Racial disparities persist in higher-paying jobs

Racial disparities persist in higher-paying jobs
Blacks & Hispanics lag behind whites for higher-paying jobs at the largest rates in about a decade as employment opportunities dwindled during the nation's economic woes and housing slump. Census data released Monday show an increasingly educated U.S. work force whose earnings didn't always seem to match up with its potential. "The lesson of most economic downturns is minorities are the last hired, first fired. They lose jobs more quickly, and they will be the last to recover," said Roderick Harrison, a demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that studies minority issues. Among those 25 & older last year, 86.6% graduated from high school, up from 85.7% the year before. It was the biggest increase since 1992, with record percentages of people earning diplomas across all racial & Hispanic categories. Share of people with at least a bachelor's degree from college also increased, from 28.7% to 29.4%, continuing a decades-long rise. Blacks overall slightly narrowed the gap in 2007 with whites in average salary, but the pay disparity widened for blacks with college degrees. Blacks who had a 4-year bachelor's degree earned $46,502, or about 78% of the salary for comparably educated whites. It was the biggest disparity between professional blacks and whites since the 77% rate in 2001, when the U.S. fell into a recession due to collapse of the tech bubble & the Sept. 11 terror attacks. College-educated blacks previously earned as much as 83% of the average salary of whites in 2005. Hispanics saw similar trends. Those with high school diplomas earned about 83