Corporations like Exelon, the country's largest operator of nuclear power plants, and McDonalds have discovered that fewer of their black employees participate in their 401(k) plans and those that do contribute less to the plan than white employees.

Few employers today look into their plans in search of racial or ethnic differences, as they are required to do for discrepancies between high- and low-income workers. Fidelity Investments and Vanguard Group, two of the country's largest retirement plan operators, both publish encyclopedic volumes on America's investing habits that lack any reference to race or ethnicity.

Experts attribute lower investment rates to poor instruction on financial topics in public schools, and misconceptions about the risk of stocks within parts of the black community. Employers have also been urged to tailor their messages on retirement savings to account for what some black and Latino executives say are important cultural differences. And the federal government has been urged to strengthen its national strategy for financial literacy, which has been criticized as ineffective.

A survey by Charles Schwab Corp. and Ariel Mutual Funds concludes that nearly half (four in 10) African Americans with household incomes of $50,000 or more have no money in stocks, compared to just one quarter of whites. Ariel's survey also found blacks who enrolled in retirement plans save a median $173 a month while whites save $252. A separate survey of retirees found whites are nearly twice as likely to have $100,000 or more saved than blacks, even when education, peak income level, and other factors are held constant.