WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS EARN SIX TIMES MORE THAN BLACKS

White South Africans earn six times more than black South Africans nearly two decades after the end of apartheid and much remains to be done to reduce the disparities between rich and poor, the president said after the release of the country’s census, the Associated Press reports. “These figures tell us at the bottom of the rung is the black majority who continue to be confronted by deep poverty, unemployment, and inequality, despite the progress that we have made since 1994,” President Jacob Zuma said of the South Africa Census 2011 released on Tuesday. On the positive side, people’s access to basic services, such as clean water, electricity and garbage removal has more than doubled in the same amount of time, he said. And more South African dwellings have TVs than refrigerators and more cell phones than electric or gas stoves, the census said. South Africa’s population has increased by 7 million people in the last decade to 51.8 million by October 2011, according to the census. And for the first time in the three censuses conducted since 1994, the number of people identifying themselves as colored — a term used by the government for people of mixed race — is higher, at 4.62 million, than those who describe themselves as white at 4.59 million. More than 41 million describe themselves as black and 1.3 million as Indian or Asian

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