Relationship between Income and Race America has been described as a "melting pot," a land full of diversity. This diversity is accompanied by a full range of income levels and status of its inhabitants, from the very, very rich to the poor. Ronald Taylor's article titled "African-American Youth: Their Social and Economic Status in the United States" focuses on the issue of polarization. Polarization occurs when an increase in the percentage of people in poverty coincides with an increase in the percentage of people with higher incomes. Fewer people are considered "middle class" but are rich or poor. This article will focus on poverty-stricken young Americans. How are poor white youth and poor nonwhite youth today similar? How do they differ? Sociologists and researchers have found evidence to justify both questions, and I hope to focus on the main points of both questions. Whether you are white, African American, or Hispanic, poverty for today's youth has many recurring themes. A recent article by Duncan and Brooks for The Education Digest highlights some very clear facts facing today's poor youth. “Low income is linked to a range of poor outcomes for children, from low birth weight and poor nutrition in childhood to increased chances of academic failure, emotional distress and unmarried birth in adolescence.” (Duncan and Brooks, p. 1). They also say that low-income preschoolers show poorer cognitive and verbal skills because they are exposed to fewer toys, books and other brain-stimulating items at home than their high-income classmates. Low-income adolescents, in later years, will experience conflict between their economically stressed parents, as well as lower self-esteem than other adolescent children. An article from Ojibwe News, a Native American magazine, provides a surprising statistic discovered by research analysts for the Minnesota Private College Research Foundation. They found that a child from a family earning $25,000 or less per year is only half as likely to enroll in college as a child from a family with an annual income of $50,000 or more. Both white and nonwhite youth in poverty experience higher rates of teen pregnancy, AIDS, and a tendency to live in single-parent families. There are many differences between white and non-white youth living in poverty. Recent research on low-income youth has shown that the most important factor contributing to the gap between the employment rates of minority and white youth can be attributed to their social network.