Older Americans are healthier, wealthier and better educated than ever before, but many members of minority groups are missing out on the unprecedented boom, according to a comprehensive government report released yesterday.

Within 30 years, one in five Americans--70 million people--will be 65 or older, and almost 400,000 may have turned 100, as baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 reach retirement age, according to the first study by a consortium of government agencies.

"Older Americans 2000: Key Indicators of Well-Being" continues to debunk the fading myth that the growing legions of elderly are living in poverty and ill health. An American woman who could only hope to live to the age of 51 in 1900 can expect to celebrate her 79th birthday. Men have also seen their life expectancy soar from 48 to 74.

Fewer elderly people than children live below the poverty line. The proportion of seniors living in poverty has declined from 35 percent in 1959 to 11 percent in 1998. That is because of better Social Security and pensions, improved health care and higher levels of education, said Richard Suzman, associate director for behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging, one of the nine agencies that contributed to the report by the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics.

But despite decades of progress, inequalities between racial and ethnic groups are starkly highlighted in the report, which gathers information from more than a dozen national data sources for the first time. "There have been very clear improvements in health, economic status and education, and the increase in life expectancy is one of the crowning achievements of the last century," Suzman said. "But it's a tale of two populations: Not everyone has shared in the improvements."

Many minorities have missed out on the trend toward better education, a key to improving economic status. The report shows that in 1998, about 72 percent of non-Hispanic whites aged 65 and older had finished high school, compared with 44 percent of older blacks and 29 percent of elderly Hispanics.

Many older blacks have fewer assets and more debts than older whites. Although the median net worth in households headed by people 65 and older increased by 69 percent between 1984 and 1999, half of older black households were worth less than $13,000 last year, once debts were subtracted from the value of real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets. That compared with a median net worth of $181,000 in older white families.

Many older blacks do not own their own homes, have little savings and have not bought stocks, social policy experts said. While the situation improved between 1984 and 1994, it deteriorated sharply between 1994 and 1999, the report shows.

Frank P. Stafford, research scientist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, said improved Social Security and pensions in recent years may have given black households the confidence to spend more, reducing their assets. Stafford, who compiled the figures on net worth for the report, said African American households were more likely to refinance their homes to help out friends and relatives.

White households, on the other hand, were more likely to have profits from stock trading, which they could spend without denting their net wealth.

Douglas J. Besharov, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, said the report showed "the hidden undiscussed differential between whites and blacks. . . . The catch-up race only started 40 years ago: It takes a number of generations for families to catch up."

The economic gap is partially blamed for a greater incidence of chronic diseases such as arthritis and diabetes among blacks. In 1995, 67.2 percent of blacks aged 70 and older suffered from arthritis, compared with 57.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites. More than 20 percent of blacks in that age group had diabetes, nearly double the rate for non-Hispanic whites.

According to Robert N. Butler, president and chief executive officer of the International Longevity Center in New York, "the upcoming generations of younger African Americans and Hispanics are destined for the same fate."

Butler noted that the economic status and health of the next generation of elderly blacks was threatened because of the number of young black men in prison and the effect of AIDS and drug abuse in minority communities.

He said evidence of inequalities spelled trouble not only for government, but also for big business. "This growing economic disparity ultimately cuts the throat of corporate America. By 2050, something like 52 percent of America will be people of color. [Business] has to be considering who's going to work for them, how educated and productive they can be and who's going to buy their product."