Abstract
The U.S. is characterized by a longstanding pattern of large structural racial inequality that deepens further as a result of economic downturn. Although there have been some improvements in the income gap up until around the mid 1970s, the employment gap, and the racial wealth gap - two dramatic indicators of economic security - remains exorbitant and stubbornly persistent. We offer two race-neutral programs that could go a long way towards eliminating racial inequality, while at the same time providing economic security, mobility and sustainability for all Americans. The first program, a federal job guarantee, would provide the economic security of a job and the removal of the threat of unemployment for all Americans. The second program, a substantial child development account that rises progressively based on the familial asset positioning of the child’s parents, would provide a pathways towards asset security for all Americans regardless of their economic position at birth.
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Notes
Please see the following link for reference: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/28/9067808-fed-lent-banks-nearly-8-trillion-during-crisis-report-shows
The 2009 ASCE report card on the nation’s infrastructure can be found at http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/fact-sheet/aviation
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Much of the text in this paper are reprinted from FOCUS Magazine: November/December 2011, published by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and related to views expressed by the authors in testimony before the Congressional Black Caucus (January, 2011), a webinar for the Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies (August, 2011), and in Darity (2010) and Hamilton and Darity (2010).
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Darity, W., Hamilton, D. Bold Policies for Economic Justice. Rev Black Polit Econ 39, 79–85 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-011-9129-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-011-9129-8