Economic Prosperity Doesn’t Erase Inequity
Progressive policies in Minneapolis didn’t do quite enough
All eyes are on Minneapolis in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer and the city’s subsequent decision to create a new public safety system. The Washington Post’s Tracy Jan reports on the liberal economic policies of the Midwest city and how politicians enacted policies intended to help remove inequities. Case in point: “Taxes, for decades, have been redistributed from wealthy suburbs to poorer communities to combat inequality — an effort bolstered in recent years by raising state income taxes on the rich. The result: more money for schools, affordable housing, and social services in lower-income neighborhoods.”
But income is still an issue. Per the Post: “The typical Black family in the Twin Cities earned $39,851 in 2017, lower than the median income for African Americans nationally and less than half as much as the typical white family income of $82,371, which is much higher than white households nationally, according to the NAACP report. A quarter of black households lived in poverty, five times the poverty rate for white households.”
Part of understanding how to fight anti-Black racism includes looking at policies that enable such racism to widen existing inequities. Jan examines and analyzes what the experts say should (or could) happen next.