Yet men’s demographic availability, unemployment, and low earnings don’t completely explain black-white differences in marriage.22 Moreover, black marriage rates fell at the same time that racial discrimination was declining and black men’s wages were growing. Between 1960 and 1980, employed blacks saw real increases in wages relative to whites, partly due to increases in their educational attainment and partly because returns to education also increased.23 During this time, the proportion of blacks who were in the middle class (defined as between 200 and 499 percent of the federal poverty line) increased substantially.24
