The Racial Wealth Gap and Access to Opportunity Neighborhoods

Some Black households live in neighborhoods with lower incomes, as well as higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment, than their own incomes might suggest, and this may impede their economic mobility. We investigate reasons for the neighborhood sorting patterns we observe and find that differences in financial factors such as income, wealth, or housing costs between Black and white households do not explain racial distributions across neighborhoods. Our findings suggest other factors are at work, including discrimination in the housing market, ongoing racial hostility, or preferences by Black households for the strength of social networks or other neighborhood amenities that some lower-socioeconomic locations provide.

Explaining Racial Inequality in Food Security in Columbus, Ohio: A Blinder–Oaxaca Decomposition Analysis

Food insecurity is a leading public health challenge in the United States. In Columbus, Ohio, as in many American cities, there exists a great disparity between Black and White households in relation to food insecurity. This study investigates the degree to which this gap can be attributed to differences in food shopping behavior, neighborhood perception, and socioeconomic characteristics. A Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition method is used to analyze a household survey dataset collected in 2014. We find a 34.2 percent point difference in food security between White and Black households. Variables related to food shopping behavior, neighborhood perception, and socioeconomic characteristics explain 13.8 percent, 11.6 percent, and 63.1 percent of the difference, respectively. These independent variables combined can explain 68.2 percent of the food security gap between White and Black households. Most of this is attributable to socioeconomic variables. Sense of friendship in neighborhood, use of private vehicles, and satisfaction of neighborhood food environment also partially contribute to the food security gap.

Black-white Racial Disparities in Household Food Insecurity from 2005-2014, Canada

Background: Household food insecurity is a public health concern in many high-income countries. Despite two decades of research charting the socio-demographic and geographic correlates of food insecurity in Canada, the relationship between race and vulnerability to food insecurity has not been interrogated. Our objectives were to examine the association of Black-White racial identity and prevalence and severity of household food insecurity in Canada, and understand how racialized vulnerability manifests differently for key sociodemographic predictors. Methods: Data for households with Black and White respondents with complete data on household food insecurity were drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey cycles from 2005-2014 (N=491,400). Household food insecurity status was assessed using the Household Food Security Survey Module. Bivariate and multivariate logistic and multinomial regression models were run, including respondent’s race and immigration status, as well as six well-established household-level predictors of food insecurity in the general population: household composition, income, housing tenure, highest level of education in the household, main household income source, and province/territory. To test whether the relationship between food insecurity and these predictors differed by race, additional multivariable logistic regression models were run, with race interacted with each predictor individually and predicted probabilities estimated.Results: The weighted prevalence of household food insecurity was 10.0% for white respondents and 28.4% for Black respondents. The odds of Black households being food-insecure compared to white households fell from 3.56 (95% CI: 3.30-3.85), to 1.88 (95% CI: 1.70-2.08) with adjustment for household sociodemographic characteristics. In contrast to white households, there was relative homogeneity of risk of food insecurity among Black sub-groups defined by immigration status, household composition, education, and province of residence. Homeownership was associated with lower probabilities of food insecurity for Black and white households, but the probability among Black owners was similar to that for white renters (14.7% vs. 14.3%). Black households had significantly higher predicted probabilities of food insecurity than their white counterparts across all main sources of household income except child benefits and social assistance.Conclusions: Being racialized as Black appears to be an overriding factor predicting vulnerability to food insecurity for the Black population in Canada.

Racialized Debts: Racial Exclusion From Credit Tools and Information Networks

Research on debt highlights its use as a tool for investment and a substitute for public welfare programs. Use of debt, however, is not equal across social groups. Black households in particular have lower debt levels than white households. In this paper, we explore the context behind massive racial disparities in household debt. Conceptually, we propose that personal debt is an indicator of integration in the financial system. As such, we argue that black households’ lower debt levels can be understood as financial isolation rather than financial health. We support this argument by using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances to estimate racial differences in access to financial tools net of racial differences in socioeconomic status, asset levels, and financial literacy. We also show that black households’ financial information networks are different from white households’ in ways that suggest restricted access to formal financial institutions.

Understanding the Neighborhood Concentration of Affluent Black Households in the 1990s

This study examines the intersection of race, class, and place by exploring the neighborhood concentration of affluent black households in the United States during the 1990s using Census 2000 data. It adds to the literature seeking a more nuanced understanding of the black community. The author assesses the theories of spatial assimilation and place stratification in understanding the processes associated with the neighborhood-level concentration of affluent black households. Regression analyses reveal that, in general, such concentrations are positively associated with black neighborhood socioeconomic status and negatively associated with white status. Furthermore, neighborhood quality and demographic factors are important for understanding the geography of affluent black households. Additionally, the metropolitan characteristics of residential segregation, racial composition, and regional location affect the neighborhood concentration of affluent black households. Findings suggest place stratification theory provides greater explanatory power than spatial assimilation theory for understanding the neighborhood concentration of affluent black households.

Protecting the Household

Antebellum racial policing also extended to the household, as Chapter 4 demonstrates. Police reform was implemented in the name of property, and in a patriarchal world, households often counted as male property. Thus the new policemen were supposed to protect good householders. And they often did. But free black households fit into this system uncomfortably. Beliefs in black household disorder, and subsequent police regulations targeted at black families, combined with the prohibition of black testimony against white people both to undermine black men’s household autonomy and heighten white male power over black households. When a white person entered a black home, there was not much a policeman could do, even if he wanted to. As a result, free black Baltimoreans’ home lives were uniquely susceptible to white violence. Once again, policemen confirmed the disparity.

Race and Consumption

Differences in consumption patterns are usually treated as a matter of preferences. In this article, the authors examine consumption from a structural perspective and argue that black households face unique constraints restricting their ability to acquire important goods and services. Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys, the authors examine racial differences in total spending and in spending on major categories of goods and services (food, transportation, utilities, housing, health care, and entertainment). The authors also capture heterogeneous effects of racial stratification across class by modeling racial consumption gaps across household income levels. The results show that black households tend to have lower levels of total spending than their white counterparts and that these disparities tend to persist across income levels. Overall, these analyses indicate that racial disparities in consumption exist independently of other economic disparities and may be a key unexamined factor in the reproduction of racial inequality.

A Comparison of Traditional and Discrete-Choice Approaches to the Analysis of Residential Mobility and Locational Attainment

This article contrasts traditional modeling approaches and discrete-choice models as methods to analyze locational attainment—how individual and household characteristics (such as race, socioeconomic status, age) influence the characteristics of neighborhoods of residence (such as racial composition and median income). Traditional models analyze attributes of a neighborhood as a function of the characteristics of the households within them; discrete-choice methods, on the other hand, are based on dyadic analysis of neighborhood attributes and household characteristics. I outline two problems with traditional approaches to residential mobility analysis that may be addressed through discrete-choice analysis. I also discuss disadvantages of the discrete-choice approach. Finally, I use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to estimate residential mobility using traditional locational attainment and discrete-choice models; I show that these produce similar estimates but that the discrete-choice approach allows for estimates that examine how multiple place characteristics simultaneously guide migration. Substantively, these models reveal that the disproportionate migration of black households into lower-income tracts amounts to sorting of black households into black tracts, which on average are lower income.

The Impact of Economic Freedom on the Black/White Income Gap

Using state-level data from 1980-2010 we examine whether economic freedom, as measured by the Economic Freedom of North America Index, has had any impact in increasing or decreasing the ratio of median income for black households to the median income of white households. To our knowledge, there has been no research on racial income disparities and the role that economic freedom might have in alleviating or exacerbating the problem. We find evidence that economic freedom is associated with an increase in the racial income gap.

Race and Home Ownership from the End of the Civil War to the Present

We present new estimates of home ownership for black and white households from 1870 to 2007. Black ownership increased by 46 percentage points, whereas white ownership increased by 20 points. Remarkably, 25 of the 26 point narrowing occurred between 1870 and 1910. Part of this early convergence is accounted for by falling white ownership due to movement out of agriculture, but most is accounted for by post-emancipation gains among blacks. After 1910, white and black households increased ownership, but the racial gap barely changed. We discuss the influence of residential segregation, public policy, and permanent income on the ownership gap.