That’s not an isolated or fringe view. “The U.S. racial wealth gap is ... driven by public policy decisions,” a recent study from researchers at Brandeis University and the think tank Demos concluded.
The 2016 election is the first Presidential election that will occur since the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Partially because of the weakened VRA, 10 states passed harsh new voting restrictions that will be in full force for 2016, including seven new voter ID laws. New studies suggest that the motivation of these laws is suppressing non-white voters, and worryingly, that they will be successful at doing so.
As a result of having limited savings or other assets to cover the cost of college, African American families borrow heavily to pay for it. Researchers at the liberal think tank Demos found 4 out of 5 black graduates take out loans to attend public colleges, compared with less than two-thirds of whites.
African American students who borrow come out with more debt than their peers, often facing dismal job prospects. College-educated blacks have twice the unemployment rate of their white counterparts.
While students could always use more information about their loans and the cost of college, focusing too heavily on financial literacy as a route to curbing student debt “overcomplicates the discussion,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. College graduates are struggling with debt in large part because it simply costs a lot more to go to college these days, a fact of life students can’t get around even if they’re armed with more information, he said.
Racism divides the American political system, strengthening opposition to social programs and reinforcing a plutocratic agenda. This is the lesson to draw from new YouGov data, which reveals that most Americans wrongly believe African-Americans make up a majority of welfare recipients and are net “takers.”
The Bennett Hypothesis likely explains tuition increases at some colleges, particularly for-profit universities, which are trying to maximize revenue, and graduate programs for which students can take out federal loans up to the cost of the program, said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. But not every type of higher education institution responds to increases in aid in the same way, he said.
Political scientists who have studied voter registration have found generally that young and highly mobile people are the ones least likely to be registered. They tend to have lower incomes as well.
For example, in a 2015 report, ‘Why Voting Matters,’ a research associate at Demos, Sean McElwee, found that “white Americans, and particularly affluent white Americans” are much more likely to vote than “people of color, low-income people, and young people.”
While that may not be the goal in Tennessee, there is evidence that tuition freezes do lead to other cuts in higher education. One only needs to look to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for evidence, says Mark Huelsman, senior policy analyst at Demos, a public policy think tank. “Scott Walker froze tuition for in-state students, but he decimated student support and faculty support,” says Huelsman.
Amy Traub, senior policy analyst at Demos, a public policy organization, told the Public News Service that the vast majority of people who work in New York would benefit from paid family leave.
The average Black household has fewer resources than the average white one — and the disparity is only getting worse. In 2015, the median wealth of white households was 16 times that of Black households, according to a study from Brandeis University and public policy organization Demos. The numbers are stark — while the typical white household has more than $100,000 in assets, the typical Black household has just over $7,000.
“Super PACs likely encouraged more candidates to get into the 2016 GOP presidential race,” said Jay Goodliffe, a political science professor at Brigham Young University. “Even if their polls were not initially good, or there were other setbacks, the super PAC could help keep them afloat.”
Wal-Mart for increasing the starting salary of workers from $9 to $10 an hour, which would boost the wages of 500,000 employees, along with other boosts in specialized sections. While this step is a positive one, a new Demos brief argues that despite this new policy, Wal-Mart wages and schedules still aren't livable. Demos finds that the new $10 an hour wage "still does not provide enough income to support the basic needs of a single adult working Walmart's full-time schedule of 34 hours per week in any state in the country."
But as Demos senior policy analyst Amy Traubpoints out in a blog post on Friday, "[b]eing paid less for doing the same job is just one aspect of the pay gap."
The vast riches of schools like Stanford and Harvard have created dilemmas about how their endowments should be directed. One slate of candidates for Harvard's board of overseers is calling for the school to spend some of its $37.6 billion endowment to cover tuition for all students. Lawmakers have also mulled requiring colleges with at least $1 billion in their endowments to spend at least one-quarter of the endowment's income on financial aid.
America’s growing inequality is well-documented. Less discussed is its intersection with another of the country’s defining trends, growing diversity.
Racial disparities in wealth are vast. And addressing inequality now and in the years ahead, means thinking seriously about the racial wealth gap and the steps we can take to ameliorate it.
The idea of a property-owning democracy is no longer the reality in the United States. Edward Wolff finds that the wealthiest 10 percent own 90.9 percent of all stocks and mutual funds, 94.3 percent of financial securities but only 26.5 percent of the debt. For the middle class, their home makes up 62.5 percent of their limited wealth.