Scholars gathered for the African American Economic Summit at Howard University on Friday sketched an alarming picture of the financial ills afflicting the black community even as the nation recovers from the recession.

The white-black wealth disparity is more than 20 to 1. Black homeownership has declined. Black joblessness is up. Black income is down.

As the conferees gathered, the government released new figures showing the black unemployment rate at 13.8 percent, nearly double the 7.0 percent for whites. The overall jobless rate is 7.9 percent.

As bleak as the economic picture is for black Americans, the immediate prospects for improving it are worse, many participants said. They agreed that chances are remote for the kind of aggressive, targeted action needed to combat those problems and close the economic disparities that have long separated blacks and whites.

“We are basically talking about an economic system that is shot through with discrimination,” said Bernard E. Anderson, a former assistant secretary of labor.

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During the depths of the crisis, Obama often said he wanted to build a better, more durable economy in the recovery. Conference participants said they are challenging him to live up to his word.

“We would all like to see him pursue that course,” said Ralph B. Everette, president and chief executive of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which co-sponsored the event.

Read more at The Washington Post.