How the White-Black median household income gap has changed over time and how that compares to the Asian-White gap

The post from two days ago covered the Asian-White gap, which has generally been growing since 1988 (the first year the Census Bureau reports Asian incomes). Since 1988, Asian income has always been higher than White income.

One thing I will show later is that the Asian-White gap as a percentage of the White-Black gap has been growing.

The graph below shows the White-Black gap since 1967 (the first year the Census Bureau reports median household income). Everything is adjusted for inflation (in 2018 dollars). I used the BLACK ALONE/BLACK and the WHITE ALONE/WHITE series (see the earlier post for an explanation).




The gray line shows the gap. It has been growing in recent years. It was about $25,000 in 2018, close to what it was in 1988. The table below has all the numbers.

Year	White	Black	Diff
1967	49,102	28,510	20,592
1968	51,138	30,155	20,983
1969	53,163	32,134	21,029
1970	52,646	32,044	20,602
1971	52,354	30,926	21,428
1972	54,759	31,963	22,796
1973	55,809	32,851	22,958
1974	53,927	32,071	21,856
1975	52,512	31,524	20,988
1976	53,474	31,797	21,677
1977	54,020	31,878	22,142
1978	55,470	33,335	22,135
1979	55,839	32,784	23,055
1980	54,361	31,318	23,043
1981	53,577	30,065	23,512
1982	52,943	30,005	22,938
1983	52,662	29,885	22,777
1984	54,586	31,096	23,490
1985	55,588	33,072	22,516
1986	57,411	33,076	24,335
1987	58,222	33,231	24,991
1988	58,900	33,577	25,323
1989	59,619	35,456	24,163
1990	58,359	34,898	23,461
1991	56,920	33,909	23,011
1992	56,665	32,995	23,670
1993	56,560	33,519	23,041
1994	57,198	35,344	21,854
1995	58,705	36,755	21,950
1996	59,413	37,543	21,870
1997	60,990	39,202	21,788
1998	63,170	39,143	24,027
1999	63,989	42,196	21,793
2000	64,216	43,380	20,836
2001	63,293	41,899	21,394
2002	63,107	40,628	22,479
2003	62,451	40,573	21,878
2004	62,177	40,105	22,072
2005	62,584	39,774	22,810
2006	63,264	39,913	23,351
2007	63,270	41,176	22,094
2008	61,160	40,006	21,154
2009	60,845	38,228	22,617
2010	59,682	37,077	22,605
2011	58,423	36,061	22,362
2012	58,846	36,510	22,336
2013	61,268	38,140	23,128
2014	60,376	37,583	22,793
2015	63,710	39,108	24,602
2016	64,729	41,323	23,406
2017	66,864	41,239	25,625
2018	66,943	41,361	25,582

The next chart does ratio instead of absolute difference. Before 1990, Black income was almost always 60% or less of White income while since then it is almost always been above 60%. But this looks like slow progress.



This next chart shows the Asian-White gap as a percentage of the White-Black gap.  The long term trend is for it to grow.

In 1988, White income was 58,900 while it was 66,034 for Asians. That is a gap of 7,134. From the table above, the White-Black gap was 25,323. So the ratio was 28%.

The Asian-White gap in 2018 was 20,251 in 2018. The White-Black gap was 25,582. That is a ratio of about 79%.