Black Americans and the Feminization of Poverty

Abstract

More than twenty years after the height of the civil rights movement, black citizens still suffer the highest rate of poverty of any major group in America. The official rate of poverty for black Americans has never fallen below 30%.1 As Table 1 shows, the lowest official rate of poverty for black Americans was in 1978 when 30.6% were found to be poor. Since 1978, poverty among the black population has been on the increase. Between 1978 and 1983 the number of poor blacks increased by 2.3 million, a percentage increase of 30.3%. In 1983 there were 9.9 million poor black Americans, the largest number since the early 1960s (Bureau of the Census, 1976). The poverty rate for black Americans in 1983 was 35.7%,2 the highest since 1967, and almost three times the poverty rate for white Americans (Bureau of the Census, 1984: 20). This article will examine the extent and some of the major causes of continuing high rates of poverty among black Americans. The analysis will reveal important changes over the last two decades in the composition of the poor black population. Empirical analysis will be used to examine the relationship between the economic problems of the black male