Several years into the history of America since the acquisition of independence, racial, economic inequality continue to prevail in the United States. The people of color, especially African Americans, continue to suffer from the issue of economic inequality many years after independence. The key measures of the economic well-being of an individual are the median wage, median household income and the family net wealth. The wealth measures financial net worth of a family as well as the sorts of opportunities that are available for the American families. It makes people transition between the jobs easily, lives in better neighborhoods, gets better medical care and responds to emergencies. Furthermore, it allows the parents to provide quality education for the parents and to establish stable economic stability upon retirement. However, the people of color have over the years remained behind in terms of economic stability, leading to high rates of poverty and low education attainment in their neighborhood compared to the whites. Over the centuries, the United States has had unjust public policies both in employment, education, and opportunities that have unfairly allowed the locked the people of color from accumulating wealth, and these past injustices have been carried forward as wealth is handed over across generations based on ethnicity.
There continue to exist a huge gap in the median wage between the blacks and whites, a factor that further contributes to the ever-growing economic inequality gap in the United States. The survey conducted in 2016 has shown that the median black worker earned 75% of what the median white worker earned in an hour. A similar survey also showed that the value of the net worth for the black family was only 10% of the value of the white family ( Darity et al., 2018). A huge income gap continues to exist between the blacks and the people of color. In an attempt to close the gap, the people of color usually tend to work more hours to boost their income. However, the gap has been too big to close. A survey has even shown that the blacks who work in the same profession with the whites and doing the same job still get lower pay than their white colleagues ( Manduca, 2018). This shows the extent to which racial discrimination has been embedded into the income and wealth distribution, unfairly locking out people of color from achieving economic development and acquiring wealth like the whites.
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Lack of equal opportunities is one area that has contributed to the huge racial, economic inequality between the people of color and whites. Throughout the centuries beginning with the days of slave trade, “the African Americans have never had equal opportunities like the whites in America.” Through the formation of unjust public policies that have constantly discriminated them and denied them access to equal development opportunities have led to rising poverty levels and a huge income gap between the blacks and whites in America ( Rothenberg , 2004). The vicious cycle of wealth inequality in the black households has been attributed to lack of access to tax-advantaged forms of savings, which is part of the long history of the discrimination in access to equal opportunities for the people of color. Due to the existence of a well-documented history of the mortgage market discrimination have meant that the whites are more likely to own homes than the blacks. Such unjust public policies, which originates from the long history of discrimination against the blacks, have continued to exist and this places a barrier to the blacks from competing in the same level grounds with the whites ( Rothenberg , 2004). As a result, the wealth gap between the whites and people of color continue to rise to unimaginable levels.
The persistent discrimination in the labor markets and unfair employment policies, as well as segregation, have pushed the people of color into a less advantageous state compared to the whites. Due to the discrimination in the labor markets, the people of color are less likely to find a stable job, a better wage and retirement benefits. A recent survey has shown that the whites are ten times more likely to get employment than the blacks in America even with the same qualification. The long history of discrimination in the labor market has always come back to stand in the path of growth for the blacks. Centuries ago when the people of color had no rights in the American community, some of these policies still exist. Even in the rising call for racial equality, discrimination in the job market and other income opportunities continue to exist in the United States. According to the Federal Reserve data of 2016, “the black households have fewer personal savings than the white counterparts” ( Darity et al., 2018 ). The people of color are more likely to experience income shocks and lack emergency savings. The major reason is due to the low wage compared to the whites, leaving them with nothing to save. The same report by the Federal Reserve shows that the majority of the people of color spend almost all their incomes on food thus leaving them with nothing to save and invest.
The long history of racial discrimination in educational opportunities, as well as achievement, has also contributed to the growing income gap between blacks and whites. Over the years, African American children have not had fair educational opportunities and thus low educational achievements. Because of the unequal employment opportunities as well as unjust policies that block them from accumulating wealth, the people of color have always lived in poor neighborhoods ( Manduca, 2018). The low family level of income affects the educational attainment of the children. As more African American children continue to have lower educational attainment than the whites, they become less competitive in the already discriminative job market. This worsens the increasing wealth gap between African Americans and whites. According to the report by the Federal Reserve, “the African Americans face serious challenges in trying to narrow down the wealth gap between them and the whites. The wealth gap continues to exist irrespective of education, age or the marital status ( Darity et al., 2018 ). As the African Americans grow older, the wealth gap worsens due to lack of retirement benefits compared to the whites. This situation puts most African Americans to live in poverty, with some getting in costly debts. The 2016 data shows that African Americans owed more expensive debts than whites.
In conclusion, the African Americans have for decades struggled to close the wealth gap between them and the whites with no success. This persistent gap has always left the African Americans in economically vulnerable situations and leads to a vicious cycle of economic difficulties. The income and wealth gap that exists between the whites and African Americans can be traced to the unjust public policies that have always been discriminative against the people of color. Over the centuries, the United States has had unjust public policies both in employment, education, and opportunities that have unfairly allowed the locked the people of color from accumulating wealth, and these past injustices have been carried forward as wealth is handed over across generations based on ethnicity. These discriminative policies have always locked the people of color from attaining economic growth, and instead, they have remained in the same vicious cycle of economic struggle for centuries.
References
Rothenberg, P. S. (2004). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study . Macmillan.
Darity Jr, W., Hamilton, D., Paul, M., Aja, A., Price, A., Moore, A., & Chiopris, C. (2018). What We Get Wrong About Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. https://socialequity. duke. edu/sites/social equity. duke. edu/files/site-images/FINAL , 20 .
Manduca, R. (2018). Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities. Sociological Science , 5 , 182-205.
