WSJ: Not There Yet on Equal Opportunity
African-American social mobility climbed until 2000, then a troubling slide began.
By William Galston
October 20, 2015
The Wall Street Journal
It is a commonplace worth repeating that equal opportunity is the core of America’s promise. The story we tell ourselves is that with talent and drive, anyone—regardless of background—has a fair chance to succeed. Luck plays a part, of course, which is why the fates of equally qualified individuals often diverge. But in an opportunity society, there should be no systemic barriers to success.
Throughout our history, we have struggled—often successfully—to overcome such barriers. Waves of immigrants have overcome discrimination to participate fully in the American dream. Although some religious prejudices remain, stories of Catholics and Jews who couldn’t find jobs in Protestant-dominated banks, law firms and universities are ancient history for today’s young adults.
The obstacles women face in the workplace have not disappeared, but by any measure they have abated dramatically since the days chronicled in “Mad Men.” As the controversies of the past decade have shown, resentment against immigrants is by no means dead. Still, most Americans regard immigrants as assets to the country and are willing (under suitable conditions) to embrace even those who have arrived outside the canopy of the law.
It is understandable that the optimistic reformers of 50 years ago believed that racial discrimination could be made to move along a similar path. And for a while, events bore out that optimism. The impediments to full political participation were torn down, and African-Americans were quick to seize the new opportunities to vote and seek elective office. Educational opportunities expanded, achievement gaps between black and white high-school students shrank, and more African-Americans went on to receive college degrees. Black athletes and cultural figures moved from the periphery to the center of American society.
But alongside these heralded milestones of progress, a more somber reality was emerging. Rates of crime and incarceration rose sharply in African-American neighborhoods, as did the percentage of infants born to unmarried women. As more successful black families moved out of central cities into suburbs, areas of concentrated poverty proliferated.
Nonetheless, economic progress continued. Between 1992 and 2000, according to the Census Bureau, the real median income of African-American households rose by 30%, from $31,000 to $40,800.
But the 21st century has been a different story. Today, the real median income of black households stands at only $35,400, down more than 13% from its peak. To be sure, the past 15 years have been good only for those at the top. Still, median income for white households has declined by only 4% during this period, less than one-third the rate for African-Americans. And the housing collapse that triggered the Great Recession hit black households hard. The black-white wealth gap, which narrowed modestly during the 1990s, is now higher than it was in 1989.
Against this backdrop, recent findings about black-white differences in social mobility across generations are especially troubling. Bhashkar Mazumder, a senior economist and researcher at the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago, found in a 2014 study that among children born into white middle-income families, about 41% attain incomes at or near the top of the income scale, while 36% will fall below middle-income status. (The others will end up at their parents’ relative standing.) Among children born into African-American middle-income families, by contrast, only 27% will rise above middle-income status, while 55% will fall beneath it.
Worse, while 74% of white children in the lowest-income families rise above that level and 47% end up in the middle class or higher, only 49% of black children born at the bottom escape that status as adults, and only 29% rise to the middle class or higher. Black children born at the top are almost as likely to end up at the bottom as to remain where they began. By contrast, 38% of whites born at the top will stay there, and only 11% will fall to the bottom.
The social implications of these findings are profound. As Mr. Mazumder sums up, “if future generations of white and black Americans experience the same rates of intergenerational mobility as these cohorts, we should expect to see that blacks on average would not make any relative progress,” and there will be “no racial convergence.” These results, he adds, stand in marked contrast with earlier periods in which African-Americans made steady progress in reducing racial gaps.
Speaking at Howard University 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson observed that it is not enough to tear down the legal barriers to opportunity. In words that still echo today, he declared that the ability with which we are born “is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in—by the school you go to and the poverty or richness of your surroundings.”
If liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, can agree on the goal of equal opportunity—and I think we do—then surely we can do a better job of attacking the remaining barriers to it. That is what fidelity to America’s promise requires of us all.
Article Link to the Wall Street Journal:
Not There Yet on Equal Opportunity
It is a commonplace worth repeating that equal opportunity is the core of America’s promise. The story we tell ourselves is that with talent and drive, anyone—regardless of background—has a fair chance to succeed. Luck plays a part, of course, which is why the fates of equally qualified individuals often diverge. But in an opportunity society, there should be no systemic barriers to success.
Throughout our history, we have struggled—often successfully—to overcome such barriers. Waves of immigrants have overcome discrimination to participate fully in the American dream. Although some religious prejudices remain, stories of Catholics and Jews who couldn’t find jobs in Protestant-dominated banks, law firms and universities are ancient history for today’s young adults.
The obstacles women face in the workplace have not disappeared, but by any measure they have abated dramatically since the days chronicled in “Mad Men.” As the controversies of the past decade have shown, resentment against immigrants is by no means dead. Still, most Americans regard immigrants as assets to the country and are willing (under suitable conditions) to embrace even those who have arrived outside the canopy of the law.
It is understandable that the optimistic reformers of 50 years ago believed that racial discrimination could be made to move along a similar path. And for a while, events bore out that optimism. The impediments to full political participation were torn down, and African-Americans were quick to seize the new opportunities to vote and seek elective office. Educational opportunities expanded, achievement gaps between black and white high-school students shrank, and more African-Americans went on to receive college degrees. Black athletes and cultural figures moved from the periphery to the center of American society.
But alongside these heralded milestones of progress, a more somber reality was emerging. Rates of crime and incarceration rose sharply in African-American neighborhoods, as did the percentage of infants born to unmarried women. As more successful black families moved out of central cities into suburbs, areas of concentrated poverty proliferated.
Nonetheless, economic progress continued. Between 1992 and 2000, according to the Census Bureau, the real median income of African-American households rose by 30%, from $31,000 to $40,800.
But the 21st century has been a different story. Today, the real median income of black households stands at only $35,400, down more than 13% from its peak. To be sure, the past 15 years have been good only for those at the top. Still, median income for white households has declined by only 4% during this period, less than one-third the rate for African-Americans. And the housing collapse that triggered the Great Recession hit black households hard. The black-white wealth gap, which narrowed modestly during the 1990s, is now higher than it was in 1989.
Against this backdrop, recent findings about black-white differences in social mobility across generations are especially troubling. Bhashkar Mazumder, a senior economist and researcher at the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago, found in a 2014 study that among children born into white middle-income families, about 41% attain incomes at or near the top of the income scale, while 36% will fall below middle-income status. (The others will end up at their parents’ relative standing.) Among children born into African-American middle-income families, by contrast, only 27% will rise above middle-income status, while 55% will fall beneath it.
Worse, while 74% of white children in the lowest-income families rise above that level and 47% end up in the middle class or higher, only 49% of black children born at the bottom escape that status as adults, and only 29% rise to the middle class or higher. Black children born at the top are almost as likely to end up at the bottom as to remain where they began. By contrast, 38% of whites born at the top will stay there, and only 11% will fall to the bottom.
The social implications of these findings are profound. As Mr. Mazumder sums up, “if future generations of white and black Americans experience the same rates of intergenerational mobility as these cohorts, we should expect to see that blacks on average would not make any relative progress,” and there will be “no racial convergence.” These results, he adds, stand in marked contrast with earlier periods in which African-Americans made steady progress in reducing racial gaps.
Speaking at Howard University 50 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson observed that it is not enough to tear down the legal barriers to opportunity. In words that still echo today, he declared that the ability with which we are born “is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in—by the school you go to and the poverty or richness of your surroundings.”
If liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, can agree on the goal of equal opportunity—and I think we do—then surely we can do a better job of attacking the remaining barriers to it. That is what fidelity to America’s promise requires of us all.
Article Link to the Wall Street Journal:
Not There Yet on Equal Opportunity
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