The Economic and Educational State of Black Americans in the 21st Century: Should We be Optimistic or Concerned?

This report presents an overview of the economic and educational status of black Americans. In addition to summarizing blacks' current economic condition, long-term trends are also presented. The purpose of this report is to highlight information that will accentuate the magnitude of the black socioeconomic disadvantage. My goal is to generate discussion about policies in which people have an awareness of the scale and time it will take to address racial inequality. Therefore, this report is more descriptive than prescriptive. To help facilitate thinking about potential policy directions, economic patterns are shown across various presidential administrations.