Martin Luther King Jr. : The Challenges Of Economic Inequality In The United States

Despite beliefs to the contrary, the increasing disparity in real wealth between white and black Americans during the past half century shows that the economic system is unjust. Considering factors such as less intergenerational inheritance, higher unemployment and lower incomes serve as key components in economic disparity. Disparity can be viewed as a systematic design to keep a specific group of people continually oppressed through a mixture of inequality, injustice and power. When there is an inequality that is also an injustice (Wright, 2009).

The historical aspect of the civil rights movement was the tip of the iceberg of the social and economic injustice of African Americans within the United States. From the 1900s to the late 1980s economic disparities existed between African Americans and other ethnicities. According to Klarman (2004), many different sorts of factors political, economic, social, demographic, ideological, international, and legal account for the transformation in American racial attitudes and practices over time. As blacks moved from southern farms to northern

All men are created equal yet the glaring disparities between races and ethnicities say otherwise. The African American demographic of America has the lowest poverty rate and household income than all other races and ethnicities. The statistics about African American poverty are staggering in regards to more than just unemployment, food insecurity, and nutrition. In the 21st century, decades after the civil war and desegregation, and with such a diverse population, the poverty in our country still pertains to race and the color of our skin. The following paragraphs will explicate the various distinctions in socioeconomic statuses of the African American and white populations of America. It is not my intention to pit the white and black

Due to discrimination, most blacks lived in poverty. “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 55 percent of blacks lived under the poverty line in 1959” (“Minority Rights”). Discrimination in this time period led to many drawbacks—one of the lesser not being the fact that over half of the African American population in the United States sat beneath the poverty line. Secondly, this was merely a general fact, a general fact that was quite overlooked and seen as quite contrary to the abnormal. “For blacks in the rural South, poverty and the attendant deprivation, along with racial discrimination, were the depressing norm” (“Poverty” 76). Overall, discrimination from the 1930s to the late 50s-60s had improved, but not by much, as poverty among the black populous was normal and existed only because of the heartless discrimination that persevered even after all those

Although the wealth gap between blacks and whites is still unbelievably big, African-American’s income and employment rates are steadily on the rise (Desilver) . African-American’s tend to move up in their same social class or completely move out of it. Even though African-Americans face prejudice and discrimination, they are not the only minority group to experience these issues.

The gap between caucasian and non caucasian families has nearly tripled. In the last 25 years, total wealth gaps average from $85,000 in 1984 too $236,500 in 2009. A factor that fits into this number is inheritance and financial support from family and friends. Another part of the this racial injustice is the inequality of education. Just to scratch the surface of the issue, where people were born, raised and academic opportunities widens this gap between discriminated races and those that are not. Even though some of these inequalities are being combated, racial injustice welcome help and change in correcting this issue in this

[T]he expansion of private employment and nonprofessional opportunities cannot, however, provide full employment for Negroes. Many youths are not listed as unemployed because in despair they have left the labor market completely. They are psychologically disabled and cannot be rescued by conventional employment. (King, 1967)

Racial inequality is one of the acute issues faced by contemporary American society. In many academic sources, this social issue is discussed by sociologists as a serious national problem that requires the proper and prompt solutions (Hwang, J. & Sampson, 2014; McCarthy, 1991; Williams & Sternthal, 2010). It has been found that “race relations in America have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, so much so that now the life chances of individual blacks have more to do with their economic class position than with their day-to-day encounters with whites” (Wilson, 2012, p. 1). In the United States, the enduring racial inequality is caused by the preferential treatment of whites. In the works of the great sociologist W. E. B. Du

Modern and historical forces combine to separate many racial and ethnic communities disconnected from networks of economic opportunity and upward mobility. Among those forces is constant racial discrimination that, while subtler than in past decades, continues to deny opportunity to millions of

It is no secret that racial inequalities exist today and have for many years now. They have existed at many levels including institutional, collective, and personal. In this paper, I plan to show how previous policies created these inequalities, and explain how we can address these issues at all levels. I will also show which policies have had an impact on minorities in contributing to greater equality.

“The literature on occupational segregation in the United States has traditionally focused on segregation by gender and more recently has turned its attention to segregation by race and ethnicity. With respect to gender, much research has documented a reduction in segregation in the second half of the twentieth century and stagnation at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Segregation between African Americans and non-African Americans also decreased in the second half of the past century, but segregation between Hispanics and non-Hispanics increase. Racism is ever prevalent in society today but can it truly affect you financially?” (Rio and Alonso-Villar 967-968). Racial stereotypes are everywhere and that they can affect you in getting

A person’s race and educational background are defining factors which help to designate the type of job and economic level they are in. Studies from the National Poverty Center have shown that “racial differences continue to result in socio-economic disadvantages.”1

It does not take much for someone to realize that in today’s society, there are still inequalities in our country. America may be a hundred and fifty years past the civil war when white and black racial lines were erased, but they are more present today than in recent years. The recurrence of these racial lines has been caused by the economic gap, violence on the streets, and miscommunication of facts.

In the article by Pager D. and Western B., the authors discuss the issue of racial discrimination in relation to the U.S. labor market. According to the authors, opinion polls currently show that Americans are much less likely to view the discrimination as a major issue as compared to their counterparts in the 70s. However, research indicates that there is rampant discrimination in the labor market, and African Americans are the most affected individual’s (Pager & Western, 2005). In the second article by Perelman, the author discusses some of the issues that are not noticed in the labor market and how they affect the creation of jobs. For instance, the author points out how large corporations that should be on the forefront in the creation

Man-made constitutions once created a society based on hierarchy, separating black from white, Latino from Asian, and rich from poor. Through the significant decades of the 1940s-1960s, America laid the groundwork for civil rights, a movement through which minorities fought for equal opportunity. How could America call itself “land of the free” when only the white man could socially and economically move upward? For minorities, this represented an immobile society. Yet, equality elapsed over time, and due to pivotal events in American history such as the Cold War and WWII, the Civil Rights Movement molded the road toward change and challenged America to redefine their core values.