A test of the relationship between race, socioeconomic status, and psychological distress

Contrary to the general position in the research literature, Kessler and Neighbors have argued that race has independent effects on psychological distress among the lower class in the United States. They claim that lower-class blacks have significantly higher levels of distress than lower-class whites and this result is due to race rather than social class. A test of this proposition is presented in this paper. These data do not support the contention that race makes a difference in levels of psychological distress among the lower class. We found, that, as income increases among blacks and whites, psychological distress decreases and this is especially true for blacks. However, there was no significant difference between blacks and whites at the lowest income levels.