Lower-middle-class blacks have less help

CHICAGO, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Lower-middle-class African-Americans are less likely to have kin who can help when they need cash for a hospital bill or car repair, says a U.S. study.

Mary Pattillo of Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Colleen Heflin of the University of Kentucky say their study also finds that lower-middle-class African-Americans are much more likely to have kin calling upon them for financial and other assistance.

Blacks teetering at the lower end of the middle-class spectrum are two and a half times as likely to have a low-income sibling as whites in the same socioeconomic bracket, the study shows.

The lower-middle-class blacks also are four times as likely to have been poor when they were young, suggesting the relatively recent rise of many African-Americans to middle-class status.

The findings are published in Social Science Research.