Joel Cazares, center, and his wife Maria, top right, pose for a photo with their children, Kassandra, top left, sons Joel Jr., bottom left, and Nikholas, bottom right, at their Visalia, Calif. home on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008. The couple have spent months awaiting word on a loan modification, which they hope will bring their payment down from ,500 to a more manageable level of around of ,500.

Washington ? When it comes to homeownership, Hispanics in New Jersey, single parents in California and senior citizens in Rhode Island all have something in common: More than a third have an unaffordable mortgage.

Inequality in America has traditionally followed familiar patterns of race, age and education. Those long-standing gaps have been magnified by the real estate boom and now the historic bust, according to an Associated Press analysis of 2007 Census Bureau data.

While minorities have made significant gains in wealth and home ownership since 1990, “things are going into reverse gear,” and now the homeownership rate for blacks and Hispanics is falling, said Edward Wolff, a New York University economist who studies income and wealth distribution.

Nearly 9.5 million households, or nearly one out of every five of the nearly 52 million homeowners with a mortgage, spend 38 percent or more of their pretax income on their mortgage payment, property taxes and insurance, the AP’s analysis found. That’s the new threshold to qualify for the loan assistance program launched last month by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance companies now under government control.

Nationwide problems

Not surprisingly, the most financially burdened are in California, Florida, Nevada and the Northeast, areas hardest hit by soaring home prices and now foreclosures.

Yet in every state, there are many pockets of homeowners who are just one unexpected medical bill or car repair from falling behind on their mortgages and setting the foreclosure clock ticking.

The AP’s analysis reveals the enormous scope of the U.S. housing market bust and how unevenly the burdens are spread, both geographically and demographically. And the situation is worsening — a record 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage are at least one payment behind or were in foreclosure as of last fall, compared with 7.5 percent a year earlier and just under 6 percent in 2006.

The burden is clearly more arduous among minority households, the AP analysis found.

Just under a third of Hispanic homeowners spend at least 38 percent of their income on housing expenses, compared with about a quarter of Asian and black households and nearly 16 percent of white households.

In much of the country, the trend is more pronounced. For example, included among those who spent at least 38 percent of their income on housing are:

• About 40 percent of black borrowers in California, Nevada, Oregon and Massachusetts.

• More than 30 percent of Asian borrowers in California and Florida.

• Nearly half of Hispanic homeowners in Rhode Island and at least 40 percent in Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey and New York.

Many Latino families wound up with expensive subprime mortgages because they often have cash income and no bank account, said Janis Bowdler, associate director for wealth building at National Council of La Raza in Washington.

It is common for Latino families to have stable incomes, but limited credit histories — and hence lower credit scores, which lenders use to gauge risk. Many have multiple sources of income, some of it in cash.

Emphasis on profits

During the housing boom, consumer advocates say it was both faster and more profitable for mortgage brokers and loan officers to put Hispanic families in loans that didn’t require proof of income, but charged higher interest rates.

“They had them out the door in a fraction of the time,” Bowdler said. “They were definitely getting more expensive loans.”

Now, Hispanic households like the Cazares family of Visalia, Calif are caught up in the mortgage crisis. Out of work for more than a year after contracting a rare disease caused by an airborne fungus, Joel, 36, brings in $550 every two weeks in disability payments. His wife Maria, 34, makes about twice that much money weekly by working as a hair stylist.

They haven’t made their $2,500 home loan payment in four months. The couple, who have three kids, have been waiting since October for a loan modification from IndyMac Federal Bank, which was seized by the federal government last July. They hope it will bring their payment down to a more manageable level of around of $1,500.

In the meantime, they buy supersized bags of generic cereal to make ends meet. They’ve canceled their Internet service and are only using one of their two cars, a pickup truck, because it gets better gas mileage.

The AP’s analysis also found that education level is highly correlated with income and mortgage expenses. Nearly one in three of those without a high school or college diploma spend at least 38 percent of their income on housing, compared with only 12 percent of those with advanced degrees, the AP analysis found.