I was pretty shocked at David Leonhardt’s latest New York Times column. Could it possibly true that black men have made no progress in wages over the period of the last 70 years?
Government statistics suggest that the earnings gap between black and white men is substantially smaller than it was 75 years ago. It shrunk in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s and has remained largely stable since then.
But these statistics are misleading. A more comprehensive look at the data, based on academic research, shows that the black-white wage gap is roughly as large today as it was in 1950.
Let’s cut to the chase and jump to his recommendations:
This history also points to some of the likely solutions for closing the racial wage gap. An end to mass incarceration would help. So would policies that attempt to reverse decades of government-encouraged racism — especially in housing. But it’s possible that nothing would have a bigger impact than policies that lifted the pay of all working-class families, across races.
“Black people are concentrated in low-paying jobs if they have jobs,†Ms. Derenoncourt said. “This has been one of the most egregious forms of inequality over the last 40 years: There has been almost no wage growth for the bottom half of the wage distribution.â€
I think there’s simultaneously more and less to his observations than meets the eye. There was a dramatic drop in earnings among black men in 2007. All of his charts stop at 2014. By 2014 there had been little recovery since 2007. Then, just as the gap was beginning to narrow, came the lockdowns.
The culprits are the usual suspects: our lousy immigration and trade policies and the financialization of the economy. No solution however well intentioned will resolve this problem without correcting the errors of the last 30 years. Education you say? It might help a bit if the on-time graduation rate of young black men were not below 80%.
Oh, Dave. Dear god. You could retire on posts on this subject.
The literature is quite available, and quite clear.
Black America was steadily recovering from our past from 1900 to 1960. Prosperity, family cohesiveness and so on. With faults, and probably not at the optimal rate. But undeniable. The state of black family unity was better than whites in 1960. Blacks were quite entrepreneurial.
And then, in a cynical move, the notion was to substitute welfare for income and fathers. The fortunes of the black community have declined ever since. Its simply undeniable, factually.
It was Democrat orthodoxy. I know you are a Democrat, but Democrats own this debacle and need to own what they sewed.
Biden, Schumer and Pelosi are the new slave masters. Promise them crumbs in return for the vote. Education? Bullshit. Immigration? Immoral. These are execrable people.
Trump is their best bet, with all his faults. Rising tides. Its not as sexy, or amenable to virtue signaling. But its reality. Probably more importantly, not as profitable for the race baiting industry, which explains everything.
Burning down and running out of inner cities black businesses and firms that employed blacks ain’t the way to raise black wages. Apparently that’s the method the radical leftists have chosen to raise the consciousness of America to the plight of black people. A plight their funding sources have ignored or exacerbated since the War on Poverty began.
“Ending mass incarceration.”
Yeah, I thought it was a bad idea when they passed the bill requiring mass incarceration of Black men too. I said, how they gonna get to work? Who’s gonna pay their bills? But the bill got passed and they all lined up to get a room in the cooler. Been there ever since. Don’t know how you can blame THEM, they’re just complying with that mass incarceration edict. Law abiding, dutifully incarcerated, oppressed, African American men, gettin rich or dyin tryin.
All snark aside, there was such legislation, called AFDC, which effectively encouraged Black women to have as many children as they could while simultaneous pushing Black men out of the family structure to prevent ineligibility. They began to live lives like wandering tomcats. In and out of the house, fathering babies by as many women as they could so they would have some claim to a share of the families’ incomes on mama’s day. That’s a way of life. You won’t change generations of listlessness and grifting by raising the minimum wage to any level.
Call me any names you want to but that’s only changing the subject.
Ending the high incarceration rate for Black men would entail decriminalizing the sale of narcotics, and ironically stripping them of a major source of income, forcing them to crime.
Everywhere there are Blacks, Africa, Haiti, the Caribbean, Brazil, the US there are the same so-called problems: broken homes, high crime rates, mass incarceration, educational failure, lack of high-paying jobs, etc.
All of this is genetic (DNA) in origin. Blacks in the US have an average IQ of 85. That’s partly because of inbreeding with Whites. In Africa the average is in the 70’s.
None of the Black problems, especially low earnings, can be solved. It is a permanent condition of the Black race.
The flip side is Ashkenazi Jewish dominance. Jews are preeminent in our society not because of any grand conspiracy, but because their average IQ of 115 gives them enormous advantages in our modern economy that rewards thinking. East Asians have the same IQ advantage, but they are actively discriminated against and have not achieved the high levels of influence that might be expected.
Whites are now a minority in the under 16 year-old contingent. Obviously all these problems will be solved once Whites are irrelevant.
There is so much wrong with the dreck above and not enough time to address it all. Besides, zombie ideas never die. Let’s just address one of them.
“All snark aside, there was such legislation, called AFDC, which effectively encouraged Black women to have as many children as they could”
If true, should be easy to confirm by looking at black fertility rates. In 1967 black fertility rates were about 25% higher. By 1996 when AFDC ended they were about 10% higher than whites, and almost 40% lower than they were in 1967.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/statab/t001x01.pdf
Steve
A lot changed in ‘73 when baby pullers came to every state and large city.
And, if you’re gonna compare Black birthrates to White, you see White overall rates drop and families fail to form or break down for the same reasons only later.
Where do you think the large numbers of mixed race Americans came from? Families?
That’s TV commercial reality.
And you’re right, not “as many as they canâ€, but the the subject was employment and compensation of Black men.
AFDC made the woman the breadwinner and men, especially employed men a detriment.
It’s rare to see women, even on the dole, want to have a dozen kids like our grandparents. Now that there’s an easy cure for pregnancy.
AFDC had been around since 1935. As assistance for widows and women who had been abandoned by their husbands with children, its original intent, it was reasonable. Note that prior to the Great Migration and the Great Depression the overwhelming preponderance of black children were born to parents who were married to each other.
What I think actually happened is that the improved job prospects for black women in cities, the loss of manufacturing jobs for black men in the U. S., and changing social mores were incompatible with AFDC. Black men became not just expendable but, as Greyshambler notes, a handicap. As other forms of social support were denied them, gangs became more dominant.
Gangs became more dominant
And with them gang culture and language.
With the coming of the National Broadcasting Corporations it was once thought regional dialects would dissolve, instead they have become more prevalent.
Conversing with African Americans you often hear the phrases “See what I’m saying?â€
Or, “Know what I’m talking about?†In my personal experience the answer is no I don’t. It’s English but you’ve lost me. And when I can’t catch the drift they’ll become frustrated and I make my departure before they become angry.
I can’t argue with anyone who speaks a foreign language, even if it sounds like English.