Four of the cities with the worst racial inequality are in Illinois, two are in Iowa, and all are in the Midwest. 24/7 Wall St. interviewed Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank. Wilson associated the geographical clustering of these cities to the Great Migration – the relocation of millions of African Americans from the South to cities in the North and Midwest between 1916 and 1970.
Over that period, African Americans fled from the oppressive Jim Crow policies of the South, among other forms of racism, to cities such as Chicago and New York. These areas – the Midwest in particular – were undergoing a manufacturing boom at the time, and black and other Americans sought economic opportunities there. However, the industrial Midwestern economies have declined dramatically since 1970, and the region today is a part of what is commonly known as the Rust Belt.
In addition to income inequality between black and white Americans, wealth inequality helps perpetuate racial inequalities. Wealth – the value of property and financial assets – frequently passes from one generation to the next. African Americans, who have historically been prohibited from home and land ownership, are therefore at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to inherited wealth. For black families, “each generation essentially starts from zero and so as that happens across generations, that gap continues to persist,” Wilson said.
A good education is key to economic mobility, although it is less of a guarantee for African Americans than it is for others. “An African American with a college education definitely earns more than an African American without a college education, but they still earn less than a white person who has a college education,” Wilson said, adding that raising educational attainment rates is not enough to eliminate racial disparities.