By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Record percentages of blacks with college and high school degrees and better job opportunities are translating into more money in the pockets of black families, the Census Bureau reports.
About 79 percent of blacks 25 and older had earned at least a high school diploma as of March 2000, according to estimates in a Census report being released today. Seventeen percent of blacks 25 and older also possessed at least a bachelor's degree.
The estimates do not come from the 2000 census; the first statistics on minorities from the 2000 count will be released starting next month.
Rising educational achievement was a prime reason why income for black households increased at a faster clip than for all households combined, said Roderick Harrison, an analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Median household income for black households was $27,910 in 1999, the latest year available. It was up 7.7 percent from the previous year, accounting for inflation.
The figure, though, was still lower than the national median household income of $40,816, up 2.7 percent.
"Blacks were slower to benefit from the boom (in the 1990s), but in the last part of the decade they started catching up," Harrison said. "Their percentage increases are larger because their base is smaller."
Economic revivals in black inner-city neighborhoods, primarily in Washington and New York, and a leveling off in the number of single-parent households also contributed to the jump in income, Harrison said.
There were an estimated 35.5 million black Americans in November 2000, comprising 12.8 percent of the population. Over half of blacks - 54.4 percent - live in the South, and 53.1 percent live in cities, the report found.
