Blacks in Black and White

Companies not targeting African-Americans with their advertising and promotions just are not Millennium-ready. U.S. Census Bureau projections show the black population growing more than twice as fast as the white population during the coming 20 years, with black numbers reaching 45 million in 2020. What’s more, blacks are increasing their education levels, reducing their poverty levels, and opening new businesses at a breakneck pace. Marketers with significant pieces of business in the South err greatly if they ignore the group: More than half of African-Americans live there.

“White families are getting older and smaller. Black families are younger and larger, and they’re less price-sensitive and more image-conscious,” says Lafayette Jones, president of Segmented Marketing Services, Inc., a Winston-Salem, NC, sampling firm that specializes in ethnic markets. “There are big implications for new products developed and marketed especially for ethnic consumers.”

The following snapshots of black Americans in the ’90s are taken from U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Surveys conducted through 1998.

Income

– From 1995 to 1997, median income levels of African-Americans achieved or surpassed their 1989, pre-recessionary peak levels. Households saw an increase of 43 percent in real median income in ’97, from $24,021 the previous year to $25,050.

– Blacks accounted for 60 percent of the decline in poor persons in the U.S. between ’96 and ’97.

– The number of poor blacks in America dropped from 9.7 million in ’96 to 9.1 million in ’97, while their poverty rate decreased from 28.4 percent to 26.5 percent. The number still places African-Americans as one of the most economically strapped ethnic groups, however. Some 8.3 million Hispanic-Americans fell below the line, a 27.1 percent poverty rate, but the Census Bureau says that does not differ statistically from the African-American rate.

Education

– Some 88 percent of African-Americans ages 25 to 29 were high school graduates in 1998. The gap in high school completion between blacks and whites in this age group narrowed over the past decade to the point where there is no statistical difference between the two groups.

– About 1.5 million African-Americans under 35 were enrolled in college in 1996, 40 percent more than a decade earlier.

– Bachelor’s degrees were held by 15 percent of blacks 25 and over in 1998 – some three million people. Of these, 800,000 held advanced degrees.

Jobs

– Nearly a quarter (23%) of employed black women held managerial or professional positions in 1998. Their male counterparts lagged at 17 percent.

– The number of African-American-owned businesses skyrocketed between 1987 and 1992, growing by 46 percent to 620,912.

Population

– Blacks comprised 13 percent of the U.S. population as of November 1998. Since July 1990, African-American numbers have increased at an average rate of 13 percent, compared to 9 percent for the U.S. population as a whole.

– The black population, with a median age of 30, is five years younger than the U.S. population, on average.

– The African-American population is expected to grow more than twice as fast as the white population between 1995 and 2020, reaching 45.1 million. After 2016, more blacks than non-Hispanic whites will be added to the population each year.

– In ’98, 55 percent of African-Americans lived in the South, making up one-fifth of the region’s population. Nationwide, 54 percent lived in the central cities of metro areas.

Families

– In 1998, there were 8.4 million African-American households, nearly half of them married-couple families in which 60 percent included their own children under 18.

– Some 1.4 million black children lived in a grandparent’s home (with or without their parents present) in ’98. More than four million resided with both their parents.