On this page, I have quantified some of the impacts of race based policies that state and federal governments enacted against African Americans in the United States. Similar statistics exist for the policies against Native Americans and other oppressed groups, but I have not compiled those figures for this page. The statistics provide a reference and starting point for thinking about the compensation owed to African American people.
Income and Wealth
The first figure shows income and wealth disparities between blacks and whites. Income disparities were created under slavery when white families received cash for the work done by black slaves. Black workers went unpaid for work for which similar white workers earned money. Slaveowners received income which was earned by the slaves. Over the years wealth has been handed down through generations and is compounded by the benefits of continued discrimination. The figure shows the costs of discrimination as the difference between median white household income and median black household income. In the baby boom generation, over a 45 year work life, the average white family will earn approximately $650,000 more than the black family. In addition to racism, barriers to class mobility result in the children of white-collar professionals being five times more likely to secure white-collar jobs than children of blue-collar workers (Oliver and Shapiro). A description of the methodology for calculating these household incomes is presented below the graph.
This figure is intended to demonstrate that the present day income and wealth gaps between blacks and whites are connected to historical differences which resulted from discrimination in income, education, and opportunities. During the colonial period and as the nation was founded, there was little difference between the skills of the typical white and typical black worker. Both were farmers who worked with simple tools and draft animals. Artisans, entrepreneurs, and merchants were also found in the two populations. Without the institution of racial discrimination, these farmers and others workers could have expected to earn, on average, the same pay for the same work. As racial discrimination was differences in income were created and the frameworks for defending these differences also developed. Racial discrimination has clear and lasting effects.
Methodology for Income Discrimination Figure:
For each year, I used a consistent method for calculating the black and white median household incomes. Since I am not economist, the equations that I use to account for inflation and savings are probably non-standard, and I certainly appreciate suggestions for improvement. Even with the somewhat unique methodology, the consistency and hopefully transparency with which it is applied, should be sufficient demonstrate that income and wealth discrimination are long term and reproducing trends that need to be directly addressed if they are to change. All data is inflation adjusted to 1998 dollars, with data prior to 1966 also adjusted by the inclusion of a real interest rate for savings of a portion of the earned income.
For 1967 - 1998, median household income data for blacks and whites are taken directly from the median income (1998 dollars) column of Table H-5 of the historical income tables reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. The 1966 data is a linear interpolation between the 1965 and 1967 data.
Data for 1947 - 1965 and 1939 are from series G354 and G355, "Median Money Wage or Salary Income of Primary Families and Unrelated Individuals With Wage or Salary Income, by Selected Characteristics: 1939 - 1970 in Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, US Census Bureau, 1975 (Historical Statistics). Data for 1941 and 1944 are calculated using black/white income ratio data from Rosenbloom and White with data from series D723 in Historical Statistics. Data given are means from which medians are estimated to be 90% of the mean based on surrounding trends. Series D723 does not provide data by racial category. The median white income can be estimated from the income for the entire populations based on the ratio from surrounding years. Median white income was estimated as 7% higher than median all income, again the percentage chosen based on surrounding trends. Additional data points in 1939 - 1957 are calculated through linear interpolation.
For 1900 - 1937, data are based on series D725, "Money Earnings after deduction for unemployment" in Historical Statistics. Black median income is calculated using data for the ratio of black to white income from White.
For 1860 - 1899, data are based on series D735, "Average Annual Earnings of Nonfarm Employees." Similar data for agricultural workers were not found, likely because much of the farm income was not monetized during this period. As before, median income is estimated as 90% of mean income, and median white income is estimated to be 7% above median all income. Black median income is again calculated using ratio data, in this case from White and Goldin.
For 1850 - 1859, white median income data are calculated based on a federal reserve cost of living indicator relative to the average income from 1860 to 1869.
For years prior to 1966, the data presented on the figure are adjusted by incorporating
a savings rate. Rather than directly showing the calculated median income data for these
years, the data shown are based on a quarter of the income for each year being saved in
an account which earns 4% interest for 1957 - 1964, 3.8% interest for 1932 - 1956, 3.6% interest
for 1922 - 1931, and so on down to 2.6% interest for 1850 - 1870. The reason for making these
adjustments is both so that the data can be shown clearly on a single graphy (without having
to adjust the scale for different parts of the series) and to incorporate the role
of savings into the analysis. The data are calculated using a compound interest formula,
Present Value = Value at year n * (1 + r)^(t_present - t_n) where t is year and r is
interest rate. For each time period, the same formula is used for both the white and the black
median incomes.
Life Expectancy
Ever since people were boarded onto slave ships on the coast of Africa, the health and well-being of black people have been severely compromised. Estimates of the number of people killed in the Middle Passage--the trip on the slave trips from Africa to the Americas--vary one million to twenty million. Many more died during capture and in the forts and dungeons waiting transport. Discriminatory practices in health care, occupational conditions, and environmental exposure have harmed African Americans throughout the history of the United States. In 1900 the life expectancy of blacks was 33 years, which was 14.5 years less than the white life expectancy at the time. An African American born today has a life expectancy 5 years shorter than a white European American born today. The average for the baby boom generation is 7.5 years.
Voting Rights -- Taxation and Life in a Democracy without Representation
At the end of Civil War, African Americans were able to vote in large numbers for the first time. Approximately ten years exclusion from the vote returned due to the end of reconstruction, withdrawal of federal protection, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Black Codes, and other forms oppression (Du Bois, Novak). Throughout most of the one hundred years from the end of the civil war to the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, African American were effectively excluded from voting in the United States. During the years 1880 - 1940 over 80 % of the black population lived in 11 southern states, and these states allowed on average no more than 3 % of blacks to vote (Davidson and Grofman; Gates and Appiah). During these years a system of rigid segregation was established and various rights were denied to blacks, including adequate educational facilities, access to proper medical care, rights to serve on juries, and protection under labor legislation. The values on the figure for after 1965 represent the percentage of African Americans eligible to vote, noting that the actual registration rates for all races are below the percent eligible. Disproportionate rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration result in a significant portion of the African American population today remaining ineligible. Jill Quadagno states, "the United States did engage in a struggle for democracy. But it took place in the twentieth century, not the eighteenth, and the revolutionaries were African-Americans not the working class" (p. 8). Throughout the Jim Crow period, African Americans paid tens, then hundreds of millions dollars annually in taxes, with little say in how that money would be spent.
Percentage of Voting Age Blacks Registered to Vote
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Selected References
Chandler and Goffman (eds) (1994) Quiet Revolution in the South
Homeward Bound Foundation (2000) The Middle Passage Monument Project.
Jackson, Kenneth (1985) Crabgrass Frontier. New York: Oxford University Press
Oliver, M. and Shapiro, T. (1995) Black Wealth / White Wealth.
Public Broadcasting System (1998) Africans in America.
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1960) Historical Statistics of the United States
U.S. Bureau of the Census (2000) Statistical Abstract of the United States.