This feature is part of an ongoing RSF blog series, Work in Progress, which highlights some of the research of our current class of Visiting Scholars.
In the current election cycle, social inequality has emerged as a leading issue for the two Democratic candidates. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have debated policies for combating inequality, including proposals to raise the minimum wage, expand health care, and increase access to higher education. Both campaigns have also argued that their respective platforms will help address racial inequality. For example, Sanders has stated that his proposal to raise federal minimum wage to $15/hour will disproportionately benefit black and Latino workers, while Clinton has announced a plan for an “Economic Revitalization Initiative” that she claims will expand access to jobs within communities of color.
Yet, as Visiting Scholar William Darity (Duke University) points out in a Dissent article co-authored with Mark Paul, Alan Aja, and Darrick Hamilton, “No presidential candidate is proposing the bold legislation necessary to close the racial wealth gap.” During his time in residence at the Foundation, Darity is investigating the persistence of wealth disparities by race in the U.S. Using data from the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC), Darity and his colleagues have authored several reports on racial wealth disparities, including the recent “The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles.”
In a new interview with the Foundation, Darity discussed some of the causes and effects of this wealth gap and offered policy solutions for ameliorating persistent disparities.
Q. Your current research at RSF investigates the racial wealth gap in the U.S. While labor economists tend to believe that wealth gaps are driven primarily by income disparities, your ongoing work has explored the ways in which the opposite is true: that wealth disparities might, in fact, drive income disparities. Why doesn't income alone explain the racial wealth gap?