The behinder I get reflects the prevailing experience for nearly half of African Americans born in the late ‘60’s, according to Michael A. Fletcher, writing in an article published in the Tuesday, November 13, 2007 edition of the Washington Post. The data underlying Mr. Fletcher’s story are found in three reports released Tuesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The reports, formally known as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, were designed to evaluate the authenticity of the American Dream.
Two of the key questions explored were: Do Americans earn more than their parents? How is the result influenced by race and gender? In short, the findings show 45% of children born to parents with a median income of $55,000, in 1968, adjusted for inflation, are now among the nation’s lowest 20% of earners. Moreover, children of parents earning a median family income of $41,700 fell to the lowest income group.
Scholars from several think tanks and universities, including the Pew Charitable Trusts, which released the study, the Brookings Institution, which authored the study, and Columbia, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, have been unable to explain the enormity of the downward mobility phenomenon experienced by the principals in the study. Researchers already knew, based on other data, African Americans had experienced inverse mobility. The sheer dimensions of the problem, however, were as unexpected as the underlying reasons were unclear.
Alternately, some things are clear from the study. Among them:
Participants were repeatedly interviewed about their income since 1968
Only 16% of whites experienced similar income degradation
Two out of three Americans have been upwardly mobile during the period
Roughly half earned more than their parents and were better off in relation to the rest of the population
Growth was most significant among the lower income
4 out of 5 children born to parents in the lower 20% of income out-earned their parents
9 of 10 whites earned more than their parents
3 of 4 blacks earned more than their parents
Median income for adults in their 30’s and 40’s grew 29%
Household size concurrently shrank, raising income per person even more
Between 1974 and 2004, median income for men dropped 12%
For the same period, increased numbers of women in the workforce resulted in tripling their median income
Black women earned a 2004 median income almost equal to white women
At the same time, black men earned less than two-thirds that of white men
Black families in their 30’s earned 58 percent of comparable whites
While no definitive cause has been attributed, there is speculation a number of factors contribute to these sobering statistics. Several scholars, including Ronald Mincy, a Columbia University sociologist, believe the increased number of black single-parent households, persistent educational gaps, racial isolation, and the huge wealth gap between blacks and whites, all affect the disparity. Other studies have found the wealth differential to be 10 to 1, or for every $10 of wealth whites have, blacks have $1.
I believe the inability of researchers to devise pat answers to questions raised by the data presented in the study is tied to the counter-intuitive nature of the results. We are consistently taught, and inherently, really want to believe in certain basic and oft repeated bromides.
We are informed hard work will result in a level playing field. We are told educational pursuit and achievements prepare us to compete at the highest level. We are trained to believe home ownership is the foundation of the American Dream. We have had it drummed into our collective heads that the accomplishments and achievements of those who came before us serve as both the roadmap, and the motivation to spur us on to greater heights. We are told that racism, while a frequent, graphic, and painfully documented fact of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries, has been vanquished in the 21st Century, and remains only as an excuse for the slothful, unimaginative, and alibi-seeking.
At this point, I am reminded of the fellow who asks, incredulously, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” Certainly, I do not suggest these advisories, and many others, are without wisdom, value, or merit. However, as I have noted previously, about other matters, this is a complex and multi-faceted issue. We will not construct the solution by looking at only one side of the equation.
The researchers involved with the Panel Study of Income Dynamics are committed to continue working to determine the precise causes of the downward mobility revealed in the reports. But until they get back to us, it is we, the reasonably informed, and moderately engaged, who are called upon to step into the gap. Yes, we must accept responsibility. Of course, we must embrace accountability. Definitely, we must take action, and urge others to do likewise.
But, you know what? While we are doing all that, we must also summon the will and display the courage to go to the proverbial Emerald City (and I don’t mean Seattle), and challenge the men behind the curtain pushing and pulling the levers of institutional racism and intolerance. We must demand that they join us in doing the right thing. James Baldwin wrote, in The First Next Time, “Color is not a human or personal reality (in America), it is a political reality.” Race and racism are not pleasant concepts, yet they are unavoidable constructs. Therefore, we must deal with them!
In summary, the idea that we must get our own house in order is totally appropriate. Yet, imagine what would happen if you completely rebuilt your home in the midst of a decaying, dilapidated, vermin-infested neighborhood. What would be the prospect of your investment increasing in value, or yielding a reasonable return, if nothing else changed? None whatsoever!
Institutional racism, race-based polices and practices, and other forms of intolerance are akin to moral decay, ethical dilapidation, and community infestation. Any effort designed to re-make ourselves without eradicating these environmental toxins is at best a half-way solution. Such an effort cannot provide a full and complete remedy to the problems that plague us.
That’s what I think. What about you?
Holla back!
Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com/, or by Googling thesphinxofcharlotte. A new post is published each Wednesday.
To read and learn more about how the middle-class dream eludes African American families, click on the links below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/12/AR2007111201711.html?nav=rss_print/asection
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Pew+Charitable+Trusts?tid=informline
http://mirroronamerica.blogspot.com/2007/11/middle-class-dream-eludes-african.html
http://educationpolicyblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/work-hard-be-nice-and-other-lies-my.html
http://www.mywire.com/pubs/AFP/2007/11/13/4941522?pbl=289
http://www.usatoday.com/money/2007-11-13-income-gap_N.htm
http://www.civilrights.org/research_center/civilrights101/economicjustice.html
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=236&contentID=1346
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/economics/analysis.html
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