In January of this year, there was a short flurry of posts about the incredible discrepancy between the wealth of black households and white households. I had no idea that the median white household has seven times the assets of the median black household. It’s primarily a legacy of history; there’s a gap in wages between white and black workers, but it’s not a 7-1 gap. Black households even save slightly more than white households at the same income level.
This has all sorts of implications, as family wealth (for example) makes higher education and entry into the housing market much easier for a young adult. As Dalton Conley notes, black college students are more likely to drop out than white college students, even if their families have the same incomes. When you control for wealth, however, black and white students perform equally as well.
(My posts on the subject are here, here, and here. Kevin Drum, Kieran Healey (the link is probably not working), and Rob Lyman all had excellent posts on the subject.)
Recently, I got an email from Jonathan Maccabee with more detail about the value of owner-occupied homes, the primary source of wealth for most families. He took a look at the US Census’ American FactFinder, table HCT 66, “Median Value of Owner-Occupied Housing Units.” (I’m restricting this to white and black for the sake of simplicity.)
Total | White | Black | |
National | $119,600 | $122,800 | $80,600 |
California | $211,500 | $225,500 | $164,600 |
New York | $148,700td> | $142,500 | $163,900 |
Texas | $82,500 | $87,600 | $62,400 |
Says Jonathan,
As you can see, the racial gap in housing prices is significant. Though in New York State, to my surprise, the gap works in reverse, as most minorities who own homes live in the very expensive New York City area. The percentage of those who live in owner-occupied housing, of course, is very low in much of New York City and generally lower for minorities than whites; the Census doesn’t calculate the percentages, but the comparison is at Summary File 4, HCT 2 - Tenure (translation: living in owner-occupied housing vs. renter-occupied housing). This is one reason why these numbers enormously understate the wealth gap between whites and minorities.
It’s worth making the point that the proportions of white and black households who own their own homes are very different. According to the Local Initiatives Support Coalition, black home ownership rate was at 46.3% in 2000, while white home ownership was at 73.8%.
I can’t get over it. I finally got Dalton Conley’s book, Being Black, Living in the Red, and I’ll have to report on it later.
“When you control for wealth, however, black and white students perform equally as well.”
Well, duh. The displacement of class antagonism onto a racial template (ie, not rich vs poor but “white” vs “black” — wher does that leave us “brown” folk?) has been one of the most useful and powerful sleights of hand in the three-card monte of American politics.
I don’t want to minimize the problem here, since it’s real, but it’s also worth noting that this is a case where citing a median value has a magnifying effect. Most home-owning families’ assets consist mostly of a house. The gap in median assets is so large simply because the home-ownership number for white families is above 50% and the one for black families is below 50%.
To put it another way: If the proportion of black families owning homes were just 8% larger, the gap in median assets would be several times smaller— maybe a factor of two or less. But the socioeconomic problem would still be almost as large as it is. Whereas if 51% of white families owned a home and 49% of black families did, the median asset gap would be almost as large as it is, but the socioeconomic problem would be relatively small.
So I’m not sure that citing median assets is useful here except as an attention-getting device, since the median is inflated by a threshold effect that’s too close to some of the fractions under discussion.
“…but the socioeconomic problem would be relatively small.”
Lest a libertarian jump on me for suggesting that distributing misery fairly eliminates the problem, I should rephrase that as “…but the socioeconomic gap would be relatively small.”
Two comments: A friend from grad school (now at Harvard, I think?) studied some of the related issues here, and I believe one of the things he was showing is that one of the reasons that black families had a harder time getting a conventional mortgage was the presentation of their assets. (another was redlining, of course.) That is, (predominantly white) mortgage lenders expected the profile of applicants to look a certain way, which wasn’t necessarily the only accurate reflection of the ability to pay the mortgage or afford the home.
Second, without having read any of the supporting materials you’ve linked, I also seem to have read that often black families are assisting more relatives than are white families—those who succeed are expected to help out the rest, which would also affect the resources that even successful families would be able to bring to bear on their own lives.
Very troubling stuff, though, especially as the efforts to gut public education and gut social services generally continues to ramp up. (A number of bloggers have suggested that the current state of the federal budget is what the republicans have PLANNED—if they bankrupt the federal government, then the ‘welfare state” and social security are gone, too.)
I recently stumbled upon a PBS documentary (I think it was called “Race: The Power of Illusion”) that reinforced the stunning statistics on the wealth gap with a gripping account of how it came about.
Particularly compelling was the story of a black WWII veteran who tried to take advantage of a low-interest VA loan to purchase a home in Levittown, New York, but was told flat-out that he wasn’t welcome. He then discovered he couldn’t obtain a loan in his old neighborhood because it had been redlined by insurance companies.
So while millions of other veterans received a boost up the economic ladder, he was shoved off the ladder altogether. Not only was denied the opportunity to build a foundation of property wealth for later generations to build upon, he was also denied access to the better jobs and schools that the suburbs afforded.
His grandchildren are literally paying the price for an act of overt discrimination that took place more than 50 years ago.
“A number of bloggers have suggested that the current state of the federal budget is what the republicans have PLANNED—if they bankrupt the federal government, then the ‘welfare state” and social security are gone, too.”
Er…isn’t that kind of common knowledge? I thought it was. I thought it had been common knowledge ever since Reagan. David Stockman (was it Stockman? I think so) came right out and said as much.
It’s also a great stealth weapon. Because actually voting explicitly to do away with programs can get some unfriendly attention (though never as much as it ought to, from the hahahahahaha liberal press), whereas just not funding those programs doesn’t require politicians to stick their necks out, and the result is exactly the same. Yippee.
Ophelia, it depends on what you mean by “planned.” There was a Doonesbury cartoon where Reagan’s staff present the accusation that he deliberately bankrupted the government in order to cut its size and Reagan says…
“Gosh. Am I that smart?”
“We don’t know sir.”
“Try to remember….” {funnier in original, probably}
So, some of Reagan’s and WBush’s advisors (Stockman and Norquist) certainly want that. Other people seem to think that tax cuts raise revenue. Are the people most responsible for these budgets trying to implement this plan? I have no idea.
(The people who deliberately underfund programs, sometimes after publicly praise them, are just evil.)
Maybe I’m mis- (or under-) informed . . . I guess I’m drawing a distinction between the people who want(ed) to shrink the size of the federal government and those who want to completely bankrupt it (and plunder what they can), which may well be a false distinction at this point. I also have the impression (again perhaps wrongly) that this current crew is taken much more seriously, that these ideas used to be regarded as tinfoil-hat-fringe ideas, but the right-wing funding machine and Mighty Wurlitzer (and SCLM) have given them a prominence and respectability they did not have.
In any case, I was most taken by Sven’s observations about the long-lasting repercussions of discrmination.
Well, carla, I think that Norquist has suggested that it’s OK to bankrupt the government in order to force it to shrink—and I think that was more or less how Stockman presented the plan. I don’t have chapter and verse on this, though.
Just wanting to pick up my fellow blogger here on an equivocation between “minority” (a catch-all term for non-white, largely made up of immigrant populations) and “black” (a term specifically referring to the descendants of slaves, plus a relatively small proportion of immigrants). Given that part of the subject is the legacy of history, it matters; do these statistics refer to minorities or to blacks?
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review