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Personal Income and Educational Attainment

By May 3, 2023Commentary

More highly educated people tend to make more money.  Education and learning should be a highly valued lifelong activity.  Love of learning should be a primary goal of our education system.  Parents should be deeply involved in their children’s education.  They often aren’t.  This is a particular issue in some minority communities, where taking school seriously is often derided.  Recent Census Bureau data is illuminating.  You can find a variety of tables on education and on family income.  You have to look at and extract data from the actual data sheets, so I am summarizing it here.  Draw your own conclusions about which racial groups tend to have stronger families, place more emphasis on education and therefore have higher incomes.  And don’t believe for one second that this has anything to do with “equity” or systemic racism.  It has to do with personal responsibility in how children are raised and what they value.  This is 2021 data.   (CB Data)

Educational attainment by race, as a percent of those over age 18 (it appears that a person who has a bachelors and a masters would appear twice, for example, but the notes are not clear):

White– Bachelor Degree 22.6%, Masters 9.5%, Professional Degree 1.4%, PhD 1.8%

Hispanic–Bachelor 13.2%, Masters 4%, Professional .6%, PhD .5%

Black–Bachelor 16%, Masters 7.5%, Professional .8%, PhD 1.1%

Asian–Bachelor 33%, Masters 18%, Professional 2.1%, PhD 4.9%

Family income by race:

White– average is $126,000, median is $92,000, average per family member is $41,000

Hispanic–average $86,000, median $62,000, average per family member $24,000

Black–average $84,000, median $60,000, average per family member $25,000

Asian–average $159,000, median $118,000, average per family member $47,000

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