the Dream 2005 (America, POV, Article)

[Pah]

• In 2000, the African American unemployment rate reached a historic low of 7.1%, but it has been 9.9% or higher since January 2002. Latino / Hispanic unemployment rates also dropped from 8.0% in 1988 to 5.7% in 2000, but rose again in the last four years.
• About half of the progress in the median income of people of color from 1996 to 2000 was wiped out in the following three years. For the first time in 15 years, the average Latino household now has an income that is less than two-thirds that of the average white household. After slowly increasing from 55% of white income in 1988 to 65% in 2000, black median income fell again to 62% of the white median in 2003.
• Throughout the 1990s, poverty rates fell across the board, declining fastest for African Americans and Latinos. But since 2000, more than one third of that progress in reducing poverty among African American families has been erased, as 300,000 African-American families fell below the poverty line from 2000 to 2003.
• Private retirement income and inheritances remain scarce among people of color.
• Ownership of homes, stock and businesses remains disproportionately in white hands. While homeownership is up for all races, most people of color still rent, while three-quarters of white families own their homes.
• Business owners of color, who are largely small business owners, received only minor tax breaks from the four Bush tax cuts. Most tax breaks for business and investors have landed with those who are wealthy and white.

Taken from an articlehere