The Huge Racial Gap in Poverty Rates

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that in 2010, 10,675,000 African Americans were living in poverty. This is 27.4 percent of the total African-American population. The poverty rate for non-Hispanic white Americans in 2010 was 9.9 percent. This is only about one third the rate for blacks.

Furthermore, the racial gap is widening. From 2009 to 2010 the black poverty rate increase by 1.6 percentage points. The rate for non-Hispanic white American rose by only 0.5 percentage points. There were 731,000 more blacks living in poverty in 2010 than was the case in 2009.

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