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Study questions wealth for those willing to work for it

The data shows that poor black boys are far more likely to stay poor than white boys, even if they grew up in the same neighborhood and went to the same school.

MINNEAPOLIS - It's been said poverty knows no color, but new data shows that the odds of getting out of poverty does.

A study from Harvard, Stanford and the U.S. Census Bureau examined virtually every person born between 1978 and 1982 in America and followed their economic story over 30 years.

The data shows that poor black boys are far more likely to stay poor than white boys, even if they grew up in the same neighborhood and went to the same school.

The inverse is also true: wealthy black boys are less likely to stay as wealthy as white boys when they grow up.

The data delivers quite a blow to the theory of American meritocracy—the idea that wealth is equally available to those willing to work for it.

“We all believed that for many years, that once we achieve certain economic stability and success that racism would wane, not disappear, but the effects of white racism would not be felt by those who are more economically stable who were black and Latino and Asian,” said Keith Mayes, professor of African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Mayes says he first read this study in the airport on the way home from Italy, and it struck him emotionally.

“I teared up was because this was another example pointing out that black men face a lot of troubles but it's all along the life cycle,” said Mayes.

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