One can't live as cheap as two

A new report reveals that about half of black people born to middle-class families in 1960 grew up to be poor, despite the fact that average African-American household income rose.

Note that the measure the report uses is household income. Thus, suppose between 1960 and now, the average number of working people in black households shrank dramatically. This could happen if, for example, fathers stopped living with mothers, so that the two earners were separated. That would lead to exactly the kind of effect observed here. And in fact, that's pretty much what happened.

Of course, that's little comfort to the African-American kids who grow up poor because they have only their moms to support them. Black America would do well to remember that two can live as cheap as one.