American Dream Deferred

Wall Street may be wringing its hands over the bankruptcy of mortgage lenders and blowup of Bear Stearns hedge funds, but the people really hurting in the subprime market meltdown are African American households, new Census figures suggest.

Home ownership among black households in the U.S. has dropped significantly, from 48 percent in the first quarter of this year to 46.3 percent in the second quarter, according a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Over the same time period, home ownership for whites and Hispanics have remained essentially unchanged: From 75.3 percent to 75.4 percent for whites, and 50.1 percent to 50 percent for Latinos. Those changes are within the margin of error.

For "all other races" -- which includes Asian Americans as well as American Indians -- home ownership rates seems to have ticked up, from 58.6 percent to 59.4 percent. But that rise is also statistically insignificant as it is within the high margin of error that small population category, said Linda Cavanaugh, a statistician for the Census.

Across the U.S., living the American Dream of home ownership is highest in the Midwest, at 71.8 percent, according to the Census. A smaller proportion of households in the high-cost West (64.1 percent) and Northeast (65.4 percent) own homes. In the South, 69.9 percent of households own homes.

The overall home ownership rate in the U.S. now stands at 68.2 percent, down from a peak of 69.2 percent in 2004.

by Caitlin Liu