Report weighs impact of black population

African-Americans in North Carolina contribute more than $44.7 billion a year to the state's economy through purchases and taxes while costing the state $4.5 billion for health care, education and corrections, researchers said today.

The report was prepared by researchers at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC-Chapel Hill's business school. The numbers work out to $22,272 in benefits and $2,498 in costs per black resident.

The report details the impact of spending and employment and the costs to state government from its black population.

The state has 1.8 million black residents, making up 21.8 percent of the total population. African-Americans accounted for 20.4 percent of the state's growth from 1980 to 2004.

"This study shows that clear opportunities exist for financial institutions and other businesses to capitalize on this growing market," Andrea Harris, president of the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development, said in a statement. The institute was a major funder of the study.

The report found that African-Americans annually pay less in state and local taxes than they receive in benefits from state and local governments.

African-Americans pay $3.8 billion in state and local taxes, while costing state and local budgets about $4.5 billion for education, health care and corrections, the researchers found. The net cost to the state is about $759 million, or approximately $420 per resident.

The report used data from 2004 and 2005. Among its other findings:

- The state's African-American population has a median age of 32, substantially younger than the median age of 39 for the state's white population.

- Blacks are less likely than whites to live in nuclear families (41 percent versus 70 percent) and more likely to live in single-parent families (42 percent versus 11 percent).

- African-American households average 3.3 persons, compared with 3 persons on average in white households.

- African-Americans accounted for 29.3 percent of the increase in the state's workforce from 1995 to 2005, with two sectors - education and health services and leisure and hospitality services - absorbing the largest increases.

- A $19,570 gap exists in median income between black and white households. The difference in per-capita income between the races is $11,970.

- Blacks are more likely than whites to be concentrated in low-paying occupations, accounting for the income difference.

- African-Americans represent 59 percent of all those incarcerated in North Carolina, which is disproportionate to their share of the population.