ACCORDING TO TWO STUDIES cited by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom in their 1997 book, America in Black and White, the percentage of African Americans with incomes below the poverty line in 1940 was “no fewer than 71 percent” and perhaps as high as 87 percent. By 1966, according to the Census Bureau, the figure had dropped to under 42 percent. By 1986 it had fallen to just over 31 percent. In 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available, it was less than 25 percent. Using 2006 dollars, Census data show that the median income of single-race black households went from $23,579 in 1968, to $26,468 in 1986, to $31,969 in 2006.

That is progress. But it is also relative. The 2006 black poverty rate was still much higher than the overall U.S. poverty rate (12.3 percent). Likewise, the median income of single-race black households trails well behind the national median income: in 2006, the difference between the two was $16,232. That same year, 20.5 percent of African Americans reportedly lacked health insurance coverage, compared to 15.8 percent of the general population.