-
Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide From Inequality.org The deep and persistent racial wealth divide will not close without bold, structural reform. It has been created and held in place by public policies that have evolved with time including slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, mass incarceration, among many others. The racial wealth divide is greater today than it was nearly four decades ago and trends point to its continued widening. In this report, we offer ten bold solutions broken into three categories: Programs, Power, and Process. These solutions are designed to strike at the structural underpinnings holding the racial wealth divide in place while inspiring activists, organizers, academics, journalists, legislators, and others to think boldly about taking on this incredibly important challenge. This summary outlines the ten solutions, gives a snapshot of the latest racial wealth divide data, and offers a warning against false solutions. – Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Chuck Collins, Darrick Hamilton, and Josh Hoxie Programs 1. Baby Bonds The source of the racial wealth divide is grounded in endowment, the unequal and unfair distribution of inherited advantage. Baby bonds, originally conceived by a co-author of this report, Darrick Hamilton, and presented in print by Hamilton and William Darity Jr., are an essential program to balancing the historical injustices that created the racial wealth divide. Baby bonds are federally managed accounts set up at birth for children and endowed by the federal government with assets that will grow over time. These funds can be used when the child reaches adulthood for education, to purchase a home, or to start a business. One recent study shows a baby bond program has the potential to reduce the current black-white wealth divide by more than tenfold. Another study shows that had baby bond program been initiated 40 years ago, the Latinx-white wealth divide would be closed by now and the black-white wealth divide would have shrunk by 82 percent. 2. Guarantee Employment and Significantly Raise the Minimum Wage Black and Latinx workers are twice as likely as white workers to be among the “working poor”, meaning they have a job, but that job doesn’t pay enough to cover basic living expenses. What is needed is not just more jobs, but more good jobs that pay a living wage for everyone who is able to work. A federal jobs guarantee would provide universal job coverage for all adult Americans and eliminate involuntary unemployment. It would offer existing workers a viable alternative to jobs with low wages, inadequate benefits and undesirable working conditions. Moreover, the work would be used to create and improve our nations physical and human public infrastructure. The current federal minimum wage is lower than the cost of living in every city in the country. Moreover, at every education level, blacks are often twice as likely to be unemployed compared to their similarly educated white peers. We recognize that income and wealth are conceptually different, and that the racial wealth divide persists through the income distribution. Nonetheless, the income from a federal job guarantee will limit the racially disproportionate exposure to predatory finance (e.g. wealth stripping debt traps) resulting from inadequate income, unemployment and income volatility. 3. Invest in Affordable Housing Affordable housing remains out of reach for millions of families. A comprehensive approach like the “American Housing and Economic Mobility Act” is needed to ameliorate historical injustices in housing and to address the current crisis. Perhaps the most direct way the bill works to reduce the racial wealth divide is by including a provision that provides down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers living in formerly redlined or officially segregated areas. Three out of four neighborhoods that were redlined are still low income showing the long-term effect of this policy on cities. Safeguards would need to be considered to avoid moral hazards of subsidizing unintended recipients gaming the policy and hastening displacement of intended recipients via gentrification. — Apr 22
-
The Making of the Masters Green Jacket is Shrouded in Mystery. But is it Made in America? Before hitting his first tee shot on Thursday at The Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga., defending champion Sergio Garcia spoke of playing well and “defending the green jacket.” The green jacket is synonymous with a win at The Masters, arguably the most prestigious of professional golf’s four major tournaments. Every year since 1949, The Masters winner has been presented with his own green jacket in a ceremony shortly after the final putt is made. The green jacket that Augusta National Golf Clubhas awarded its Masters winners and club members has historically been as American-made as the tournament itself. Since 1967, the Augusta National green jackets have, for the most part, been produced by the Hamilton Tailoring Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. In more recent years, the tropical-weight wool blazer has also been supplied by Bobby Jones Apparel, located in Duluth, Ga., and the historic Poole & Co. on Saville Row in London. In keeping with the conservative nature of Augusta National members, exactly where each individual jacket is manufactured is a close-kept secret. Hamilton Tailoring began producing the green jackets in 1967, but founder Ed Heimann would not confirm the Ohio-based retailer still supplies them. Augusta National staff members also refused to talk, although a 2017 article on the club's website confirmed Hamilton Tailoring makes the jackets. So, we consulted an expert on the green jacket, Ryan Carey, who along with partner Bob Zafian, launched Green Jacket Auctions in 2006 to capture the golf memorabilia market. “Historically, they’ve all been made in the United States, but I have seen some green jackets with the Henry Poole name on them,” Carey said. “Of the other 15 or so producers that have made them over the years, all of them are in the U.S. — Apr 22
-
Fighting to Fix the New NAFTA From the AFL-CIO For the better part of a generation, our global trading system has been rigged to enrich corporations at the expense of working people—and no deal has done more damage than NAFTA. We are hungry for a North American trade deal that lifts wages and improves livelihoods. The new NAFTA, also known as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), as proposed falls short, and that’s why America’s working families will keep fighting to fix it. Here are three reasons why the labor movement opposes the new NAFTA:
- There is nothing in the current deal to fix the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs to Mexico and other low-wage countries. 851,000 U.S. jobs were lost already due to NAFTA.
- Unless Mexico finishes and implements full labor reform and stronger rules and enforcements are added to the NAFTA text, Mexico’s workers will continue to face wages as low as $2 per hour or less and receive no protection from threats and violence when trying to unionize.
- Monopoly rights for Big Pharma would keep drug prices sky high, and new rules would undermine protections such as workplace safety.
-
Democrats Take on Corporate Profits and CEO Pay: A Closer Look Watch the video » — Apr 22
-
Class(room) Warfare The actress Felicity Huffman—along with 13 other parents charged in the college admissions scandal—entered plea deals last week, putting pressure on actress Lori Laughlin and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, to do the same. Prosecutors are hinting that if Laughlin doesn’t accept a deal she could face 20 years in prison, 3 years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. I have enjoyed EVERY SINGLE SECOND of this scandal and its coverage. It has exploded so many of the lies we tell ourselves about America being a fair and just society—especially when it comes to access to higher education. For those who think about class, this scandal has been like Halloween, Christmas and Easter rolled into one. Journalists and bloggers are using words like class, blue collar, elite and privilege. Nothing of the actual details of this scandal—the bribes paid, the photos photoshopped, the tests taken by fakers—have shocked me. What has surprised me, however, is that journalists and bloggers have been using this scandal to talk about class and inequality. As sociologist Shamus Khan wrote in The Washington Post, “the true tragedy is that almost all rich families buy their kids into elite colleges by purchasing advantages they pass off as talents, whether by way of sailing lessons or elaborate vacations planned with an eye on admissions essays. We view these vastly overrepresented children of the rich as having earned their spots.” This, another blogger concurred, “is the real scandal.” These comments point to the many ways that rich people get their kids into college. On the lower end of the scale is all the money many of us are able spend on music lessons, test prep, elite soccer programs, and summer-abroad service project opportunities for our kids—to name a few of the advantages families like mine can afford. At the next level are the parents who can afford to send their kids to expensive and prestigious prep and boarding schools. And, finally, at the top tier, are the parents who can donate tens of thousands or even millions of dollars to college campuses in return for a guarantee of their child’s entry into said college. As many have noted in reporting on the admissions scandal, Jared Kushner’s parents got him into Harvard by donating 2.5 million dollars a few years before Kushner applied. The Associated Press turned to Richard V. Reeves, whose book Dream Hoarders showed how the upper echelon hoards all the best opportunities for itself. As Reeves commented on the scandal, “[f]or most people outside the elite, these institutions might as well be on the moon. This story just reinforces that, the way in which money buys opportunity in America.” — Apr 21