Many blacks attain affluence

By ROBERT L. SMITH

About 25 percent of NEO blacks live in poverty, the analysis shows.

The number of affluent black families has surged in Northeast Ohio over the last 35 years. But as a black upper class blossomed in the Cleveland suburbs, the black middle class eroded, in sharp contrast to the national trend.

Meanwhile, poverty continues to ensnare a sizable chunk of the region’s black population. The result is a community of greater extremes, one characterized by a thriving professional class, a struggling middle class and a large and increasingly isolated underclass.

About one-quarter of the region’s black residents live in poverty, a rate nearly unchanged from 1970. At the same time, better than one in 10 black families enjoys an annual income of more than $83,000 a year.

As CNN’s “Black in America” series readies to resume Wednesday and Thursday with documentaries exploring the state of black America, The Plain Dealer examined the state of black Northeast Ohio, a diverse community of more than 500,000 people.

The newspaper found a minority group that has made great strides over the past three decades but one still struggling to reach the income levels of the white majority and, in some cases, to keep up with the rest of black America.

Overall, the American black family stands more than 30 years behind the American white family in a key indicator of quality of life. The average black family income in 2006, roughly $52,000, is about what white America lived on in 1971, after considering inflation.

Black residents in Northeast Ohio are a little worse off financially than black America as a whole, partly because of a shrinking black middle class.

A Plain Dealer analysis of census data found that, over the last 35 years, a black upper class has mushroomed here to embrace 12 percent of black families. For members of the new black elite, the future shines bright.

Miesha and Raymond Headen, who live in Richmond Heights with their two young sons, made it into the highest income bracket using two Ivy League degrees.

Raymond is a corporate lawyer. Miesha was a bank analyst before becoming a stay-at-home mom. Their college-educated parents stressed education, and so do they.

“We know our sons will have to compete in a global economy,” Miesha said. “We want them to be prepared.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the percentage of black families living on less than $17,600 a year rose from 24 percent to 27 percent of the community even as, nationally, poverty among blacks decreased slightly.

Many in the local black working class — families living on between $17,000 and $41,000 a year — tumbled into the poverty ranks as factory jobs disappeared.

Terrio Norris knows their struggle. A home health aide, she works two jobs to support her college-bound son and pay the bills on their rent-to-own home in Cleveland’s Union-Miles neighborhood. She expects to earn about $20,000 this year.

“It’s been really hard the last couple of years,” Norris said. “I’m a single parent, but Dad’s involved. Through the grace of God, we’re making it.”