Editor's Note:
This paper was prepared for the November 19, 2020 event on overcoming challenges faced by Black boys and men for the Brookings Institution, Future of the Middle Class Initiative.
“To be male, poor, and either African-American or Native-American is to confront, on a daily basis, a deeply held racism that exists in every social institution,” writes our Brookings colleague Camille Busette. “No other demographic group has fared as badly, so persistently and for so long.” To meet this “appalling crisis,” Camille calls for nothing less than “a New Deal for Black men”.
Creating this New Deal is one of the core priorities of the Race, Prosperity and Inclusion Initiative, directed by Camille, but also of the new Boys and Men Project launched today out of the Center on Children and Families. The elements of this New Deal will likely consist of intentional policymaking in the fields of education and training, the labor market, family policy (especially for fathers), criminal justice reform; and tackling concentrated poverty.
This is one area where it is reasonable to hope for some bipartisan action. Witness the creation in 2019 of a new Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, charged with recommending policies to “improve upon, or augment, current government programs.” This bipartisan Commission, consisting of 19 members, will “investigate potential civil rights violations affecting black males and study the disparities they experience in education, criminal justice, health, employment, fatherhood, mentorship and violence.” The Commission is required by law to report annually and “make recommendations to improve the social conditions and provide vital guidance for Congress on effective strategies to reduce the racial disparities in education, criminal justice, health and employment”.
The legislation to create the Commission was introduced in the House by Representative Frederica Wilson (D-FL) and sponsored in the Senate by Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). This is a welcome and positive development. It will be important for the Commission to fully understand the challenges facing Black men specifically, in order to target policy appropriately. Black boys and Black men, in particular, run the gauntlet of a specific brand of racism, at the sharp intersection of race and gender.
Here, we provide some key facts on Black men’s outcomes in eight important domains, compared to Black women, white women, and white men.
1. Education
In 2019, 28% of Black men ages 25-29 had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 30% of Black women, over 40% of white men, and nearly half of white women, according to the National Center of Education Statistics in 2019. The gap is greater still at higher education levels: only half as many Black men have a Master’s degree (4%) as Black women (9%), white men (8%) and white women (13%):
Upward mobility
Black women and white women raised by low-income parents (those in the bottom 20% of the income distribution) have similar rates of upward intergenerational mobility, measured in terms of their individual income as adults. Black men, by contrast, are much less likely than white men to rise up the income ladder, according to Raj Chetty and his team at Opportunity Insights who have crunched the numbers on 20 million Americans in the 1978-1983 birth cohorts. A third of white men raised by low-income parents end up in the top 40% of the income distribution as adults, compared to only 19% of Black boys.
The figure below shows the probability of moving up the income ladder for children raised by low-income parents by race. The data shows that Black men raised by low-income parents face twice the risk of remaining stuck in intergenerational poverty (38%) as Black women (20%) in terms of their individual income. Note however that Black women fare worse in terms of household income than in individual income, especially compared to whites – itself a reflection, in part, of the worse outcomes for Black men.
3. Earnings
Black workers—regardless of gender—earn less than white workers, and white men have substantially out-earned white women and Black workers since 1980, according to Current Population Survey data. For both Black and white workers, men earn more; but the gender gap is much smaller for Black workers. The figure below shows the weekly earnings of full-time workers (hourly and non-hourly) for Black and white workers by gender since 1980. The results are striking: Black men earn $378 less per week than white men and $125 less than white women. Overall white women have seen the biggest increase in earnings, overtaking Black men in the 1990s.
This paper was prepared for the November 19, 2020 event on overcoming challenges faced by Black boys and men for the Brookings Institution, Future of the Middle Class Initiative.
“To be male, poor, and either African-American or Native-American is to confront, on a daily basis, a deeply held racism that exists in every social institution,” writes our Brookings colleague Camille Busette. “No other demographic group has fared as badly, so persistently and for so long.” To meet this “appalling crisis,” Camille calls for nothing less than “a New Deal for Black men”.
Creating this New Deal is one of the core priorities of the Race, Prosperity and Inclusion Initiative, directed by Camille, but also of the new Boys and Men Project launched today out of the Center on Children and Families. The elements of this New Deal will likely consist of intentional policymaking in the fields of education and training, the labor market, family policy (especially for fathers), criminal justice reform; and tackling concentrated poverty.
This is one area where it is reasonable to hope for some bipartisan action. Witness the creation in 2019 of a new Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, charged with recommending policies to “improve upon, or augment, current government programs.” This bipartisan Commission, consisting of 19 members, will “investigate potential civil rights violations affecting black males and study the disparities they experience in education, criminal justice, health, employment, fatherhood, mentorship and violence.” The Commission is required by law to report annually and “make recommendations to improve the social conditions and provide vital guidance for Congress on effective strategies to reduce the racial disparities in education, criminal justice, health and employment”.
The legislation to create the Commission was introduced in the House by Representative Frederica Wilson (D-FL) and sponsored in the Senate by Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ). This is a welcome and positive development. It will be important for the Commission to fully understand the challenges facing Black men specifically, in order to target policy appropriately. Black boys and Black men, in particular, run the gauntlet of a specific brand of racism, at the sharp intersection of race and gender.
Here, we provide some key facts on Black men’s outcomes in eight important domains, compared to Black women, white women, and white men.
1. Education
In 2019, 28% of Black men ages 25-29 had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 30% of Black women, over 40% of white men, and nearly half of white women, according to the National Center of Education Statistics in 2019. The gap is greater still at higher education levels: only half as many Black men have a Master’s degree (4%) as Black women (9%), white men (8%) and white women (13%):
Upward mobility
Black women and white women raised by low-income parents (those in the bottom 20% of the income distribution) have similar rates of upward intergenerational mobility, measured in terms of their individual income as adults. Black men, by contrast, are much less likely than white men to rise up the income ladder, according to Raj Chetty and his team at Opportunity Insights who have crunched the numbers on 20 million Americans in the 1978-1983 birth cohorts. A third of white men raised by low-income parents end up in the top 40% of the income distribution as adults, compared to only 19% of Black boys.
The figure below shows the probability of moving up the income ladder for children raised by low-income parents by race. The data shows that Black men raised by low-income parents face twice the risk of remaining stuck in intergenerational poverty (38%) as Black women (20%) in terms of their individual income. Note however that Black women fare worse in terms of household income than in individual income, especially compared to whites – itself a reflection, in part, of the worse outcomes for Black men.
3. Earnings
Black workers—regardless of gender—earn less than white workers, and white men have substantially out-earned white women and Black workers since 1980, according to Current Population Survey data. For both Black and white workers, men earn more; but the gender gap is much smaller for Black workers. The figure below shows the weekly earnings of full-time workers (hourly and non-hourly) for Black and white workers by gender since 1980. The results are striking: Black men earn $378 less per week than white men and $125 less than white women. Overall white women have seen the biggest increase in earnings, overtaking Black men in the 1990s.
