Federal Reserve officials reported last month that “gaps in economic well-being by race and ethnicity have persisted even as overall well-being has improved since 2013” — with African-Americans and Hispanics continuing to lag. In the Fed’s “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2018,” nearly four in five whites said they were “at least doing O.K. financially.” Only two in three black respondents said they were at least doing O.K.

Compounding the challenge for candidates is that the Democratic divide in economic optimism, along racial lines, runs the other way: Blacks are more hopeful than whites. Black Democrats are more than twice as likely as whites to say they expect to be better off financially a year from now than they are today.

When Geoffrey Cooper , who is black, graduated from college in 2009, few jobs were available for young people of any race. Today, things are better. The economy in Atlanta, where he lives, is strong, and Mr. Cooper and his wife are thinking about buying a house.

But Mr. Cooper, 32, said the financial crisis and its aftermath had left him and many of his peers aware of how fragile even a seemingly sturdy economy could be. And he said the economy was working better for people like him who have college degrees than for the majority of workers who did not.

“I would love to see candidates come to here and talk about jobs and talk about why is it that we still expect $7.25, the minimum wage, to be an effective wage,” he said. “That’s real-life stuff that people care about, and Democrats have got to talk to those issues.”

Democrats, he said, have too often campaigned for black votes without listening to black voters.

“Democrats who want the endorsements of the N.A.A.C.P. or the endorsement of Al Sharpton, they go up to Harlem and go to Red Rooster or Sylvia’s,” he said, referring to restaurants that are frequent locations for campaign photo opportunities. “They’re not talking to people who are affected by these everyday problems.”