Can African-American Young Men Make Money?

Can African-American teenage boys, or young men, earn as much money as peers of another race and live a comfortable middle-class or upper-middle class lifestyle? It's an important question for this Martin Luther King Day and for the upcoming Black History month.

My answer is a resounding yes - young African-American men can develop a net worth that will rival any peer of another race, but only if they are careful with their resources. I'm going to draw on observations from a young, black man living in my home for the past 4 ½ years. He is a high school senior who is talented, but he is on the verge of digging himself into a deep hole in relation to his career and finances.

Sammy, a long-time family friend, came to our home at age 14 having failed both 6th and 7th grade. He was living with his father who was struggling with depression and a resultant unemployment ever since his wife died several years earlier.

We enrolled Sammy in a charter school and trying to get him to focus on the basics of reading, math and other assignments was an excruciating task. There were times when we tried to get him to read and he would cry out, "you're torturing me!" Or, "you only want me to read because I'm black!"

Now, a little context, he was the second black child in our home. We have an adopted daughter who is also a black, an adopted son who is Hispanic and who was attending a private, Christian high school at the time and another adopted son and daughter who are both Caucasian.

I began seeing Sammy's talents around the house: installing ceiling fans, fixing drawers and fixing windows. I thought to myself, "this kid could develop his own handyman business." Around Pasadena, there's a constant demand for qualified handyman services with men charging $25 to $35 per hour. I encouraged him and he even worked for a brief period of time for a friend who had a construction business.

He continued struggling academically, and rarely did any homework, so during his junior year I suggested he get his GED. He was also working part-time at Home Depot making $10 an hour generating sales leads for windows and roofs. He got bonuses when a product sold.