“While still large, the income ‘race gap’ between low-income Black and White Americans narrowed but the ‘class gap’ or the difference in earnings between young adults born to low- and high-income parents widened, according to U.S. Census Bureau and Harvard University research.”
The latest intriguing study by Raj Chetty and colleagues should be a wake-up blast to the US elite left which for many years has funded and researched poverty and made policy through a racial lens focusing almost exclusively on the plight of Black Americans while almost ignoring poor Whites. As we have written repeatedly, this fixation has fueled populist resentment and racial conflict while making it more difficult to achieve political consensus to enact policies that help all low-income people. (Think the claim about left’s fixation on race and racial politics is overstated? Go back and look through what left-leaning think tanks have published over the past decade – EPI, CBPP, and Urban Institute, for example – as well as verbiage accompanying Biden Administration proposals.)
The new study comparing the fortunes of two generations born just before and just after the Reagan years provides a glimpse into reality. Americans at the top of the economic ladder continue to pull away while those at the bottom are playing statistical musical chairs. Racial disparities continue but have narrowed. Poor whites are doing worse. Poor blacks better. Going forward, to improve mobility at the bottom, research and policy focus should be more on class, less on race.
One caveat: policymakers should approach with caution the study’s conclusion that “(s)ocial interactions, as opposed to changes in economic resources, have a greater impact on children’s outcomes.” That should remain a hypothesis. Social and community factors in the study’s research design are less clear and fitted to what government can change than economic factors. Overlapping social and economic variables also make determining causation difficult. Like omitting white poverty, discounting the role of economic factors in order to promote social research could be used by conservatives to stifle efforts to help low-income people. Unlike sophisticated statistical analysis, policymaking is a blunt instrument. Politicians and governments are better at allocating funds than building community and family support systems.
Below are CCSE papers dealing with race/class:
Opposing Racism and Human Bondage in the United States
How Much Pain Will It Take for the ‘Bottom 50%’ To Realize Its Political Power? What Then?
Georgia Tragedy Reported Through a “Woke” Lens
And now comes this:
Democrats Embrace White Identity Politics
Harris campaign strategists must have read advance copies of the Chetty study. As woke Dems “wake up” on race/class issues, early efforts to cull working class white votes may be a bit condescending.