Eighth Week Blog Post

 Wealth Inequality Among Racial Groups

One of the largest false beliefs of why people of color have less wealth than Whites is that people of color do not work as hard. This ties into the mindset of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Typically, it is White people who believe people of color should just work harder to live the “American dream.” The belief that people of color aren’t putting in enough work, seems to be the explanation of why these people have less wealth. However, this belief is just not true. There are actually many variables that come into play when discussing wealth accumulation and mobility. Meschede (2016) explains some major factors that influence changes in wealth, including “employment characteristics, extended family wealth, negative life events… and neighborhood characteristics and housing wealth” (p. 7). As we’ve talked about before, people of color have a harder time acquiring jobs, tend to live in poorer neighborhoods, and have less wealth to pass onto future generations. If the above statements all have to do with wealth and mobility, we can clearly see that people of color are at a disadvantage. Digging a little deeper into this issue, people of color are almost stuck in this cycle of disadvantage. People of color have lower paying jobs, leading to living in a poorer community, their children probably go to a school with less resources, and when the parents pass away, the children acquire little assets. Because of this cycle, these people of color are constantly battling wealth inequality.

There are some ideas concerning how to decrease these inequalities in America. One idea presented by Dubner (2020) is reparations. However, a cost estimate calculated “by the University of Connecticut political scientist Thomas Craemer, comes to $14 trillion” (Dubner, 2020, para. 18). Because this is definitely a high cost for the United States, the proposal of giving Black Americans $100,000 was also discussed in Dubner’s (2020) podcast. This idea is definitely one that I believe needs to be explored, as this amount of money (even less than $100,000) could be incredibly impactful for Black American families. 

The inequalities present in wealth affect different groups in different ways. The differences in wealth help keep neighborhoods and schools segregated. While Whites may not pay much attention to this because they have the advantage, people of color are left with less opportunities and many other disadvantages. This affects how children in each division grow up and how they, ultimately, live the rest of their lives. Reparations would help close the wealth gap and would open the door of opportunities to Blacks. However, many Whites oppose reparations, as they see it as unfair. Another idea to consider with reparations, is that it would leave out other minority groups, which could still leave a wealth gap. Overall, inequality in wealth across racial groups is a major problem, and it is time we start actively exploring real solutions.

References

Dubner, S. (Host). Lapinski, Z, E.P. (Executive Producer). (2020, July 22). The pros and cons of reparations (No. 427) [Audio podcast episode]. In Freakonomics Radio. Stitcher and Dubner Productions. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-pros-and-cons-of-reparations-ep-427/ 

Meschede, T., Thomas, H., Mann, A., Stagg, A., & Shapiro, T. (2016). Wealth mobility of families raising children in the twenty-first century. Race and Social Problems, 8(1), 77–92. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-016-9161-1