Black Americans are more dissatisfied with their progress than at any time in the past 20 years, and less than half say life will get better for them in the future.

A poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that one in five blacks say things are better for them now than five years ago. In 1984, almost two in five blacks said things were better than they were five years earlier.

Less than half of blacks surveyed say they think life will get better, compared with 57% in 1986.

he Pew survey shows little change in race relations since the Jena Six story. One in four white people say they have a very favorable view of black people, compared with 17% in 1990. Meanwhile, 27% of blacks say they have a very favorable view of whites, a figure that has remained constant for two decades.

Blacks and whites differ in their views of black progress. Among blacks, 43% say the black-white economic gap has widened; 19% of whites say so.

Census data cited by the poll's authors show the income gap between blacks and whites remains the same as it was in 1997, when black median household income was 61% of white median household income.

A separate study released Tuesday by another Pew branch, the Pew Charitable Trust's Economic Mobility Project, found that the gap between blacks and whites has not narrowed. That report said 31% of black children born to middle-income parents have family income greater than their parents, vs. 68% of whites.