Public housing and the black community

Summary and Conclusions Earlier in this paper five major goals of federal housing policy were listed and it was noted that the public housing program was only one vehicle used to work toward these goals. In this section, the conflicts and issues that arise in the pursuit of these goals through this program, as spelled out in the preceding pages, will be summarized. As well, suggestions of other means to provide housing for the low-income will end the paper.     

Public housing and the black community

Summary and Conclusions Earlier in this paper five major goals of federal housing policy were listed and it was noted that the public housing program was only one vehicle used to work toward these goals. In this section, the conflicts and issues that arise in the pursuit of these goals through this program, as spelled out in the preceding pages, will be summarized. As well, suggestions of other means to provide housing for the low-income will end the paper.     

“Race riots” and black economic progress

Conclusion On the face of it, the case for the idea that the race riots of the late 1960s and early 1970s were instrumental in opening economic opportunities for African Americans appears strong. The years of the riots coincide with the only years since World War II in which African American men's incomes rose relative to those of white men until the mid 1990s. They are also the last years of strong gains for black women vis-à-vis white women. Analysts who focus on supply-side labor market changes cannot claim that relative educational quality or quantity changed substantially during this time, nor that migration to strong labor markets was particularly intense during this period. Scholars who take the position that the civil rights legislation was responsible for these gains must assert that this legislation had a powerful immediate impact that was muted within a decade. However, the cross-sectional analysis presented here demonstrates little relationship between regional progress for African Americans and relatively proximate race riots. It may well be that the data intended to capture the economic impact of the riots, the Mare-Winship samples CPS data, are organized in geographical groupings that are too large to isolate the effect of race riots on local labor markets. Or it may be that the effect of the race riots was quickly diffused through the nation, carried by the national news media into every living room, which might be discernible with a time series analysis. Or it may be that other influences including the civil rights movement and the extremely strong economy of the late sixties and early seventies overcame employers' longstanding disinterest in employing black labor in better-paid positions. (I)t was the cry of alarm being heard in the streets, and on television at dinnertime, that had got Celia hired. It was the clenched fist raised high that no one wanted to see. It was the thread of violence, real and imagined, that propelled company recruiters to black campuses with orders to bring back ten tokens, dead or alive, one for every other department. No one wanted to step off the 8∶20 from Larchmont to find Grand Central in flames. —Grace Edwards-Yearwood, 1988, p. 182     

The cost of male subemployment in the black community

Summary and Conclusions In 1969, the direct and indirect costs of the subemployment of black men exceeded total federal expenditures on manpower programs by almost $2 billion ($4.0 vs. $2.1 billion) and today, with the black unemployment rate approaching 13 percent, it is improbable that this difference has narrowed appreciably. Nor is there any evidence to indicate that the black male’s tie to the family unit has strengthened to any significant extent. There is no readily available panacea for eliminating these economic costs and the continued waste of human resources, but the World War II and Korean War experiences are indicators of how society can act to simultaneously attack the related problems of subemployment and family instability.     

Financing black politics: A study of congressional elections

This article investigates the financing of the campaigns of black candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Although incumbent black candidates receive lower levels of campaign contributions than their white counterparts, analysis of expenditure data shows that their campaigns are adequately funded, with most of them winning by large margins and retaining modest surpluses. Black challengers, however, are substantially underfunded and are rarely able to conduct competitive campaigns. The implications of this incumbent-challenger financial disparity for the accountability and responsiveness of members of Congress representing black constituencies are discussed.     

Federal government policy in black community revitalization

Conclusion Federal programs have represented, at best, a series of ad hoc, piece-meal attempts to address a highly complex situation. Funding levels have been inadequate and there has never been any strong commitment to economic development on a meaningful scale. We have experienced a series of small, unconnected programs. In addition to HUD programs, so-called community development programs can be found at the Departments of Labor, Agriculture, Treasury, and the Economic Development Agency. But after two decades of poverty programs, revitalization efforts, and other efforts Blacks and other low income urban residents still, for the most part, live in substandard, segregated, and costly housing in conditions significantly worse than most other Americans.     

Effects of community,family, and education on earnings of black and white men

Summary The primary purpose of this paper was to determine the effect of background on the education and earnings of black and white men.It was largely motivated by a desire to quantify the extent to which past discrimination against Blacks, resulting in lower achievement, inhibits the progress of individuals today in a somewhat more benign environment.It has demonstrated that both community and family background factors are important in determining the levels of education and earnings of black and white men.The community effects for Blacks operate largely through their moving into more integrated neighborhoods, so that many positive community externalities are apparently not available to families in predominantly black middle-class neighborhoods.While the effects of father’s education, city origin, and community income are comparable between Blacks and whites, white men’s education is more affected by number of siblings, family income, and age of 1968 head of household than is black men’s education.The relative sizes of the coefficients of these latter variables are consistent with steeper age-earnings profiles for older white men than older black men and higher prices paid for investing in children by black parents.