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host: a policy and research analyst with the economic policy institute and he's going to talk about his new research which found post era civil rights legislation which largely failed to address the widening racial disparities in this country in wages, health, wealth and homeownership. welcome to "washington journal." guest: thanks for having me. host: before we dive into some of the details of your report, your report begins in the post civil war era, the era of reconstruction to civil rights. how do you describe it during that period? guest: very significant gains during reconstruction and black persons were seeing very positive gains and the

implementation of jim crow legislation definitely walked back a lot of the progress that was faced during reconstruction and other discriminatory policies enacted during that time including red lining and even when we think about the g.i. bill and how many black veterans were systemically disclued from homeownership benefits, we see the long casting shadow of economic inequity has its roots specifically during that time. host: the march on washington called the march for jobs and freedom, what were the particular messages dr. king and the speakers were trying to get through to american lawmakers? guest: as you said the march on washington for jobs and freedom, a lot of the demands were economic and a lot of the goals included national minimum wage that would give all americans a

decent standard of living and broadens and more incruisive fair labor standards act that would include all areas of employment and employees that were present a massive program in place to train persons and civil rights legislation to guarantee decent housing, adequate legislation, equal access to public accommodations and obviously the right to vote. host: it would be two years before the legislation was passed and enacted into law, the same as the voting rights act passed and enacted into law. when you look at other rights civilization in that era, where do you see the areas it's largely fallen short? guest: i think the civil rights legislation and the civil rights era, the movement as a whole succeeded in removing key

barriers to civil rights under the law. but to what i was saying, many of the economic demands were met unleft. failure to address these have adversely impacted the economic security of people of color and that debate remains long-standing racial disparities and outcomes present today. for example, while we do have a right to vote, we know that voter suppression is rampant in many parts of the country. we see many ways in which politicians are disempowering voters of color and black voters in particular from exercising that right to vote. we know that homeownership continues to be a problem with many black families having negative wealth and wages and income disparities have grown more disparate overtime and

those advocated during the march are things were striving for today. host: in your report you provide a very clear graphic on black unemployment consistently higher than unemployment of any other racial war ethnic group and your research going to the 1970's and clearly a big dip in unemployment among all classes here in the trump administration and the spike and drop of covid in the administration and why is that higher excel in the black legislation? guest: it goes to the discrimination in our economy. black workers are more likely to be employed in sectors or jobs given with low wages, because of

that during economic downturns face the most disparate outcomes and there are occupational segregation, for example and also structural and systemic that provide barriers or inhibit black workers having those downturns. so at the point, black workers and other workers of color face higher unemployment rates that don't have those factors. host: black workers comprise 90% of recent unemployment spike the data shows. what impact has the increasing number of immigrants in this country had on black unemployment and black stability to get jobs?

guest: i'm not sure how much immigration as a whole has played into that. the systemic or structural barriers that affected racial wage gaps, unemployment are due to a combination of factors and would include stagnant minimum wage, falling union coverage being another one. occupational segregation as i said and the inequality in pay. host: do you have a graph showing the black and white median age gap has widened since 1979? what does it mean, the wage gap, how should we look at this information? guest: the wage gap is basically the wages -- a ratio of what typical white worker is making and black worker is making. regarding wages, a typical black worker is paid 23.4% less per hour than a typical white

worker. and wage gaps have persisted from the 1960's to the present and highlighting inequities with the labor market as a whole. host: do you look job to job and look at specific jobs or industries where black and white the black worker is making less in that industry at that specific job? guest: i didn't look at specific industries but the statistic i just gave you of the typical black worker is the average across all industries. mark: our guest is a policy and research analyst with the economic policy institute. we welcome your calls and comments. here are the lines for the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8001 and 202-748-8000.

black homeownership rates grew significantly from 1940 to 1980 but started to drop after 1980. what's going on there? why did that happen? guest: i believe the policy, for example, in place during that time, as i said, like right after the civil rights it was a slight gains in many of the things that were happening, whether it was employment, obviously due to some of those barriers brought down and homeownership. however, the progress even during that time wasn't able to be sustained. the legacy of red lining and exclusionary zonings kept people from building broad ownership and building ways of growth and

accessing affordable housing as well. host: do the legacies of those policies, the red lining of exclusionary zoning still exist today? guest: yeah, absolutely. a colleague of mine, we did another research paper about a year ago where we were trying to understand the housing shortage that exists today and the reason one of the main contributing factors for that housing shortage is because of policies like exclusionary zoning which are in place where you can't build other houses. those have roots within obviously red lining and other discriminatory policies that have existed 60, 70, 80 years ago and has led to the broad, inaccessible and unaffordable housing prices we're in today.

host: you point out in housing and what it means for families and you look at white and black families, the legacy of discrimination limits back families well compared to white families. we're looking at the recent data from 2019 with blue line being black families and in every aspect going back decades, the white families difference and obviously a very big difference from in median family net worth. what are the numbers? guest: you're obviously seeing the median wealth a white family has and the median wealth that a black family has. tip typically for black families in particular a lot of their

wealth is tied to their home. unfortunately because of the homeownership crisis many black families aren't able to access that wealth. not able to access having that in their home and also they face the unfortunate or discriminatory, i would say implications of even home evaluations where because they're black, oftentimes their home is valued less than a white family would value their home or a white family's home would be valued and as a result they're unable to attain the wealth they may be deserving to own because of their home. as a result we see these very, very disparate outcomes across racial lines that have insisted, as i said the past few decades. host: did your research or surveying look at the effect of government programs in terms of trying to assist people into

black people in homeownership? guest: yeah, i definitely surveyed several different federal policies over a span of decades. however, i think that the core tenet of seeing actual progress and addressing some of these issues, episiotomy regarding homeownership, i think the policies that have existed have mid debated a lot of the issue but not really tried to address the root issue of racism within u.s. institutions and can only happen if policymakers try to implement targeted and raise conscious policies and make scalable investments and eliminating racial inequality and achieve trucial equity. host: our guest is a policy and research analyst with the

economic policy institute. what's your organization's mission? guest: e.t.i.'s mission is broadly to by all stretch of the word to empower workers, whether that's low, middle income workers, we try to advocate for policies and even, i guess as researchers, try to create these stories or narratives around why workers need to have their rights secured. me personally as a policy and research analyst for the program on racism in the economy is connecting the historical narrative with how things are right now for workers, particularly workers of color. so using an intersectional lens for gender, race, ethnicity and

many demographic indicators on exactly the barriers present in the labor market and economy now and how we can improve the economic security and livelihood of these workers. host: calls at 202-748-8000 for eastern and central time zone, 202-748-8001, the mountain and pacific region. first to louisville, kentucky, and chris is on the line. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: fine, thanks. caller: is it mawe? guest: my-ay, yes. caller: i'm torn on how you're going about this. but in my own life, i'm a 72-year-old american born african and in my lifetime, i'm

a vietnam veteran and blah, blah, blah but in my lifetime i've been a homeowner the majority of my life because my grandfather instilled that in all his children and grandchildren and used to have a saying and the saying was, it's better to own the shack than rent a palace. he instilled in all of us the importance of ownership. but i'll be succinct with this, but myself i see where i've been a homeowner the majority of my life but as i'm sitting here now my home has been played off a long time and all that. but i can get -- i have a standing prequalified loan from chase bank of $25,000 any time i want it to buy a vehicle. but if i want to get a loan for some property, that's a whole other thing. and those are the type of disparities we face all the time and even in my own community, i've lived here for 30 something

years and i see now where most of the homes around me, they are either section 8 and been bought out by white people who use it for supplemental income and/or just there aren't many owners "around the horn" me now, just renters and gentrifieds moving into my community and that's the issue i see where african-americans have been kept in many ways owning their own communities and even in my community. most of it is owned by europeans and that's all over the country. i have said enough. host: thanks for your perspective, chris. guest: thank you for sharing your story. i cannot only sympathize but empathize living in d.c. used to be one of the cities with the

largest share of black residents. i'm definitely seeing the shifting demographics personally. and the unaffordable communities are definitely rampant across the country. as you said, i'm very happy and proud you were able to have a home and have that passed down to you but that's also not something that is, as you know, widely accessible or available for many people within this country p. which is exactly why i think having that homeownership is such an important thing, not only for the personal wealth of a black person or black family but also kind of like the broadened collective of prosperity that we all can face. host: you touched on this a little earlier, on homeownership

and your report, american homeowners hold most of their assets in their primary residents across all racial groups, especially black and hispanic households, 74% of total assets for blacks and 80% for hispanics by comparison, 57% for white households. what's your concern there? and in the white households, where else is their wealth held? guest: great question. i don't have in front of me exactly the other places that white residents are holding their wealth. but i do know because white residents are more likely to have wealth tied to their home they have the ability and privilege to have wealth held in other assets. for black residents, that's obviously unlikely the case. i think just trying to achieve homeownership is such is a task

for many families in the u.s. that when they do have that, they don't always have the privilege in having many assets and is not equitable across the board. host: let's hear from tom calling from ohio. go ahead, tom. caller: good morning. i thank you for letting me have the privilege of making some comments. i'm caucasian and grew up northwest of ohio on an 80-acre farm and want to comment on some of my fellow americans. i have yet to find a american around this community that will basically not support helping the poor and feed people and they always come up with the comment, let them earn their money just like i had to earn mine. well, you're looking at a guy that just inherited a 2,000 acre farm and all saying about the same thing. they'll go to church one hour a

week and you talk about where does white wealth come from? a lot of white wealth people are born in to, businesses and act like they don't know how lucky they are but they were born into the right place. but during a matter of time, i was communicating with a cousin of mine and call him cousin q because he was right off the deep end of everything. and he made a comment, one email saying al sharpton got $125,000 for speaking at the george floyd's funeral. and i said well, hell, that's nothing, stormy daniels got $125,000 and she didn't even have to speak. i wish the best to those less fortunate than myself. that's about my comment.

host: all right. any comments, mr. maye. guest: i think to your cousin, and i think just maybe broadly to everyone is i think when we look at wealth, when we look at wages, when we look at all of the gaps, the disparities, it's really important, and i think even the intention of this report is to walk away from individualizing this. looking at one person or another person isn't the way we're going to actually make progress. and i think the purpose of even looking at these economic gaps over time is to see how pervasive the issue is and the issues that have been sustained from the 1960's until now. and looking at that, you can see

that there are systemic and structural problems within these institutions, within institutions of education and within institutions of housing, and for sure within the economy and labor market. and in looking at a more macroview, a wider scope of the issue, we see we can't individualize these problems because these problems aren't just happening to, you know, a one off -- it's not a one off case and happening to people within middle america. it's happening to people on the east coast, the west coast, in the north, in the south. it's widespread and pervasive and something that millions and millions of people are experiencing. and in order to attack a problem of this size, we'll need something, as i said, both targeted and race conscious that can meet the needs of millions. host: our guest is a graduate of the university of maryland and

masters from the george washington university in applied economics and data science and we go to gary who is calling from decatur, alabama. hi there. caller: hi there. my name is gary. i had a grandfather have a 265-acre property. and back in the day, you used to have to go to the co-op to get your seeds or whatever you need to run your farm. well, the guy took my grandfather to court and tried to take the land. come to behold, the guy -- the judge over the court case had the same last name as the guy that ran the co-op. so i went to the courthouse and i researched the case, to see the original papers where they served my grandfather. and the court case was dismissed

but i still can't find anything out about what happened to the land or how the land was sold. my family is land rich but money poor and we do not have the money to take care of this. on another question, my mother bought her house with a 30-year fixed loan which was very high and also, when she tried to pay it off, she couldn't because they had a penalty in there if you paid it off early, you got penalized. a lot of people don't understand how it touches blacks and gave them such high interest rates and stuck them with that 30-year mortgage and you couldn't pay it off early. a lot of our uncles tried to do the same thing. you couldn't pay it off. if you did you got penalized. so you was stuck for 30 years. as far as the case with my grandfather, i wish -- i've been trying to find somebody that can

help me research this pro bono that i can find out what happened to my grandfather's land. it was 265 acres of property and can't find anything out about it. host: all right. gary, what do you think of gary's story there? guest: first, thank you for sharing that story. i surely appreciate it. but this is a story, as i said, of millions of other people and definitely for sure for black farmers as well. there have been many people who have land that is owed to them of and inherited but once again because of the discriminatory policies or the close-knit community within some of these areas where they're trying to leverage that power and have it

disempower the black people within that community and keep it within a certain group in order to, you know, ensure they're able to secure their own riches and prosperity. we see that this is something that is also very rampant, especially with homeownership, especially with home amazals and evaluations. this is something that continues to happen and is once again exactly the reason why we need a scalable investment into eliminating these issues from happening in the future. host: your report also looks at fundamental rights such as voting and voter participation. and you look at black voter registration. black voter registration has lagged behind white voter registration for black and white nonhispanic citizens from 1980 to 2020 and it is pretty consistent. why is that participation level that registration level, i

should say, still lagging behind white nonhispanic citizens? guest: i think the biggest case is voter suppression, gerrymandering, all of these issues and phenomenon that continue to happen and persist today. i think that, you know, we regularly watched the news during the election season and we're hearing of stories of long lines in communities predominantly black and booths being closed or election fights being moved last minute and all these tactics that unfortunately create even more barriers for black voters to not only register but to vote and exercise their right to vote. and this is a -- one of the cornerstone issues that was advocated for during the march on washington for jobs and

freedom but definitely

even within my report, i was looking at the black unemployment rate which we see being still very much higher than the white unemployment rate. we see this issue, it's difficult to look at these issues like one off scenarios. you can't look at the vacuum of just july or this year but looking at the historical trend, we see it's a lot more pervasive. one of the demands of the march on washington was a program to train unemployed workers. i think that would probably be a great policy to look into in a way when we can find a way to do it in an equitable manner in order to break down the barriers and economic prosperity and

unemployment for black workers. k workers. host: let's go to new york city and hear from clyde. caller: good morning. first of all, it is ironic that you mention the march on washington because here it is. everyone remembers mlk' speechs about color and character, but he also had an interview where he talked about the propriety of land between black people and white people. you being an expert, which you should be, and you being real nice about it -- you do know where the disparity comes into play.

that is what put us behind. i'm a real estate investor. i have four properties in new york. i also have four properties in boston. you know what it is, but you're being real nice about saying it. i don't know how much more nice you can be, but that is the disparity between white and blacks. we lost land. look at how many towns we lost. we lost 60 towns by white supremacy. they can destroy us. they literally destroyed us. they kept us in this place. this is a racist country, and that is what it boils down to period, and you need to say it. host: adewale maye, your

thoughts? guest: i really appreciate that comment. i agree. as i have stated earlier this does include during reconstruction. the shadow of slavery, all of the issues we see now have taken root from that from the very beginning. fundamentally, these institutions are flawed. i think that they are discriminatory. i inc. that racism -- i think that racism is part of the great fabric, unfortunately, that has brought america to what it is today, but that does not mean that is what we need to continue to be, and definitely not what we should be as we try to kill this country and move forward. i think in this way we look at

the demands of the march on washington as a playbook for how we can achieve true racial justice and equity. i think just like dr. king and many of the other great leaders of the civil rights movement and the black power movement, all of the great ancestors, they understood that this country is racist but they also understood that there is a place for black people, for other people of color, for people across the globe to make a living here. i'm not saying that all americans have the right to live -- in this case, this is why i believe that this report, and even this anniversary is very important because we can look at these goals. we can see and assess how far we have come and also see what progress we need to make.

host: you have a portion in your report that says "the unanswered call of the kerner commission." remind us what the kerner commission was, and what were you pointing to in your report? guest: the kerner commission was basically a survey that was sanctioned by the government and ordered to see exactly what the black community needed. it was looking at the relationship between black citizens and the police, homeownership. it was looking at poverty, voting, all of these different factors just to see what does the black community need in order to thrive? the conclusions they had reached

mirrored the demands of the march on washington, which in many case added further context and even validity to the fact that these are the things -- we know the issues facing black workers and the black community at large, however, we just need to use history, use the demands of the march on washington, use the commission report and tried to make strides towards achieving what they are asking for. i think the kerner commission report and the march on washington are a great playbook for policymakers to use moving forward. host: we will get one more call for you. we go to market in asbury park, new jersey.

-- to mark in asbury park, new jersey. caller: i think about history. for example, back in slavery black people did all of the labor. pushing a broom was for black people. after slavery was over, now they don't want to hire these black people to do the jobs they worked for. on a major highway, you might see 20 or 30 white people out there and only 2 blacks. these are hey paying jobs. they pay $60 an hour but you see 30 whites one black. a black man has to do -- host: any final thoughts on

that? guest: as i have reiterated, i think that all of these stories really let the dire circumstances of many -- really reflect the dire circumstances of many black americans throughout the u.s.. policy needs to address the root issue of racism. that includes raising the minimum wage, protecting workers' right to unionize, federal reparations programs for descendants of enslaved africans, access to voting, freedom from over policing. i think all of these buckets are not only ways that we can make right the demands