NOT ALL AMERICANS ARE EQUAL

William Xu 2A 20/1/2014

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION- Pg 3

EDUCATION- Pg 3

EMPLOYMENT- Pg 4

CONCLUSION- Pg 6

BIBLIOGRAPHY- Pg 7

Introduction

In class, we have been looking at America and if the American Dream exists for every single person in the USA. The USA is one of the world’s most powerful countries. It has the highest economy in the world and the third largest population of 317,506,000, after China and India. There are many different ethnic groups in the USA, the most prominent ones being:

African Americans-12%
Native Americans-1%
Hispanic-14%
Whites-67%
APIs-5%

Overall, there are many inequalities in health, educational, employment, housing and crime. Despite efforts that tried to lower the inequality, it still exists.

In this project, I will be talking about inequality in the USA and how it affects different ethnic groups in two aspects-Education and Employment.

My first aim is education and my hypothesis is: Why do some ethnic groups receive less education than others and how it affects their achievements?

EDUCATION

Schools in the USA are generally free, with some private schools and homeschooled. 88% of children attend public schools, 9% attend private schools, and 3% are homeschooled. There are many racial issues with American schools with inequality between different ethnic groups.

Statistically African-American and Hispanic students are more likely than whites and APIs to receive lower grades, score lower in tests, drop out of high school, and enter complete college, and et a degree than whites, who still score lower than Asians.

The reason why some ethnic groups receive less education than others is mainly because of the time of the slave trade in America. Education was removed from them from many years and when the slave trade was abolished, racial feelings still remained and to this day, blacks still receive less education.

The difference of achievement begins as soon as children attend kindergarten. Hispanic and black students have maths and literacy test scores lower than white students, but Hispanics and blacks share approximately equal test scores. A survey taken in 2009 used test scores from each race. It found out that average Hispanic and black students begin kindergarten with math scores three quarters of a standard deviation lower than of white students and reading scores half a standard deviation lower than them. Before they start secondary school, Hispanics improve by around a third compared to whites, but blacks worsen by around a third.
EMPLOYMENT

My second aim is employment and my hypothesis is: Why do some ethnic groups have higher levels of unemployment and how it affects their average income levels.

There are around 154.4 million people who are employed in the US, around 93% of the population. 53% of workers run small businesses and around 8% work in government and politics. Also, large businesses employ around 38% of the working population. Many of the largest companies in the world are American. Walmart is the largest company and employer in the world, which employs 2.1 million people world-wide and 1.4 million in the US only. There are almost 30 million small businesses in the USA. Ethnic groups which add up to 35% of the population own 4.1 million businesses, which produce a total of $700 billion per year and employ 5 million workers.

In