Economic research documents black Americans’ struggle for equality

THE DEATH of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police has focused minds around the world on America’s glaring, stubborn racial inequalities. The income of the median black household is less than 60% of the white one. The median white American has a net worth about ten times that of the typical black American—a gap that has not budged since 1990. Injustice began with the original sin of slavery. But as a growing body of scholarship reveals, injustice has endured because racism and discrimination have, too. Over the course of America’s history, dearly won progress towards equality has been followed by a racist backlash.