Black Disposable Income Up, Black Male Student Scores Down

Studies show a dramatic increase in spending power. "African-Americans Revealed" study, based on a BET survey of 80,000 black consumers over 18 months, showed a 10 percent increase in America’s black population between 2000 and 2008 and 55 percent increase in black buying power over the same period. Black buying power is estimated now at about $913 billion and is projected to increase to $1.2 trillion by 2013. A similar study released in November by the Selig Center at the University of Georgia estimated that black buying power would be about $1.1 trillion by 2014, with current spending power for blacks at about $910 billion.” Poor academic performance among Black children has traditionally been linked to poverty, but a new study showing that poor white males do better than poor Black males. An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another. But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known. Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys. Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches. Black America needs to have an honest discussion about how is it that we can spend so much money on good and services but yet it seems we are not investing in our own children’s future.