Flawed government policies and negative stereotyping of minority men have limited their economic opportunities, a new study says. It urges improved health care and education for minorities and less media consolidation.

The study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research and policy group that focuses on issues that affect minorities, examined the impact of U.S. policies on men of Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American descent.

It said the media and entertainment industries overrepresent minorities as criminals and Whites as victims and law enforcers. Blacks are twice as likely as White defendants to be subject to negative pretrial publicity, it said. For Hispanics, three times as likely.

Meanwhile, federal laws such as the No Child Left Behind Act have hurt minorities by driving good teachers away from high-poverty schools to better-funded ones where Whites are more highly represented, the report contends.

The findings come as Democrats seek to plot a legislative agenda after the party regained control of Congress in last week's elections for the first time since 1994.

Democratic congressional leaders have pledged to raise the minimum wage and step up oversight of government agencies.

The report calls on the government to increase the minimum wage and the availability of student loans, and to reexamine sentencing requirements that imprison nonviolent offenders for long periods.

On another subject the report addresses, the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing the hotly disputed issue of whether to ease government rules to allow for more media consolidation.

Major Findings Of Study:

* Minorities generally receive inferior health care because they can't afford medical insurance and health facilities are either below standard or nonexistent in their communities.

* White families are more than twice as likely as Black families to be upwardly mobile; Black families are more than twice as likely to be downwardly mobile.

* Minority youth, who make up 23 percent of all Americans aged 10-17, comprise 52 percent of the prison youth population.