Racial and Ethnic Disparities: Key Findings from the National Survey of America's Families

ore than 30 years after the passage ofcivil rights legislation, significant eco-nomic and social inequalities persistamongst racial and ethnic groups inthe United States. Analysis of well-being by raceand ethnicity using data from the 1997 NationalSurvey of America’s Families (NSAF) confirmsthat disparities exist both within and across allracial and ethnic groups. Even at higher incomes,whites and Asians repeatedly fare better thanblacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans.1This finding is significantbecause differences in incomedo not fully explain theinequities in well-beingacross racial and ethnicgroups in the United States.2However, despite similaritiesin well-being among blacks,Hispanics,and NativeAmericans and betweenwhites and Asians, the groupsalso differ significantly acrossseveral measures, which suggests that new policyapproaches may be needed to reduce inequalities.This brief outlines NSAF findings on sevenindicators of well-being by race and ethnicity:poverty, family structure, child support, foodhardship, housing hardship, health status, andhealth insurance coverage. For the purpose of thisbrief, all persons of Hispanic origin were groupedby ethnicity into the Hispanic category and non-Hispanics were grouped by racial category. Thefive resulting racial/ethnic categories used in ouranalysis are Hispanic, white, black, Asian, andNative American. Seventy percent of nonelderlypersons in the United States are white. The largestminority group in the United States is black,which represents 13 percent of the total nonelder-ly population. The Hispanic population is almostas large as the black population, representing 12percent of the total, and is expected to become thelargest minority group by the year 2005 (TheCouncil of Economic Advisors for the President’sInitiative on Race 1998). Asians represent 4 per-cent of the total, while Native Americans repre-sent 1 percent.PovertyTo evaluate poverty, the NSAF comparedeach family’s 1996 income tothat year’s federal povertylevel (FPL).3Figure 1 showspoor (below 100 percent ofthe FPL) and low-income(below 200 percent of theFPL) people by race and eth-nicity. Across all racial andethnic groups, 15 percent ofthe nonelderly are poor.Blacks,Hispanics,andNative Americans, however,each have poverty rates almost twice as high asAsians and almost three times as high as whites.Among low-income persons, inequalities acrossracial and ethnic groups persist. While 26 percentof whites and 29 percent of Asians are low-income, the rate is 49 percent for blacks, 54 per-cent for Native Americans, and 61 percent forHispanics. Hispanics are significantly more like-ly than blacks to be low-income.One advantage of NSAF data is the abilitythey provide researchers to analyze representativestate-level data across 13 focal states. At the statelevel, poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics var-ied widely. Blacks in Alabama, Mississippi, andWisconsin were significantly poorer than blacksnationwide. In New Jersey and Colorado, blackswere significantly less poor than the national aver-THE URBANINSTITUTESeries B, No. B-5, February 2000RACIAL ANDETHNICDISPARITIES:KEYFINDINGS FROM THENATIONALSURVEY OFAMERICA’SFAMILIESSarah Staveteig and Alyssa Wigton NEW FEDERALISMNational Survey of American FamiliesNEW FEDERALISMNational Survey of Americaís FamiliesA product ofAssessing theNew Federalism,an Urban InstituteProgram to AssessChanging Social PoliciesMEven at higherincomes, whites andAsians repeatedly farebetter than blacks,Hispanics, and NativeAmericans. age. Hispanic poverty varied evenmore widely across states: inMassachusetts, New York, and Texas,Hispanics were significantly poorerthan their counterparts nationwide.In Florida, Michigan, New Jersey,and Wisconsin, Hispanics were sig-nificantly less poor than the nationalHispanic average. Family StructureThe NSAF looked at each fami-ly’s composition to classify children’sliving environments into one of fourdesignations. As figure 2 shows, thevast majority of white and Asian chil-dren lived with two parents, whileslightly more than half of Hispanicchildren and half of Native Americanchildren lived in two-parent families.In contrast, only about one-third ofblack children lived with two parents,a rate less than half the national aver-age. Asian children were significant-ly more likely than white children tolive in two-parent families.Across all racial and ethnicgroups, 3 percent of children live with-out either parent, in what the NSAFterms a no-parent family. Children inno-parent families include, for exam-ple, those who are emancipated minorsor those living with their grandparents.Th