My town/county is quite different than alot of areas in the US.
We are located between two towns that were extremely large during the underground railroad period of America's history. Depending on the state that states were fleeing from, they would end up in areas like Dayton, Columbus or Cleveland (As that's where the jobs were). Some settled in my county which is outside of Columbus. Most of the blacks in my area are great-great-great grandchildren of slaves that ran away from their masters in the south, and once they had made it this far north had stopped running and decided to set up with their families.
What is the socio-economic status of blacks in my area? They're all middle class, although I know a few that are middle to upper middle class. One runs a pretty large Ford Mustang repair & renovation business. Another one is for the most part involved in affiliate marketing & sales. The poor/lower class people in my area are all whites. Some Mexican/Latinos in my area are sort of lower class, but I can visibly see them gaining more and more ground as they ALL run their own business or work at one that's run by a friend or family member (Restaurants or home repair/contracting). The poor people are 100% white that I know of, and they live in one specific area of town. Their parents lived in that part of town, and their parents-parents lived there too.
Talking to some VERY large real estate brokers in the area, many have a theory that has been validated by several large economists & historians. The theory is that the biggest reason for the lack of socio-economic growth of blacks in the US is mostly due to geographic location & dispersion. Most areas of the bigger towns (Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton and the like) all have black areas, white areas, latino areas and the like. However outside of those towns, no towns have white, black & latino areas. Areas aren't divided by race, but by economic brackets. The destiny of most people SOLELY ends up on whether they move out of those areas or not. If a kid lives in the south end their entire life, they typically have much lower incomes. If they move out and to the north end, typically they do quite well.
There's a another economic theory and I believe it's very valid in these cases. The theory is that your lifetime earnings will be similar to the 5 people in life that you associate with the most. I believe this to be true, as most poor people I know associate only with other poor people, rich people associate with rich, ect.
On top of all of this, there's a pervasive mindset that poor people believe in - That rich people are evil. Black people seem to love to call other blacks that succeed in business or other financial areas 'Uncle Toms', the whites I know call em sellouts. I know many people that feel that having wealth is a evil, devilish thing. The reality is that wealth is to be celebrated, not hated. If more groups of people felt this way things would be different in our country.