The Black-white wealth gap is widening - a racial equity stimulus can narrow it | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Black-white wealth gap is widening - a racial equity stimulus can narrow it | Schott Foundation for Public Education

The Black-white wealth gap is widening - a racial equity stimulus can narrow it

Even before the deadly COVID-19 pandemic swept America, the Black-white wealth gap remained stubbornly vast. The crisis is driving the gap to historic levels. 

Certainly, the recently passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is a watershed moment. That such legislation has become law — that our federal government acted decisively with a bill targeted to aid low and middle-income families — evokes equal parts inspiration and relief in its radical departure from previous trickle down approaches that have increased inequality and racial injustice.

The Rescue Plan is a desperately needed life preserver for countless Americans, but what does it mean to be pulled from treacherous waters onto a leaking ship? As the end of the pandemic appears on the horizon and the federal government, states and localities rightfully deploy their fiscal resources to move the country forward, we must ensure that those resources move beyond plugging holes in our American vessel and ensure we are not headed towards the same inequitable and unjust outcomes we left in 2019.

As the Washington Post reported in June 2020, “in 1968, a typical middle-class Black household had $6,674 in wealth compared with $70,786 for the typical middle-class white household.” In a stark illustration of how little progress had been made, the same Post article cited data from the Historical Survey of Consumer Finances indicating that in 2016 the typical middle-class Black family had $13,024 in wealth compared with white families who had $149,703. 

We need bold policies to change this trajectory. Since stimulus packages have long been effective tools to catalyze progress, CONTINUE READING: The Black-white wealth gap is widening - a racial equity stimulus can narrow it | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Teacher Tom: The Original Affluent Society

Teacher Tom: The Original Affluent Society

The Original Affluent Society

One thing that the pandemic has done for many of us is to cut commute times down to zero. I live in an apartment building surrounded by Amazon, Google, and Apple offices that have been more or less vacant for a year. That's tens of thousands of people who have not been getting up early, eating, grooming, dressing, and transporting themselves, which translates to millions of hours that have been freed up for . . . what?

I hope most people have been sleeping longer or engaging in hobbies or some other self-selected activity, but I suspect not. I'm guessing most of that extra time has been used being in some way productive, which is historically what we do with the gift of time. Peasants in the Middle Ages, for example, working with the crudest of farming tools, for instance, worked far fewer hours each day than our modern farmers with their advanced farming machinery. Homemakers continue to always have work to do even as they no longer have to churn their own butter or scrub the laundry by hand in a tub of soapy water. Every day business tasks that once took days, can now happen in seconds, yet office workers still CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Original Affluent Society