FACTBOX: Racial inequality in the United States

(Reuters) - Democratic candidate Barack Obama became the first black president of the United States with his win in Tuesday's election, a milestone in a country with a long legacy of racial oppression of African Americans.

Stark racial disparities persist in the United States.

Following is a list of some inequalities.

* HEALTH:

-- The infant mortality rate for babies of black women is 2.4 times the rate for babies of white women, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in October.

-- Doctors are less likely to give black women radiation therapy after surgery to remove early-stage breast cancer than white women, according to a study by the Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in September.

-- The study was one of many to show that U.S. blacks get inferior care for cancer and other ailments compared to that given whites, although doctors have struggled to understand why.

-- Life expectancy for the white population exceeded that for the black population by 5.1 years, the figures said.

-- The maternal mortality rate was 3.3 times greater for the black population than for the white population.

* ECONOMY:

-- 6.1 percent of the overall U.S. labor force was unemployed in the third quarter of 2008, but 11.4 percent of the black labor force was out of work, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.

-- The total median income for a white family was $64,427 in 2007. The total for a black family was $40,143, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

-- 10.6 percent of the white U.S. population in 2007 lived below the official poverty threshold of $21,000 for a family of four, compared to 24.4 percent of the black population, the data said.

-- 14.3 percent of white Americans lacked health insurance compared to 19.2 percent of black Americans, according to 2007 U.S. census data.

-- 72 percent of white Americans own their own homes, compared with 46 percent of African Americans, the data said.

* CRIMINAL JUSTICE: