There are a lot of poor white people in America

And remembering that could do a lot to close racial gaps

(Mark Makela/Getty Images)

I was finding myself getting sucked into yet another Twitter controversy about DEI initiatives at some company, and I felt like maybe I should write a post arguing that the way to actually make progress on racial equity issues is mostly just to support an expanded welfare state.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities turns out to have an item that makes this basic point — there’s nothing in particular about racial equity in the Biden Families Plan, but via direct large quantities of material resources to less affluent Americans, it mechanically does an enormous amount to advance equity. Their fresh report about closing the Medicaid gap adopts a similar frame.