By WILLIAM M. HARTNETT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Higher education is billed as America’s great equalizer, but the economic rewards of a college degree are significantly smaller for minorities than for whites, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of data recently released by the Census Bureau.

At every level of education – from high school dropouts to people with Ph.D.s – blacks and Hispanics on average make significantly less money than non-Hispanic whites.

Even when the effects of age, occupation and ability to speak English are taken into account, whites consistently have higher incomes. And though the payoff of a four-year or advanced college degree is considerable regardless of race or ethnicity, the country’s largest income disparities occur among those who are most educated.

For every dollar made on average by whites with a professional degree – which includes doctors, dentists and lawyers – their black peers make an average of just 66 cents, and their Hispanic counterparts make just 63 cents.

In Florida, the average income of whites with a bachelor’s degree actually tops that of blacks with a doctorate degree, $68,000 to $65,000.

The Post’s analysis did reveal some encouraging signs. At the very highest levels of educational attainment among the youngest workers, blacks and Hispanics have greatly narrowed the gap with their white peers.

But those narrow educational and age groups in which something close to parity has been achieved represent a tiny sliver of the total population. For the vast majority, the gap persists.

None of which comes as a surprise to Evett Simmons, a partner with the law firm Ruden, McClosky, Smith, Schuster & Russell. Financial success in many fields are dependent on personal connections, she said, which puts minorities at a competitive disadvantage.

“If you are part of a group that for so many years did not have economic empowerment, and those people are your primary circle from whom you receive employment,” then economic inequities are sure to result, said Simmons, who is black.

MORE ROLE MODELS NEEDED

And those disparities add up. A Census Bureau report released last summer estimated that the average lifetime earnings of blacks with an advanced degree are $600,000 less than those of whites with an equivalent education. Hispanics lagged by $500,000.

Among the many factors behind the country’s persistent earnings gap is the simple, if often overlooked, fact that most of the laws that mandated equal access to education and the workplace are relatively new, said University of Florida economist David Denslow.

“The oldest blacks would have gone to segregated schools, and in some cases those schools ran only half as long as white schools,” Denslow said.

Compounding the educational disadvantages of segregation-era blacks were the additional hurdles they faced in the workplace, he said.

“They faced more severe segregation early in their careers, received less on-the-job training” and therefore had less experience with which to seek advancement.

Eula R. Clarke, a black attorney in Stuart and the daughter of a Belle Glade cane-cutter who immigrated from Jamaica, said the scarcity of professional minority role models also has traditionally played a role in depressing the ambitions of black children.

“Because of segregation, there hasn’t been that opportunity to have 100 years” of career-oriented history among blacks, she said.

But Clarke, who also has master’s degree in urban planning, said that young minority students today are more ambitious because of the increasing number of professionals they see in their families and neighborhoods.

“I have two boys, and one is at a pre-law program at high school and the other one wants to go to England to study to be a lawyer,” Clarke said. “They also have an aunt and an uncle who are lawyers. You have young people who can actually dream. It doesn’t seem so strange to them.”

There are some indications that racial and ethnic earning gaps are closing, at least among the youngest and best-educated.

Nationally, Hispanics on average actually top whites by a small margin among people between the ages of 25 and 34 who have a doctorate degree. Blacks in that same education and age group average 96 cents for every dollar made by their white peers.

A decade ago, blacks in those categories averaged just 79 cents for every dollar made by whites, and Hispanics averaged just 82 cents.

People with Ph.D.s represent a tiny fraction of the total population, however. Just 1 in 100 whites, 1 in 238 blacks and 1 in 278 Hispanics have a doctorate degree.

In less rarified academic air, the progress is not as dramatic. Among 25- to 34-year-old blacks with a bachelor’s degree, the average income is 83 cents for every dollar of their white peers, compared with 81 cents a decade ago. For Hispanics in the same age and education group, the average income is 88 cents for every dollar made by whites, up only very slightly from a decade earlier.

The question remains, however, of whether the gains made by minority graduates today will hold up for the duration of their careers. Rather than signaling a fundamental shift toward equality, in other words, the fact that the racial earning gap is smallest among the youngest workers and widest among the oldest could simply mean that minorities get left behind as the years, and promotions, pass them by.

Denslow, however, is optimistic that true progress is being made.

“My prediction is that if you look 20 or 30 years down the road, black college graduates who are now 30 will be doing as well when they’re 50 or 60 as white college graduates of the same age,” he said.

Of course, discrimination persists. Simmons said that when she owned her own independent firm in Port St. Lucie, “we had people come in this office and walk right back out because the attorneys were black.”

Simmons said that the issue of her skin color has come up with clients on occasion, even with black clients.

“They felt like if they had a white attorney they would be more successful,” Simmons said.

GAPS MAY CLOSE OVER TIME

Such attitudes appear to have a significant effect on the pocketbook. Among lawyers of all ages in Florida, blacks make just 56 cents for every dollar made by whites, and Hispanics just 72 cents.

But if parental opinions about the importance of a college education are a reliable barometer of future progress, than it appears minorities, particularly Hispanics, will continue to close the gaps in earnings and opportunities.

A 2000 survey conducted by Public Agenda, a nonprofit research group, found that among parents of high school students, 65 percent of Hispanics, 47 percent of blacks and only 33 percent of whites listed a college education as the one factor that can most help a child succeed.

Though the strong emphasis on college among Hispanics encourages researchers looking to the future, a more basic factor appears to play a key role in affecting the income of Hispanics today: the ability to speak English.

Even in ethnically diverse Florida, English skills have a considerable impact on earnings. Overall, for example, the average income among Hispanics with a professional degree is more than $86,000.

But Hispanics of the same education level who do not speak English well or at all average less than $40,000, while those who speak English well, very well or exclusively average nearly $100,000.

ABOUT THE ANALYSIS
This story is based on a Palm Beach Post study of Census Bureau data obtained primarily through the University of Minnesota’s Integrated Public Use Microdata Series.

National-level calculations were based on the responses of 2.8 million people who completed the census long form. State-level calculations were based on the responses of nearly 800,000 Floridians. Except where noted, income figures are from 1999 and have been adjusted to current dollars.

The Post included in its study only people age 25 or older who usually worked 30 or more hours a week for at least 39 weeks in 1999. For more charts and figures, go to PalmBeachPost.com.

EDUCATION’S UNEQUAL PAYOFF
Across all levels of education, blacks and Hispanics earn less than whites. But the disparity is most pronounced at the highest levels. Average pay, nationwide, by profession and age group:

LAWYERS
age 25 to 34
White – $83,865
Black – $68,126
Hispanic – $77,986

age 45 to 54
White – $161,061
Black – $92,212
Hispanic – $143,341

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS
age 25 to 34
White – $88,593
Black – $66,797
Hispanic – $73,016

age 45 to 54
White – $232,876
Black – $121,859
Hispanic – $175,637

POLICE AND SHERIFF’S PATROL OFFICERS
age 25 to 34
White – $45,922
Black – $43,972
Hispanic – $49,780

age 45 to 54
White – $60,294
Black – $60,177
Hispanic – $52,922

REGISTERED NURSES
age 25 to 34
White – $43,146
Black – $41,799
Hispanic – $43,777

age 45 to 54
White – $53,658
Black – $57,340
Hispanic – $52,231

Source: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series
Data analysis: William M. Hartnett

Copyright 2003 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
October 20, 2003 Monday
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