A fair field

A new study says African-Americans are falling further behind in income. The challenge is to make sure the field is level

A survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington conducted this fall found that just 20 percent of African-Americans consider things to be better off for the country's black citizens than they were five years ago. That's the lowest level of optimism since 1983, but it tracks a nagging feeling among many African-Americans about advancements since the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and '70s. And as if to confirm the first survey, a second one released this week says that the income gap between black and white families has grown over the past 30 years.

That's discouraging in view of the hard work done over recent decades by leaders in the black community and across American society. In fact, 82 percent of whites responded in the Pew survey that they have a favorable impression of blacks, while 80 percent of blacks said the same about whites. Yet the income disparity is hard evidence that there's still work to be done.

African-Americans are no longer banned from hotels or restaurants, but the income study suggests that the average black family still is less likely than its white counterpart to be able to rent a comfortable room and eat a good meal after a hard day on the road.

That study, conducted by four Washington think tanks spanning the ideological spectrum, found that incomes rose for blacks and whites alike between 1974 and 2004, an improved living standard overall that is worth cheering. But the racial gap in wealth also grew. In 1974, the median black income was 63 percent of whites. By 2004, the income of a typical black family was 58 percent of a typical white one. In other words, large numbers of minorities aren't sharing in the promise of American society, a promise that includes rising expectations.

A practical consequence is less wealth being handed down from African-American parents to children compared with the transfers that take place in white families, a pattern that contributes to the gap. It also is bound to affect African-Americans' rate of saving, investment and accumulation of property. Actually, it's no wonder that other surveys consistently show blacks having a more pessimistic outlook toward the future than whites.

Such attitudes help explain why blacks, especially young males, take low-paying jobs or don't work at all, which no doubt worsens the income gap. Entertainer Bill Cosby and other black leaders are challenging the community regarding work ethics, and actually, 53 percent of African-Americans told the Pew researchers that blacks who don't get ahead have themselves to blame, not discrimination.

Addressing the income disparity of course shouldn't mean cutting the income of white families. But leaders who would keep faith with America's notion of equal opportunity need to redouble efforts to rid society of any sense that success inevitably has a racial component. It's a reprehensible idea.

The slide since 1974 is due in part to muddle-headed opposition to programs that helped blacks overcome the harsh effects of legal segregation. Government can't guarantee a person's economic success. But Raleigh and Washington properly can create programs to help anyone willing to work and study overcome human limitations and historic discrimination -- in other words, to rid the land of anything that makes access to the American dream contingent on race.