June 13, 2004

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  Thursday, June 10, 2004 10:59 a.m. EDT

  
  

  Blacks Prospered Under Reagan

  
  

  "Under Reagan, black adult unemployment fell faster than did white unemployment," noted Larry Elder. "Black teenage unemployment fell faster than did white teenage unemployment. And blacks started businesses at a rate faster than that of whites.
  

  "In 1981," Elder continued, "the nation's poverty rate stood at 14 percent. It declined to 11.6 percent in 1988, Reagan's last year in office."
  

  Media reports on the 1990 Census support Elder's claims.
  

  "A set of minority economic profiles released by the Census Bureau show that black households had a median income of $19,758 at the time of the 1990 census, up 84% from 1980," noted the Associated Press in July 1992. "During that period, white median household incomes climbed 68%."
  

  According to a 1990 report in the San Francisco Chronicle:
  

  "High school graduation rates among black students rose substantially during the 1980s, narrowing an education gap with whites, according to a new federal study on U.S. school enrollments.
  

  "About 75 percent of blacks ages 18 to 24 in 1988 reported that they were high school graduates. Ten years earlier, only 68 percent of blacks in this age group reported that they had high school diplomas. The proportion of whites who say they graduated from high school has held at about 82 percent."
  

   

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