Viewing entries tagged
Poverty and Inequality
The gap in Black-white homeownership rates recently reached 30.1% in the U,S. Per Jung Hyun Choi of The Urban Institute, three factors explain around 80% of this gap: difference in Black-white income (31%), marital status (27%), and credit scores (22%).
Andre Perry and David Harshbarger of the Brookings Institute have already crunched those numbers. To quote:
…approximately 11 million Americans (10,852,727) live in once-redlined areas, according to the latest population data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2017). This population is majority-minority but not majority-Black, and, contrary to conventional perceptions, Black residents also do not form a plurality in these areas overall. The Black population share is approximately 28%, ranking third among the racial groups who live in formerly redlined areas, behind white and Latino or Hispanic residents…While still a tremendously large population, the approximately 3 million Black residents in redlined areas account for just 8% of all non-Latino or Hispanic Black Americans.
Proximate cause (direct cause): Occurs immediately prior to the [outcome of interest]; directly results in its occurrence and, if eliminated or modified, would have prevented the undesired outcome
Root Cause: One of multiple factors (events, conditions or organizational factors) that created the proximate cause and subsequent undesired outcome. Typically multiple root causes contribute to an undesired outcome [my italics].
Root Cause Analysis: A method primarily used to identify the underlying cause of an incident or issue, and more effectively mitigate or prevent future similar incidents.
— So the question for this post is: how would we know whether the historical practice of redlining created a causal pathway that led directly to the current Black-White homeownership gap in the US? In other words, was redlining one of multiple factors responsible for the proximate causes of the Black-White homeownership gap?
Per the Fed, in 1990, whites owned 90% of US household wealth, with Blacks owning 4%, Hispanics 2%, and Other (mostly Asian) 2%. In 2023, whites owned 82% of US household wealth, with Blacks owning 4%, Hispanics 3%, and Other 10%.
As a consequence of these trends, young adults make up more of the lower portions of the income and wealth distributions than they used to. And that’s probably ok, because all the knowledge, skills and experience they’re acquiring in their 20s will come in handy when they finally set their minds to serious wealth-building in their 30s.
Per the US Census Bureau, here are the highest levels of education achieved by Americans in 2022: 37% have a bachelor’s degree or higher, 25% some college or an associates degree, 28% high school diploma, and 9% less than a high school diploma or its equivalent. And per the Federal Reserve, Americans with college degrees or higher own 71% of the country’s wealth…
A question I have is how much wealth-stagnation in the lower income groups has to do with education and marriage trends. Specifically, age at first marriage has increased by six years since 1990 and the percentage of Americans with four-year college degrees or higher has almost doubled, from 21% in 1990 to 38% in 2022. As a consequence of these trends, young adults make up more of the lower portions of the income and wealth distributions than they used to.
The Federal Reserve provides information on the distribution of U.S. household wealth in the form of interactive charts and tables. These allow users to explore household wealth components, shares and levels across various groups and time. The information was last updated in September 2023. This post will cover wealth assets and trends by wealth percentile group. First, a very brief explanation of terms.
In other words, I’ll address how politicians and elected officials might be able to persuade the public and powerful interests to go along with disagreeable policies that promise plenty of short-term pain and almost no immediate payoff, all for an eventual yet somewhat uncertain greater good.
…self-management interventions significantly and positively impacted all challenging behaviors assessed (i.e., on-task behavior, prosocial behaviors, disruptive behaviors, and following directions) and academic outcomes (i.e., achievement and work completion).
But the US doesn’t just have a skills shortage - it also has a labor shortage, meaning there aren’t enough working-age adults living here to fill available jobs. We need more workers. In other words, we need more immigrants.
This is a problem of employability. Too many Americans lack the experience, knowledge and skills that employers want. On the individual level, lack of employability is associated with unemployment, poor job performance, and low wages. When widespread, a lack of employability negatively impacts a country’s labor productivity, standard of living and its potential for economic growth. Increasing the people’s employability boosts productivity, standard of living and economic growth, which translates to higher tax revenues for paying down the federal debt. So how can the US increase the employability of its people?
Main Findings: Permanent supportive housing interventions appear to improve short- and long-term housing stability for persons with lived experience of homelessness… Peer support alone does not impact housing stability. Inconsistent results on mental health, substance use and other social outcomes require additional research.
As noted, the ASBI would not be means-tested, so recipients could work part- or full-time. Although the ASBI would partly replace federal student aid programs, state and institutional aid programs would not be affected. Unlike Pell Grants, the ASBI would not drive up school fees because the amount of payment is not adjusted for the cost of attendance. Instead, the ASBI would turn students into cost-conscious consumers. It’s their money, so the less they pay for school, the more available for other expenses. The ASBI would also make students think twice before choosing an expensive private school when a cheaper but perfectly adequate public option is available.
Comparative studies have shown that in most countries an increase of around 40 points in the PIAAC numeracy score leads to a wage increase of between 12% and 15% of the reference wage. (Hanushek et al, 2013). But the wage increase is as high as 28% in the United States. So if the reference wage was $20 an hour, a wage increase of 28% would bring that up to $25.60 an hour, or an additional $224 a week for full-time workers.
And one study found that an increase of around 40 points in the PIAAC literacy score was associated with a 6% increase in hourly wages, on average, across several developed countries, including the United States (Kankaraš et al, 2016).
Mmmm. Why do Iowa and Kansas have such low poverty levels?
Why do some people seem more deserving of government assistance than others?
Social scientists have been exploring this question for decades. Much of the research has focused on the criteria people use to judge the “deservingness” of the vulnerable and poor.
“One year ago, a damning investigation uncovered that 888 units of S.F’s permanent supportive housing were sitting empty. Those numbers have gotten worse…A year ago, when the average time between being approved for housing and handed keys was 85 days, the city said it was aiming to cut the time to 30 to 45 days. But last week, when asked what progress they’d made, officials disclosed that wait times had actually gone up. In fact, they’ve more than doubled. It now takes an average of five months, or around 150 days, to move someone experiencing homelessness into a home. That’s a shameful length of time for a program allotted $356 million each year.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 5, 2023
Unfortunately, finding a cheap place to live in San Francisco is a near-impossibility. For example, I found no rental listings under $800/month during a recent Zillow search and just six listing under $1000/month (5 of which were teeny studios)…On the same day as my San Francisco Zillow search, I checked out the rental market in Houston and this is what I found: 504 results for rentals up to $1000/month and 136 results for up to $800/month.
The Houston Homeless Count found 3,223 persons experiencing homelessness on the day of its 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, or approximately one out of 1,916 residents… San Francisco’s Homeless Count of 2022 found 7,754 individuals experiencing homelessness. With a population of 815,201 (2021), that would be a homelessness rate of approximately one out of 105 residents.