This was a rather nice series of comments.
The US is hardly a terrible place to be poor, from a global perspective, which is the perspective liberal people here unthinkingly take.
Bozon said...
Professor
Detailed and interesting account.
I would like to note some global and historical aspects as well.
One can say that globalization has resulted in Capital Flight, regarding most all Americans. It at first seemed an investment bonanze for all.
It has not benefited middle and lower, or even upper middle income folks so much, going forward, regardless of their race. In fact it has ruined them permanently. It has hit whites especially hard across the board only in the past few decades.
Turning to the negro white situation, globalization, for them, has been nothing less than mass enormous White Flight, by analogy to the movement to the suburbs here after WWII.
Whites here, North, West, and South, have generally shown themselves more willing to give negroes an expensive jail cell, and their job to someone else, elsewhere, anywhere else than here, than a good permanent job here.
Poor whites have been getting more of the same themselves in recent decades from the effects of globalization Capital Flight.
Domestically, it is not new, and is not limited to Southern politicians. Lincoln's own Immigration Act, enacted in 1863, during the Civil War, was designed to import whites to replace negroes rendered redundant here by his war.
All the best
3:17 PM
Energyflow said...
Racism is the catchword nowadays. In the 1930s crisis it was class. Labor movement fought to bring about change. Middle class America was expanded greatly. The previous crisis of the 1860s was nominally about race. Now we have returned to that issue. Everyone is obsessed with heritage. Class identity is passé. Perhaps because it was thought dealt with. We all became middle class by dint of technology. Car, TV, fridge, internet access is all you need. We are all equal by law since 60s. All barriers were lifted to integration and immigration but it seems to not have functioned so people question the 60s revolution. It seems to have had bad results, ghettoization(white flight and auotomobility with creation of suburbia in 50s) mass incarceration of all races(war on petty drugs crime post 60s), single motherhood (black, white, hispanic due to women's liberation and welfare post 60s). But since Reagan the boomers were convinced that since in law were are equal and they were raised middle class that both problems, class and race being solved, that they could relax, let their guard down and enjoy the results of a successful struggle against injustice, end of history in a sense. Meanwhile Milton Friedman, Barry Goldwater wing of republicans agreed. Freedom could not hurt once everyone was equal. Like East block after the Berlin wall fell. What could go wrong? So all that we fought for in terms of justice in income was sacrificed in name of libertarianism or neoliberalism. Greed is good said Martin Gekko. So like the alcoholic or drug addict who got dry and just decided to party, wakes up in the same gutter he had lived in for years, America must now wake up, fight back evil of exteme capitalism and the divide of ethnic, racial and sexual hatred that comes with it as the vast majority suffer under the tricks of the post Reagan carpetbagging of America by the rich. All are exploited. Divide and conquer. TV and internet, cable TV, fascination with technology and infotainment, physical laziness plus the fight for survival (everyone is middle class, college degree so labor unions are passé). As individuals education is supposed to make us wealthy, replace collective bargaining, manufacturing was ripped out. Class warfare meant sweating blue collar types, grandpa. Not me, I got a degree, a suit. 16 hour days, no overtime pay. Idiots. The more complex society becomes the more only the very rich who control massive data banks on all sectors of society and understand complicated connections between media, education, job market, foreign trade, military can control what is happening by manipulating public opinion, lawmaking, elections to their advantage. Of course destroying your own country's middle class is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Once the red state blue state and racial war themes ae laid to rest the bloodied antagonists will find to each other and combat the true foe. Clearly this raging against one another will get old. Dayton, Ohio massacre was a left wing antitrumpr and El Paso was a racist nationalist. Fringe elements but actually almost everyone talks, thinks like that egged on by mass media owned by rich conglomerates. One day a synagogue, a black church, another day republican baseball game or rally. Blood gets spilled and people are horrified but not if it is the other side perhaps. Like Arabs gleeful over terror attacks in the West. Meanwhile our racism , frustration is transplanted abroad. Arabs, Chinese, Russians are legal to hate. Love your neighbour ut kill pople 1000s of miles away. But ur poor distraught soldiers come back and commit atrocities or militarization of society becomes emgrained so that constant hatred comes home to roost. Our foreign policy of total control of others is coming here. Justice as excuse to carpet bomb is same argument to ban free speach online or hate and kill your neighbour for alternate opinions. Live and let live is a wise saying but long forgotten.
7:01 AM
Megan said...
I agree with you that America is a terrible place to be poor.
But it's an even worse place to be poor and Black.
See the study, "Race Matters: Income Shares, Income Inequality, and Income Mobility for all U.S. Races", 2017, National Bureau of Economic Research.
The NY Times summarized it here, accompanied by some excellent graphics.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html
The study examined the income mobility (from tax data and census files) of 20,000,000 children born in the US, between 1978 and 1983. Separately by race, gender, and income quintile, it examined peoples income mobility, relative to their parents.
It's fascinating reading, and I highly recommend it.
6:57 PM
David Kaiser said...
I appreciate your comment, Megan, and I agree with it--as far as it goes. It seems to be awfully hard to get across what I am trying to say, even though I tried very hard to be clear. It is harder to be poor and black. But in a country that has about five times as many white people as black ones, and twice as many poor white people as black ones, the best way to HELP poor black people just might be to help ALL poor people--because we are a democracy in which all votes count equally. As it is, poor black people vote Democratic while most poor white people vote Republican. And things get worse FOR BOTH OF THEM.
Professor
Detailed and interesting account.
I would like to note some global and historical aspects as well.
One can say that globalization has resulted in Capital Flight, regarding most all Americans. It at first seemed an investment bonanze for all.
It has not benefited middle and lower, or even upper middle income folks so much, going forward, regardless of their race. In fact it has ruined them permanently. It has hit whites especially hard across the board only in the past few decades.
Turning to the negro white situation, globalization, for them, has been nothing less than mass enormous White Flight, by analogy to the movement to the suburbs here after WWII.
Whites here, North, West, and South, have generally shown themselves more willing to give negroes an expensive jail cell, and their job to someone else, elsewhere, anywhere else than here, than a good permanent job here.
Poor whites have been getting more of the same themselves in recent decades from the effects of globalization Capital Flight.
Domestically, it is not new, and is not limited to Southern politicians. Lincoln's own Immigration Act, enacted in 1863, during the Civil War, was designed to import whites to replace negroes rendered redundant here by his war.
All the best
3:17 PM
Energyflow said... Racism is the catchword nowadays. In the 1930s crisis it was class. Labor movement fought to bring about change. Middle class America was expanded greatly. The previous crisis of the 1860s was nominally about race. Now we have returned to that issue. Everyone is obsessed with heritage. Class identity is passé. Perhaps because it was thought dealt with. We all became middle class by dint of technology. Car, TV, fridge, internet access is all you need. We are all equal by law since 60s. All barriers were lifted to integration and immigration but it seems to not have functioned so people question the 60s revolution. It seems to have had bad results, ghettoization(white flight and auotomobility with creation of suburbia in 50s) mass incarceration of all races(war on petty drugs crime post 60s), single motherhood (black, white, hispanic due to women's liberation and welfare post 60s). But since Reagan the boomers were convinced that since in law were are equal and they were raised middle class that both problems, class and race being solved, that they could relax, let their guard down and enjoy the results of a successful struggle against injustice, end of history in a sense. Meanwhile Milton Friedman, Barry Goldwater wing of republicans agreed. Freedom could not hurt once everyone was equal. Like East block after the Berlin wall fell. What could go wrong? So all that we fought for in terms of justice in income was sacrificed in name of libertarianism or neoliberalism. Greed is good said Martin Gekko. So like the alcoholic or drug addict who got dry and just decided to party, wakes up in the same gutter he had lived in for years, America must now wake up, fight back evil of exteme capitalism and the divide of ethnic, racial and sexual hatred that comes with it as the vast majority suffer under the tricks of the post Reagan carpetbagging of America by the rich. All are exploited. Divide and conquer. TV and internet, cable TV, fascination with technology and infotainment, physical laziness plus the fight for survival (everyone is middle class, college degree so labor unions are passé). As individuals education is supposed to make us wealthy, replace collective bargaining, manufacturing was ripped out. Class warfare meant sweating blue collar types, grandpa. Not me, I got a degree, a suit. 16 hour days, no overtime pay. Idiots. The more complex society becomes the more only the very rich who control massive data banks on all sectors of society and understand complicated connections between media, education, job market, foreign trade, military can control what is happening by manipulating public opinion, lawmaking, elections to their advantage. Of course destroying your own country's middle class is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Once the red state blue state and racial war themes ae laid to rest the bloodied antagonists will find to each other and combat the true foe. Clearly this raging against one another will get old. Dayton, Ohio massacre was a left wing antitrumpr and El Paso was a racist nationalist. Fringe elements but actually almost everyone talks, thinks like that egged on by mass media owned by rich conglomerates. One day a synagogue, a black church, another day republican baseball game or rally. Blood gets spilled and people are horrified but not if it is the other side perhaps. Like Arabs gleeful over terror attacks in the West. Meanwhile our racism , frustration is transplanted abroad. Arabs, Chinese, Russians are legal to hate. Love your neighbour ut kill pople 1000s of miles away. But ur poor distraught soldiers come back and commit atrocities or militarization of society becomes emgrained so that constant hatred comes home to roost. Our foreign policy of total control of others is coming here. Justice as excuse to carpet bomb is same argument to ban free speach online or hate and kill your neighbour for alternate opinions. Live and let live is a wise saying but long forgotten.
7:01 AM
Megan said... I agree with you that America is a terrible place to be poor.
But it's an even worse place to be poor and Black.
See the study, "Race Matters: Income Shares, Income Inequality, and Income Mobility for all U.S. Races", 2017, National Bureau of Economic Research.
The NY Times summarized it here, accompanied by some excellent graphics.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html
The study examined the income mobility (from tax data and census files) of 20,000,000 children born in the US, between 1978 and 1983. Separately by race, gender, and income quintile, it examined peoples income mobility, relative to their parents.
It's fascinating reading, and I highly recommend it.
6:57 PM
David Kaiser said... I appreciate your comment, Megan, and I agree with it--as far as it goes. It seems to be awfully hard to get across what I am trying to say, even though I tried very hard to be clear. It is harder to be poor and black. But in a country that has about five times as many white people as black ones, and twice as many poor white people as black ones, the best way to HELP poor black people just might be to help ALL poor people--because we are a democracy in which all votes count equally. As it is, poor black people vote Democratic while most poor white people vote Republican. And things get worse FOR BOTH OF THEM.
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