Education and Wealth
It's harder to "make it' now
Family-wage jobs have become scarce. Finding, securing, and holding onto good-paying work is harder than ever in the U.S. and in Washington State. Family-wage jobs are an important foundation stone needed to gain economic stability and, ultimately, to build wealth.
Education is the Key to Advancement
Black people, especially Black men, face multiple barriers to family-wage employment. Here's how the National Urban League's "The State of Black America 2007"© report, page 77, states the problem:
"To the extent that better-paying jobs remain, they simply require higher levels of education and basic skills than they did in the past. And, while racial gaps in schooling and achievement (as measured by test scores) have narrowed somewhat over time, they remain disturbingly high. Gaps between blacks and whites in high school completion, college attendance, and college completion, (either at the 2-year or 4-year level) have barely budged in the past 20 years. While test score gaps narrowed somehwat during the 1980s, they widened a bit during the 1990s. Very high rates of racial and economic segregation in schools and neighborhoods no doubt help perpeturate these gaps though they start to develop well before most children set foot in kindergarten."