Reagan years no boon for blacks

Cruz overstates boost in income for African-Americans in 1980s.

During a town hall event at New England College in Henniker, N.H., Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz faced a questioner who asked what he would do for “struggling minorities.”

Cruz said the key is economic growth, underpinned by a vigorous free enterprise system. He suggested that his father — who worked as a dishwasher shortly after emigrating from Cuba to the United States — would have lost his job if politicians at the time had raised the minimum wage as high as today’s Democrats would like.

Cruz pointed to the Ronald Reagan years as a golden age for African-American economic advancement.

“During eight years under Ronald Reagan,” Cruz said, “African-American median income rose by about $5,000. That is real and meaningful transformation.”

We should note that Cruz was describing the Reagan years as a time of economic growth, not crediting Reagan for a specific policy. So we’ll simply look to see how wages performed.

We turned to median income data collected annually by the U.S. Census Bureau and adjusted for inflflation.

Median income for black Americans increased by $2,107 from before Reagan in 1980 ($29,455) to the end of his two terms in 1988 ($31,562).

Whites saw a greater median increase ($4,238), from $51,127 in 1980 to $55,365 in 1988. For Hispanics, the increase was the smallest , $1,809.

So Cruz is wrong — the gain in median income for African-Americans under Reagan was a little over $2,000, not

TED CRUZ Statement: “During eight years under Ronald Reagan, African-American median income rose by about $5,000.”

$5,000, and the increase was smaller on both a dollar basis and a percentage basis than the increase for whites.

It’s also worth noting that the Reagan administration wasn’t the best one for African-American median income in recent history. That crown goes to Bill Clinton’s administration. Between 1992 and 2000, black incomes rose from $31,018 to $40,783 — a gain of $9,765.

Our ruling

Cruz said that “during eight years under Ronald Reagan, African-American median income rose by about $5,000.”

The actual increase was a little over $2,000, and the increase was significantly larger under the two terms of a subsequent Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

We rate Cruz’s statement Mostly False.