I’m wondering to what extent the problem of policies addressing the racial wealth gap directly is really significant. The Hingham example definitely seems like a bad approach, but are there really so many advocates of policies aiming to increase diversity within elites in a way that is detrimental to inequality reduction?
I do wonder if there's something misleading about looking at an analysis that lops off the top 25% of the income distribution, then focusing the subsequent discussion on billionaires. Acknowledging that income inequality is a more serious problem, doesn't it make sense for us to look at those factors that limit Black access to the top quartile of income? That speaks to much of our professional class.
The chart doesn’t prove much to me. Why not exclude the richest 30% of white people? The richest half? It isn’t all that interesting to say that “if we exclude white people with more assets, then Black people are just as well off as white people.” If the chart excluded only the extremely rich that would be interesting—would show that the gap is driven by outliers. Also, to flip your policy point around, one could also assert that we aren’t going to solve the class problem you emphasize unless we deal with barriers to Black asset accumulation.
Matt, I'd rather send this by a back channel, but I can't find an email address for you.
Your work is so stimulating in its intellectual integrity, it's downright exciting. I'm most grateful for it. However--
Since Slow Boring is not yet big enough to include a full-time proofreader, please read through your stuff slowly a couple of times before posting it. If you can spare the time, skim it backwards once. Some errors are easiest to catch that way, because you're not distracted by the discourse.
I won't ask you to follow the old advice: to put each finished piece in a drawer for two weeks and then give it a fresh reading. The world has moved beyond drawers, not to mention sheets of paper to put in them. And I think I speak for all your readers when I say I wouldn't want to wait two weeks.
Good piece. I think you can make the same point about university admissions. I don't get why there are so many battles over racial diversity in college admissions. To me it makes more sense for colleges to simply allot more spots to lower income families and that should increase diversity along with it. Unless they don't really care about assisting lower income kids and would be happier taking in upper class minorities.
Just read all comments... lot of debate about... median, mediums, is it right to cut off 25%, 10%, etc...
I guess the answer really depends on mobility. How likely are the kids of the the bottom 75% of white families likely to make to the top 25% (or whatever percentage we are talking about).
If not at all likely (similar to black Americans) then Mattys argument would hold.
<i>"Conversely, upward mobility for children born into the bottom fifth of the distribution is markedly higher among whites than among black or American Indian children. Among children who grew up in the bottom fifth of the distribution, 10.6 percent of whites make it into the top fifth of household incomes themselves, as do 25.5 percent of Asian-Americans. By contrast, only 7.1 percent of Hispanic children born in the bottom fifth make it to the top fifth, along with 3.3 percent of American Indian children and a tiny 2.5 percent of black children."</i>
So all the arguments about median and average and top 10% cutoff or 20% cut off are mute.
I will say that I am not convinced this historical intergenerational income mobility is guaranteed for the future.
I think assortive mating will mean a lot less intergeneration income mobility for all people.
In other words, in the future, poor white people will not be as likely to get to the top as they have been in the base... if at all.
CSB: I used to be a union organizer. One of the (many) things that we had to fight was "bosses"/conservatives driving a racial wedge between people who were fighting the same fight. And now " liberals" do it; if you even attempt to explain why this is a bad idea, they will call you racist.
Like many things that can seem incidental or coincidental, this isn't. The kind of people who fund the CAP (for instance) would much rather hire three black women and have everyone tell them how awesome they are, than give 300 people a raise (including *30* and genuinely make a
Re: that Hingham YIMBY group, I guess I'm glad that our brand is strong enough that people want to steal it. "We want our rich neighbors to be more diverse, like a Colors of Benneton ad!" is not YIMBY. Unless you're going to advocate building enough housing that it brings down the cost per sqft of residence, such that your neighbors are more _economically_ diverse, not just more racially diverse, you're not YIMBY-ing. You're just running a promotional campaign on behalf of local Realtors. If you're a rich denizen of a 95+% White town like Hingham, letting the the people who mow your lawn and serve your lattes afford housing near their jobs and send their kids to the same school as yours is just the _right thing to do_. That's what being a YIMBY is about.
I've been curious about what the "backyard" part of the YIMBY acronym means. I get it for NIMBY: it's "literally" their backyard. Are there substantial numbers of YIMBY proponents who are calling for zoning changes and increased density literally where they live? I don't mean for SFR residences many blocks away; I mean the SFR neighborhoods they themselves live in.
I don't begrudge their calling for more density (I'm in favor of it); I'm just in favor of truth in labeling. Maybe calling it "YIMBY" is correct. But is it possibly more "YIYBY" then "YIMBY"?
Also, for what it's worth, I personally lived for five years in a grandfathered duplex in a SFH neighborhood. It is the YIMBY position that it should be legal to build neighborhoods in the manner they were built up until the '50s suburban experiment.
Yes, it is a standard position of YIMBY organizations that it should be legal for people to convert SFHs into small n-plexes. We _narrowly_ missed passing a law in CA this year that would've legalized duplexes in every SFH neighborhood in California, with effectively quad-plexes allowed in the places that are most impacted (very bad jobs:housing ratios).
Portland has already done a quite aggressive version of this, and the whole state of Oregon has a version. Minneapolis is going down this path as well.
If I understand your point correctly, it is that in political terms the history of systemic racial discrimination doesn't translate into enough votes to do anything. In order to combat the racial wealth gap, politicians need to embrace policies that will be sold to everyone but for whom African-Americans will benefit much more on average. Am I close?
It's so crazy because this is something that conservatives inherently understand and they use that in order to develop policies that aren't inherently racist but that disproportionately affect minority populations (ex. voter ID laws). They develop these general policies that apply to the general population but disproportionately affect minorities. A great article that helps explain this is the Hidden agenda: https://mag.uchicago.edu/education-social-service/hidden-agenda
Leftists need to use this in order to advance agendas that are universal but that disproportionately affect minorities (who are usually in the poorer economic brackets) and that help all poor people advance. Just helping black poor people doesn't make any sense in the grand scheme of things because it further creates a divisive boundary between the races. If a policy is only for poor black people and I'm a poor white guy, why would I stop holding my racist views for black people. Separating poor people by race is exactly what Leftists criticize conservatives for doing and it doesn't solve any underlying problems in our society. If we help all people with universal programs and the majority of black Americans are struggling then they will get the majority of that support and wow you ease racial tension while at the same time helping minority populations. We need to stop playing the culture war and start implementing real policies that actually improve the majority of people's lives.
Historically, we had programs in America to address the wealth gap, i.e. to help working class people accumulate some assets and move into the middle and upper-middle classes. (Plus we generally had an economic structure in which there was less precarity -- once you were upper-middle class, the chance of a couple bad strokes of luck pushing you all the way back down into poverty.)
The problem is that those programs _were intentionally racist_, even if often the terms in which they were defined were facially neutral, just as everyone knew that "literacy tests" for voting, while facially neutral, were targeted at Black people. Southern Dixiecrats were a critical constituency in maintaining the large majority that backed these programs, and White liberals accommodated their racism "for the greater good". In some ways, Nixon's Southern Strategy did us a favor, by cleaving racism out of the party that in theory wanted to see itself as championing the working class, freeing us up to _actually help the working class_, not _only_ the White working class.
I think it is fair, given the history of the mid-20th Century, for activists to question whether past programs that specifically built up White wealth demand some kind of special remedy, and to question whether those who propose facially neutral new programs actually intend the programs to exclude PoC. But we ought to be able to have that conversation in good faith. So, for instance, Cory Booker's "baby bonds" program, which Vox has described as "universal basic wealth", would pretty clearly have a hugely beneficial effect in terms of closing the racial wealth gap. It would put wealth into the hands of those who have none, who are disproportionately PoC. And sure, it would not award much new benefit to a Black Wall Streeter, and it would give money to a poor Appalachian White, but, like, _why is that a bad thing?_ Like, sure, at some level it is "unfair" that the Black Wall Streeter doesn't get some kind of reparations for the crimes committed against his ancestors -- that he did all the right things, became successful, and is (in some relative sense) "punished" for that. But actual racial reparations are wildly unpopular and it's almost impossible to imagine them passing a Senate that can exist any time in the next thirty years. So howsabout we do something to close the racial wealth gap today, to prove the Democratic Party is _actually_ a party of working class solidarity, so we maybe stop seeing erosion of our vote among working class Black and Latino men?
This reads as a weakly constructed statistical veneer (some mean/median games going on, mentioned in other comments) for a good underlying political argument. Redistributing wealth and power away from 1%+ in a race neutral way is popular and will, without it being the stated goal, help reduce racial wealth gap because of composition effects.
I think it's more effective to just say that. Say and do the popular thing, class warfare, to get something done on the somewhat less popular thing, reducing the racial wealth gap. Also is a good general argument for universalism instead of targeted programs.
I’m wondering to what extent the problem of policies addressing the racial wealth gap directly is really significant. The Hingham example definitely seems like a bad approach, but are there really so many advocates of policies aiming to increase diversity within elites in a way that is detrimental to inequality reduction?
Nothing to say about the argument, but please get a proofreader.
I do wonder if there's something misleading about looking at an analysis that lops off the top 25% of the income distribution, then focusing the subsequent discussion on billionaires. Acknowledging that income inequality is a more serious problem, doesn't it make sense for us to look at those factors that limit Black access to the top quartile of income? That speaks to much of our professional class.
The chart doesn’t prove much to me. Why not exclude the richest 30% of white people? The richest half? It isn’t all that interesting to say that “if we exclude white people with more assets, then Black people are just as well off as white people.” If the chart excluded only the extremely rich that would be interesting—would show that the gap is driven by outliers. Also, to flip your policy point around, one could also assert that we aren’t going to solve the class problem you emphasize unless we deal with barriers to Black asset accumulation.
Matt, I'd rather send this by a back channel, but I can't find an email address for you.
Your work is so stimulating in its intellectual integrity, it's downright exciting. I'm most grateful for it. However--
Since Slow Boring is not yet big enough to include a full-time proofreader, please read through your stuff slowly a couple of times before posting it. If you can spare the time, skim it backwards once. Some errors are easiest to catch that way, because you're not distracted by the discourse.
I won't ask you to follow the old advice: to put each finished piece in a drawer for two weeks and then give it a fresh reading. The world has moved beyond drawers, not to mention sheets of paper to put in them. And I think I speak for all your readers when I say I wouldn't want to wait two weeks.
Good piece. I think you can make the same point about university admissions. I don't get why there are so many battles over racial diversity in college admissions. To me it makes more sense for colleges to simply allot more spots to lower income families and that should increase diversity along with it. Unless they don't really care about assisting lower income kids and would be happier taking in upper class minorities.
Just read all comments... lot of debate about... median, mediums, is it right to cut off 25%, 10%, etc...
I guess the answer really depends on mobility. How likely are the kids of the the bottom 75% of white families likely to make to the top 25% (or whatever percentage we are talking about).
If not at all likely (similar to black Americans) then Mattys argument would hold.
(hint... this isnt the case) https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17139300/economic-mobility-study-race-black-white-women-men-incarceration-income-chetty-hendren-jones-porter
<i>"Conversely, upward mobility for children born into the bottom fifth of the distribution is markedly higher among whites than among black or American Indian children. Among children who grew up in the bottom fifth of the distribution, 10.6 percent of whites make it into the top fifth of household incomes themselves, as do 25.5 percent of Asian-Americans. By contrast, only 7.1 percent of Hispanic children born in the bottom fifth make it to the top fifth, along with 3.3 percent of American Indian children and a tiny 2.5 percent of black children."</i>
So all the arguments about median and average and top 10% cutoff or 20% cut off are mute.
I will say that I am not convinced this historical intergenerational income mobility is guaranteed for the future.
I think assortive mating will mean a lot less intergeneration income mobility for all people.
In other words, in the future, poor white people will not be as likely to get to the top as they have been in the base... if at all.
And this is why you Matt had to leave Vox
CSB: I used to be a union organizer. One of the (many) things that we had to fight was "bosses"/conservatives driving a racial wedge between people who were fighting the same fight. And now " liberals" do it; if you even attempt to explain why this is a bad idea, they will call you racist.
Like many things that can seem incidental or coincidental, this isn't. The kind of people who fund the CAP (for instance) would much rather hire three black women and have everyone tell them how awesome they are, than give 300 people a raise (including *30* and genuinely make a
(Including *30* black women) and genuinely make a real dent in the problem. (Whoops, I hit post too soon, sorry)
Second richest man in the world is African American
Bill Gates?
Bill is now #3 behind Elon Musk.
Ah, I get it now. Elon was born in Pretoria.
Ah, interesting stretch to refer to him as African American but sure yeah, okay.
rich people are also old and old people are really white lol
Re: that Hingham YIMBY group, I guess I'm glad that our brand is strong enough that people want to steal it. "We want our rich neighbors to be more diverse, like a Colors of Benneton ad!" is not YIMBY. Unless you're going to advocate building enough housing that it brings down the cost per sqft of residence, such that your neighbors are more _economically_ diverse, not just more racially diverse, you're not YIMBY-ing. You're just running a promotional campaign on behalf of local Realtors. If you're a rich denizen of a 95+% White town like Hingham, letting the the people who mow your lawn and serve your lattes afford housing near their jobs and send their kids to the same school as yours is just the _right thing to do_. That's what being a YIMBY is about.
I've been curious about what the "backyard" part of the YIMBY acronym means. I get it for NIMBY: it's "literally" their backyard. Are there substantial numbers of YIMBY proponents who are calling for zoning changes and increased density literally where they live? I don't mean for SFR residences many blocks away; I mean the SFR neighborhoods they themselves live in.
I don't begrudge their calling for more density (I'm in favor of it); I'm just in favor of truth in labeling. Maybe calling it "YIMBY" is correct. But is it possibly more "YIYBY" then "YIMBY"?
Also, for what it's worth, I personally lived for five years in a grandfathered duplex in a SFH neighborhood. It is the YIMBY position that it should be legal to build neighborhoods in the manner they were built up until the '50s suburban experiment.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/3/making-normal-neighborhoods-legal-again
https://yimbyaction.org/core-four/
https://cayimby.org/policy/
Yes, it is a standard position of YIMBY organizations that it should be legal for people to convert SFHs into small n-plexes. We _narrowly_ missed passing a law in CA this year that would've legalized duplexes in every SFH neighborhood in California, with effectively quad-plexes allowed in the places that are most impacted (very bad jobs:housing ratios).
https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2020/09/12/how-democratic-squabbling-doomed-sorely-needed-housing-legislation-in-sacramento/
Portland has already done a quite aggressive version of this, and the whole state of Oregon has a version. Minneapolis is going down this path as well.
https://www.sightline.org/2020/08/11/on-wednesday-portland-will-pass-the-best-low-density-zoning-reform-in-us-history/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-minneapolis-defeated-nimbyism/600601/
If I understand your point correctly, it is that in political terms the history of systemic racial discrimination doesn't translate into enough votes to do anything. In order to combat the racial wealth gap, politicians need to embrace policies that will be sold to everyone but for whom African-Americans will benefit much more on average. Am I close?
It's so crazy because this is something that conservatives inherently understand and they use that in order to develop policies that aren't inherently racist but that disproportionately affect minority populations (ex. voter ID laws). They develop these general policies that apply to the general population but disproportionately affect minorities. A great article that helps explain this is the Hidden agenda: https://mag.uchicago.edu/education-social-service/hidden-agenda
Leftists need to use this in order to advance agendas that are universal but that disproportionately affect minorities (who are usually in the poorer economic brackets) and that help all poor people advance. Just helping black poor people doesn't make any sense in the grand scheme of things because it further creates a divisive boundary between the races. If a policy is only for poor black people and I'm a poor white guy, why would I stop holding my racist views for black people. Separating poor people by race is exactly what Leftists criticize conservatives for doing and it doesn't solve any underlying problems in our society. If we help all people with universal programs and the majority of black Americans are struggling then they will get the majority of that support and wow you ease racial tension while at the same time helping minority populations. We need to stop playing the culture war and start implementing real policies that actually improve the majority of people's lives.
Historically, we had programs in America to address the wealth gap, i.e. to help working class people accumulate some assets and move into the middle and upper-middle classes. (Plus we generally had an economic structure in which there was less precarity -- once you were upper-middle class, the chance of a couple bad strokes of luck pushing you all the way back down into poverty.)
The problem is that those programs _were intentionally racist_, even if often the terms in which they were defined were facially neutral, just as everyone knew that "literacy tests" for voting, while facially neutral, were targeted at Black people. Southern Dixiecrats were a critical constituency in maintaining the large majority that backed these programs, and White liberals accommodated their racism "for the greater good". In some ways, Nixon's Southern Strategy did us a favor, by cleaving racism out of the party that in theory wanted to see itself as championing the working class, freeing us up to _actually help the working class_, not _only_ the White working class.
I think it is fair, given the history of the mid-20th Century, for activists to question whether past programs that specifically built up White wealth demand some kind of special remedy, and to question whether those who propose facially neutral new programs actually intend the programs to exclude PoC. But we ought to be able to have that conversation in good faith. So, for instance, Cory Booker's "baby bonds" program, which Vox has described as "universal basic wealth", would pretty clearly have a hugely beneficial effect in terms of closing the racial wealth gap. It would put wealth into the hands of those who have none, who are disproportionately PoC. And sure, it would not award much new benefit to a Black Wall Streeter, and it would give money to a poor Appalachian White, but, like, _why is that a bad thing?_ Like, sure, at some level it is "unfair" that the Black Wall Streeter doesn't get some kind of reparations for the crimes committed against his ancestors -- that he did all the right things, became successful, and is (in some relative sense) "punished" for that. But actual racial reparations are wildly unpopular and it's almost impossible to imagine them passing a Senate that can exist any time in the next thirty years. So howsabout we do something to close the racial wealth gap today, to prove the Democratic Party is _actually_ a party of working class solidarity, so we maybe stop seeing erosion of our vote among working class Black and Latino men?
This reads as a weakly constructed statistical veneer (some mean/median games going on, mentioned in other comments) for a good underlying political argument. Redistributing wealth and power away from 1%+ in a race neutral way is popular and will, without it being the stated goal, help reduce racial wealth gap because of composition effects.
I think it's more effective to just say that. Say and do the popular thing, class warfare, to get something done on the somewhat less popular thing, reducing the racial wealth gap. Also is a good general argument for universalism instead of targeted programs.
Does the link to the policing article need to be corrected? I get sent to the housing article.