john a. powell

Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and EthnicityWilliams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law

The Racialization of Poverty

American Humane and Annie E. Casey Foundation/ Casey Family Services Differential Response Pre-conference Institute: Poverty SummitPittsburgh, PANovember 11, 2009

Today’s conversationThe intersection of race, poverty, and place

Intergenerational poverty

Policy implications

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3 Interrelated Sites of Racial Justice

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Structures&

Policies

Implicit

Explicit

A Broader Understanding of Poverty

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Thinking about poverty in such a robust way means that we must look at the sociopolitical, institutional, and spatial systems and structures that produce impoverished outcomes.

Poverty must also be understood as reflecting structural disinvestment and marginalization on a global and a local scale.

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Visualizing Systems Theory

The Newtonian Perspective:

A B C D E

Social phenomena may be understood by breaking down

the sum of the constituent parts.

Systems Thinking:

A D

C

B

ECausation is reciprocal, mutual,

and cumulative.

Multiple Dimensions of Poverty

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We must look at multiple indicators

There’s a difference between:

Childhood poverty --- adult poverty

Being poor and uneducated --- being poor and educated

Different racial groups face unique constraints.

We must also consider the time dimension

Are poverty programs aimed at short-term poverty?

Can they address multigenerational poverty?

Framing Poverty

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Poverty is a symptom of a broader disease -- the structural arrangements that deny access to opportunity, wealth and power for marginalized groups, while limiting opportunity for the non-poor as well.

We must frame poverty as an outcome of a structural deficiency.

It must be emphasized that this systemic denial to the levers and pathways of opportunity is highly racialized.

Racialized structures and policies have created the correlation of race and poverty.

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Poverty and Race in the U.S.Poverty and race – 2006

White (non-Hispanic): 17.9 million in poverty, 9.3% poverty rate

Black: 9.0 million in poverty, 25.3% poverty rate

Asian: 1.4 million in poverty, 10.7% poverty rate

Latino (all Latinos): 9.3 million in poverty, 21.5% poverty rate

Poverty is Spatialized & Racialized

ReservationsAppalachian

mountainsBarrios

Jim CrowGhettosCulture of

Incarceration

Historically marginalized people of color and the very poor have been spatially isolated from economic, political, educational and technological power via:

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Neighborhood Effects

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Are we accounting for neighborhood effects, or simply looking at individual poverty?

Neighborhood effects are real.

Location matters when creating affordable housing

The subprime crisis had varying impacts by community

Our response should be targeted accordingly

Neighborhoods of Concentrated Poverty

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Nearly 1 out of 10 Blacks lived in a concentrated poverty neighborhood in 1999, compared to 1 out of 100 Whites.

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Childhood Poverty

Living in “concentrated disadvantage” reduces student IQ by 4 points, roughly the equivalent to missing one year of school

(Sampson 2007)

Race & Residence

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Using data from 1980 census: “Racial differences in poverty and family disruption are so strong that the ‘worst’ urban contexts in which whites reside are considerably better than the average context of black communities.”

In the 171 largest cities in the U.S. in 1980, there was not even one city where whites live in ecological equality to blacks in terms of poverty rates or rates of single-parent households.

Sampson, Robert J. and William Julius Wilson. 1995. Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality. In Crime and Inequality, edited by John Hagan and Ruth Peterson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Residential Segregation & Disparities

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A study of the effects of segregation on young African American adults found that the elimination of segregation would erase black-white differences in

Earnings

High School Graduation Rate

Unemployment

and reduce racial differences in single motherhood by two-thirds.

Cutler, Glaeser & Vigdor, 1997; Williams presentation “Racism & Health: Understanding Multiple Pathways.”

Comparing Poor Whites & Poor Non-whites

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In 1960, African-American families in poverty were 3.8 times more likely to be concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods than poor whites.

In 2000, they were 7.3 times more likely.

3 of 4 persons living in concentrated poverty are Black or Latino -- even though more whites are poor.

Whites only make 30% of people living in high poverty neighborhoods, although they represent 55% of the total population living in poverty

Fact Sheet from the Opportunity Agenda, Housing Neighborhoods and Opportunity. http://www.opportunityagenda.org/site/c.mwL5KkN0LvH/b.1433711/k.B7BA/Housing_Fact_Sheet.htm

School Poverty and Race

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Ethnic and Racial Composition of Fifth-Grade Elementary Schools by School Poverty Status

Data: ECLS-K Class of 1988 (N=9,796). Data are weighted to yield population estimates.Rumberger, Russell W. 2007. “Parsing the data on student achievement in high-poverty schools”

North Carolina Law Review. 85.

Time in Poverty

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Two-thirds of white families in poverty are poor for only three year or less (intermittently), and only 2 % are impoverished for more than 10 years.

17% of the impoverished Black population are poor for ten or more years.

Poverty, Race, and Recession

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According to EPI President Lawrence Mishel: Even using conservative forecasts for future job loss, the poverty rate for children could increase from an already high 18% -- where it stood in 2007 -- to more than 27% by next year.

Poverty among African American children, currently at a staggering 34.5%, could reach 50% before the employment picture starts to turn around.

Intergenerational Poverty & Wealth

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Poverty is more than lack of income; it’s also lack of wealth.

Challenges to wealth accumulation for non-whites include:

Redlining / lending discrimination / predatory lending

Job discrimination / wage disparities

Unfulfilled promise of “40 acres and a mule”

www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=race_wealth_and_intergenerational_poverty

Expanding our Understanding of Poverty

Poverty can also be measured by the capability to live the life one can value and contribute to society

Poverty is the deprivation of basic capabilities, including health and education

People in poverty cannot fully exercise their freedoms

Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (1999) 19

Understanding Our Linked Fates

Racialized structures and policies have created the correlation of race and poverty. People assume that only people of color are harmed.

In reality, these effects are far reaching and impact everyone – we share a linked fate

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Adjusting the Poverty Lens

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Re-define, re-think, and re-frame

Re-define: from an “income-to-needs” ratio to “Human Development Index”

Re-think: unconscious vs. conscious racismOur emotional responses to poverty determine

our willingness to help

Re-frame: from a “welfare and charity” approach to an “opportunity for all” approach

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Plan for Action - To Alleviate Poverty

Move discourse away from individualistic framing

Highlight poverty’s structural causesFrame poverty as the result of a structural deficiency

Focus on our shared connections:Poverty and marginalization do not just harm the

poorOpportunity isolation harms the entire community

Emphasize the need for strategies that expand access to opportunities

Other Solutions / Ideas

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Seek solutions that are both targeted and universal

Analyze the role of segregation and space

Opportunity mapping

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Rethinking Structural Arrangements Bringing people into structures

that formerly excluded them may not be enough

Message is: individual is not properly “negotiating” the ladder when the ladder is too narrow or long …and we’re climbing alone

Insensitive, perhaps hostile structural arrangements

Make structures work for marginalized populations, thus changing their relationship to wealth and power

For more information: www.KirwanInstitute.org

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Appendix

Infant mortality by raceImplicit bias – passing the ball video

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Infant Mortality by Mother’s EducationCollege educated Black women have higher infant mortality rates than Whites who did not graduate from high school.

27<12 12 13-15 16+

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

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9.9

6.55.1

4.2

17.3

14.8

12.311.4

6 5.9 5.44.4

5.7 5.5 5.14

12.7

7.9

5.7

NH White Black Hispanic API AmI/AN

Years of Education

Infa

nt

Mort

ality

Awareness Test

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrqrkihlw-s