BLACKS-UP AGAINST STRUCTURAL INEQUITIES
Thurow, Lester
Blacks—Up Against Structural Inequities Since World War II there has been no significant change in the employment probabilities of both blacks and whites. In both good times and bad,...
...Blacks—Up Against Structural Inequities Since World War II there has been no significant change in the employment probabilities of both blacks and whites...
...I able I Earnings of Black Full-Time...
...Did the American Jeffersonian Republicans demonstrate it before 1800, the German postwar SPD before 1966...
...And this, I submit, no party of patronage has ever done while exercising a monopoly of power guaranteed by the support of an external actor...
...fhe proportion of white families with two or more workers now exceeds that of blacks...
...Throwing a party with a mass following and a vocation for reform into a political ghetto has never been known to further its democratization—on the contrary...
...Finally, though it is true that the PCI has not yet demonstrated the commitment to democracy that American policy-makers say is required for its inclusion in an Italian government, how many political parties historically have demonstrated a "commitment to democracy" before they exercised political power...
...The civil rights and poverty programs of the 1960s might have sustained the rate of increase started in the 1950s, but they did not accelerate it...
...For example, for the period 1950-59 the ratio of unemployed blacks to whites was 2.0, for 1960-69 it was 2.1, and for 1970-74 it was 1.9...
...American rigidity could have another effect as well...
...Full-Year Workers as a Percentage of Whites', 1955-73 Year dales I emales 1955 56 1960 59 68 1968 61 77 1969 81 1970 65 83 1971 65 87 1972 65 88 1973 66 56 I able 2 Black Family Incomes as a Percentage of Whites...
...While the current relative employment probabilities of blacks are no worse than they have been since World War II, this does not minimize the problem...
...A curious consequence for a policy that aimed at preserving Italian democracy from totalitarianism...
...While there is enough sampling error in the data to caution against calling a three-year hiatus in gains a trend, it is nonetheless disturbing...
...This was true prior to the civil rights movement and antipoverty programs of the 1960s and is true now...
...continued on page 60) responsible for Communist electoral gains but the government's failure to modernize Italian society...
...q This is an excerpt from Mr...
...In 1960 black males were approximately 9 percent as likely to hold a job in the top 5 percent of the earnings distribution, but by 1973 they were 19 percent as likely to hold a joh at the top...
...The rate of gains for blacks, however, was just as high in the 1950s as it was in the 1960s...
...Black females held none of the topearning jobs in 1960 and essentially none (.06 percent) in 1973...
...Absolute rates are the highest they have been since the Great Depression for both whites and blacks...
...One has the impression that, for the State Department, the real operational definition of a "commitment to democracy" is the PCI's acceptance of American hegemony in Europe and its break with the U.S.S.R...
...In both good times and bad, black unemployment rates are approximately twice as high as those of whites...
...It follows that pumping funds into the ailing DC in the time-tested manner will neither revive that party's fortunes nor give it the policy coherence to carry out essential reforms...
...Relative to the size of their respective populations, two black men and women are out of work for every white man or woman during a period of rising unemployment...
...Between 1955 and 1973 black males' earnings have risen from 56 percent to 86 percent of white females...
...Since 1970 there is little evidence of any advance in the relative earnings of black males, and since 1971 there is little evidence of any advance in the relative earnings of black females...
...however, caused by the business cycle...
...it is the result of a reduction in the proportion of black families with two or more workers and an increase in the proportion of white families with two or more workers...
...which started in the first quarter of 1974...
...1947-73 Near Percentage Year Percentage 1947 51 1961 53 1948 53 1962 53 1949 51 1963 53 1950 54 1964 56 1951 53 1965 55 1952 57 1966 60 1953 56 1967 62 1954 56 1968 63 1955 55 1969 63 1956 53 1970 64 195 7 54 1971 63 1958 51 1972 62 1959 52 1973 60 1960 55...
...The most recent decline was not...
...Note that the relative gains for black females have been three times as large as those for black males...
...The Italian Communist party has now reached so great a level of both internal and programmatic evolution (not to mention its increasingly distant relations with the Soviet Union) that advocates of its further democratization are either foolish or hypocritical to argue for its continued isolation...
...In the Italian case, there could be a further consequence: the Fascist right might stage a new recovery...
...This trend is apt to continue and Mil lead to an increasing gap in awl -age family incomes...
...The same relationship has held as unemployment escalates: month by month black unemployment has held constant at twice that of whites...
...Just as it is an illusion to suppose that only the economic crisis is the source of PCI gains, so it is equally vain to suppose that Italy's anarchic pattern of modernization—the real source of Communist support—could be corrected by the current ruling party unless it radically transformed itself from a party of patronage to a party of program...
...Thurow's article in the March-April 1976 issue of Social Policy, entitled "Not Making It in America: The Economic Progress of Minority Groups...
...The lower relative earnings of black males especially are a manifestation of a long-run structural problem...
...Black family incomes rose from 51 percent of white family incomes in 1947 to 57 percent at the peak of the Korean War in 1952, declined to 51 percent with the recession of 1957-58, rose to 64 percent under the pressures of the Vietnam Wal-and the civil rights movement, and then once again started to fall, reaching 60 percent in 1973 (see Table 2...
...On the other hand, between 1960 and 1973 the probability of white females holding a topearning job fell relative to white males...
...At the current rate, it would take 10 years for black females to achieve parity with white females, but black males would not reach parity with white males for another 75 years...
...The relative employment probabilities of blacks have not improved in the post-World War II period, but relative earnings have (see Table 1...
...Our assumptions have contributed to the impossibility of serious structural reform ever being carried out in Italy, because we have unfailingly backed a party, the Christian Democracy, which was incapable of translating its strategy of patronage into collective programs of any sort...
...These data antedate the current recession...
...Instead...
...q BLACKS—UP AGAINST STRUCTURAL INEQUITIES (continued from page 4) Black family incomes have risen and fallen relative to white family incomes depending upon the phase of the business cycle...
Vol. 24 • January 1977 • No. 1
