BLM protestors try to prevent prevent a black guy from driving to work to feed his six children.
https://twitter.com/DanielAlmanPGH/status/1754256180992454720
Black Incomes Surpass Whites in Queens
Black fathers matter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/nyregion/01census.html
Black Incomes Surpass Whites in Queens
By Sam Roberts
October 1, 2006
Across the country, the income gap between blacks and whites remains wide, and nowhere more so than in Manhattan. But just a river away, a very different story is unfolding.
In Queens, the median income among black households, nearing $52,000 a year, has surpassed that of whites in 2005, an analysis of new census data shows. No other county in the country with a population over 65,000 can make that claim. The gains among blacks in Queens, the city’s quintessential middle-class borough, were driven largely by the growth of two-parent families and the successes of immigrants from the West Indies. Many live in tidy homes in verdant enclaves like Cambria Heights, Rosedale and Laurelton, just west of the Cross Island Parkway and the border with Nassau County.
David Veron, a 45-year-old lawyer, is one of them. He estimates that the house in St. Albans that he bought with his wife, Nitchel, three years ago for about $320,000 has nearly doubled in value since they renovated it. Two-family homes priced at $600,000 and more seem to be sprouting on every vacant lot, he says.
“Southeast Queens, especially, had a heavy influx of West Indian folks in the late 80’s and early 90’s,” said Mr. Veron, who, like his 31-year-old wife, was born on the island of Jamaica. “Those individuals came here to pursue an opportunity, and part of that opportunity was an education,” he said. “A large percentage are college graduates. We’re now maturing and reaching the peak of our earning capacity.”
Richard P. Nathan, co-director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, called Queens “the flip side of the underclass.”
“It really is the best illustration that the stereotype of blacks living in dangerous, concentrated, poor, slum, urban neighborhoods is misleading and doesn’t predominate,” he said.
Andrew A. Beveridge, a Queens College demographer who analyzed results of the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey, released in August, for The New York Times, said of the trend: “It started in the early 1990’s, and now it’s consolidated. They’re married-couple families living the American dream in southeast Queens.”
In 1994, an analysis for The Times found that in some categories, the median income of black households in Queens was slightly higher than that of whites — a milestone in itself. By 2000, whites had pulled slightly ahead. But blacks have since rebounded.
The only other places where black household income is higher than among whites are much smaller than Queens, like Mount Vernon in Westchester, Pembroke Pines, Fla.; Brockton, Mass.; and Rialto, Calif. Most of the others also have relatively few blacks or are poor.
Despite the economic progress among blacks in Queens, income gaps still endure within the borough’s black community, where immigrants, mostly from the Caribbean, are generally doing better than American-born blacks.
“Racism and the lack of opportunity created a big gap and kind of put us at a deeper disadvantage,” said Steven Dennison, an American-born black resident of Springfield Gardens.
Mr. Dennison, a 49-year-old electrical contractor, has four children. One is getting her doctoral degree; another will graduate from college this school year. “It starts with the school system,” Mr. Dennison said.
Mr. Vernon, the lawyer from Jamaica, said: “It’s just that the people who left the Caribbean to come here are self-starters. It only stands to reason they would be more aggressive in pursuing their goals. And that creates a separation.”
Housing patterns do, too. While blacks make more than whites — even those in the borough’s wealthiest neighborhoods, including Douglaston — they account for fewer than 1 in 20 residents in some of those communities. And among blacks themselves, there are disparities, depending on where they live.
According to the latest analysis, black households in Queens reported a median income of $51,836 compared with $50,960 for non-Hispanic whites (and $52,998 for Asians and $43,927 among Hispanic people).
Among married couples in Queens, the gap was even greater: $78,070 among blacks, higher than any other racial or ethnic group, and $74,503 among whites.
Hector Ricketts, 50, lives with his wife, Opal, a legal secretary, and their three children in Rosedale. A Jamaican immigrant, he has a master’s degree in health care administration, but after he was laid off more than a decade ago he realized that he wanted to be an entrepreneur. He established a commuter van service.
“When immigrants come here, they’re not accustomed to social programs,” he said, “and when they see opportunities they had no access to — tuition or academic or practical training — they are God-sent, and they use those programs to build themselves and move forward.”
Immigrants helped propel the gains among blacks. The median income of foreign-born black households was $61,151, compared with $45,864 for American-born blacks. The disparity was even more pronounced among black married couples.
The median for married black immigrants was $84,338, nearly as much as for native-born white couples. For married American-born blacks, it was $70,324.
One reason for the shifting income pattern is that some wealthier whites have moved away.
“As non-Hispanic whites have gotten richer, they have left Queens for the Long Island suburbs, leaving behind just middle-class whites,” said Professor Edward N. Wolff, an economist at New York University. “Since home ownership is easier for whites than blacks in the suburbs — mortgages are easier to get for whites — the middle-class whites left in Queens have been relatively poor. Middle-class black families have had a harder time buying homes in the Long Island suburbs, so that blacks that remain in Queens are relatively affluent.”
The white median also appeared to have been depressed slightly by the disproportionate number of elderly whites on fixed incomes.
But even among the elderly, blacks fared better. Black households headed by a person older than 65 reported a median income of $35,977, compared with $28,232 for white households.
Lloyd Hicks, 77, who moved to Cambria Heights from Harlem in 1959, used to run a freight-forwarding business near Kennedy Airport. His wife, Elvira, 71, was a teacher. Both were born in New York City, but have roots in Trinidad. He has a bachelor’s degree in business. She has a master’s in education.
“Education was always something the families from the islands thought the children should have,” Mr. Hicks said.
In addition to the larger share of whites who are elderly, said Andrew Hacker, a Queens College political scientist, “black Queens families usually need two earners to get to parity with working whites.”
Kenneth C. Holder, 46, a former prosecutor who was elected to a Civil Court judgeship last year, was born in London of Jamaican and Guyanese parents and grew up in Laurelton. His wife, Sharon, who is Guyanese, is a secretary at a Manhattan law firm. They own a home in Rosedale, where they live with their three sons.
“Queens has a lot of good places to live; I could move, but why?” Mr. Holder said. “There are quite a number of two-parent households and a lot of ancillary services available for youth, put up by organized block associations and churches, like any middle-class area.”
In smaller categories, the numbers become less precise. Still, for households headed by a man, median income was $61,151 for blacks and $54,537 for whites. Among households headed by a woman, the black and white medians were the same: $50,960.
Of the more than 800,000 households in Queens, according to the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey, about 39 percent are white, 23 percent are Hispanic, 18 percent are Asian, and 17 percent are black — suggesting multiple hues rather than monotone black and white.
“It is wrong to say that America is ‘fast becoming two nations’ the way the Kerner Commission did,” said Professor Nathan, who was the research director for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders in 1968 and disagreed with its conclusion. “It might be, though, that it was more true then than it is now.”
How Blacks’ Experience in Idaho Differs From National Narrative
Black fathers matter.
How Blacks’ Experience in Idaho Differs From National Narrative
By Arthur Goldberg
May 25, 2023
A remarkable study highlights a barely known exception to the generally accepted truism that black Americans’ poverty and unemployment rates are considerably higher than those of whites.
Idaho is the only state in the nation where blacks earn more than whites, and their income also tops that of all other races and ethnic groups, according to the study “Idaho Blacks: Quiet Economic Triumph of Enduring Champions.”
As the highest-earning racial group in Idaho, blacks earn 106% of the mean weekly earnings of whites and show an even higher earnings differential from other races and ethnic groups, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department.
The black experience in Idaho clearly differs from the national narrative. Compare the astounding 30% earnings differential for blacks compared with elsewhere in the United States, where blacks overall earn only three-quarters of whites’ income.
Such achievement is based upon several factors that are unusual to some extent, according to the preliminary research by authors Rama Malladi, an associate professor of finance at California State University, and Phillip Thompson, a fifth-generation Idahoan who is director of the Idaho Black History Museum.
Long-term trends, their study says, include “fewer barriers to land ownership, smaller populations, well-knit communities, men’s involvement in the family, and a relatively less hostile [social and regulatory] environment than prevailed in other states.”
“Blacks have been part of Idaho’s history from the inception of the current state,” Malladi and Thompson observe, citing historical data from as early as 1870.
Blacks began emigrating to Idaho in the 1840s as trappers and fur traders, in the 1860s and 1870s as miners, homesteaders, and cowboys, and later as urban-based tradesmen. In the last quarter of the 19th century, blacks arrived as scouts, guides, cavalrymen, pony express riders, cooks, veterinarians, railroad workers, missionaries, and circuit riders.
Due in part to rising violence and racism in the South in the 20th century, and recognizing economic opportunities caused by a need for workers, Idaho’s black population continued to expand. Recognizing the potential for upward mobility in a free market system, the study says, the black population “has grown in double-digit percentages in all decades except during the era of the Great Depression and the world wars.” A Smaller Black Population
By 2020, Idaho’s black population was growing at a significantly faster rate (262 times) than both the state’s overall population (123 times) and the white population (142 times).
However, Idaho residents who are black or African American make up only about 1% of the state’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s July 2022 population estimate. (Multiracial individuals constitute a separate category.)
This small population base, or “micro-minority,” is a primary factor cited by the study’s authors as benefiting economic opportunities for Idaho blacks. Nationally, blacks on average make up 13.6% of the population.
In the five states with the lowest income disparity between whites and blacks, the study notes, blacks represent under 2% of the working-age population. Like Idaho, the four other states are in the Pacific Northwest: Hawaii, Wyoming, Montana, and Oregon.
Documentation from the 19th century shows that blacks already were able to own farms and homes in Idaho, buttressing the thesis that blacks there experienced fewer barriers to land ownership than they would in many other states. As the authors point out, at the end of the 19th century, farmland ownership by Idaho blacks “ranked as the third highest in the country.”
Blacks who migrated to Idaho took full advantage of the 1862 Homestead Act, which provided that any adult citizen (including freed slaves) who never had borne arms against the government could claim 160 acres of government land, as long as they lived on and improved that land.
Black migrants also were able to gain equal access to educational opportunities for their children. Idaho integrated its schools in 1871, a full 83 years before a U.S. Supreme Court ruling integrated the nation’s public school systems. This achievement occurred only seven years after Idaho was founded as a free territory. Workforce Participation, Social Stability
Interestingly, the study’s authors point out, workforce participation rates for blacks at the end of the 19th century were “much greater than the total population.” Several blacks who moved to Idaho were major entrepreneurs, as illustrated by the case of Lewis Walker.
Upon his arrival in Silver City from the former slave state of Maryland, Walker began purchasing property, constructing buildings, and creating ownership in small business ventures such as shoe stores, barber shops, and saloons. In 1913, when Walker was 75, the local press recognized him as potentially the oldest Idaho settler.
This capitalist ethic, which continued to this day, is a factor in the economic achievement of black Idahoans.
Unlike many other states, Idaho’s societal climate of self-reliance and its embrace of economic and personal freedom, plus respect for those who work hard to achieve the American dream, made it a place where a tight-knit but integrated black community could flourish. A neutral playing field permitted blacks to rise on their own merit.
Black Idahoans’ focus on capitalism and individual initiative, independent of government, also is illustrated by the fact that they didn’t focus on the military or other sectors of government for employment. The study notes that their military participation rate was “the lowest” among all states, as they focused instead on entrepreneurship.
Also significant were several cultural factors, the authors observe, writing that “the family as an institution has been strong in Idaho.”
The social stability enjoyed by black families, in turn, provided a stable environment, increasing household income for many blacks and reflecting Idaho’s overall financial stability. In 2020, for example, Idaho ranked first among states for creditworthiness and third for low unemployment. It was one of the least regulated states in the union.
Moreover, Idaho’s blacks didn’t have the same concerns about personal safety. Mob lynching provides a classic example. Across America between 1882 and 1946, more than two and a half times as many blacks were lynched as whites. In Idaho, the record shows 20 whites were lynched, but no blacks.
Interestingly, men still dominate the workforce within Idaho’s black community, although the nation as a whole experienced a different scenario. And the increase in women’s labor force participation in the state’s black community in no way parallels the dramatic nationwide increase in female workers in the second half of the 20th century.
Women now constitute more than 50% of America’s workforce, and their participation in it sharply increased from 1960 to 1980. By contrast, women made up only 36% of Idaho’s black workforce in 1960; that share increased only slightly, to 37%, in 2018. Religion and Male Role Models
A strong element of cohesiveness in Idaho’s black community was the early establishment of churches and the internalization of traditional religious values.
After many blacks “migrated to a town or city,” the study’s authors observe, “the first community institution they established was usually a church.” This emphasis on believing in God and observing religious practices is consistent with Idaho’s overall cultural environment as a conservative or “red” state.
Although 81% of Idaho adults say they are certain or fairly certain that God exists, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, the nation is experiencing increasing secularism in government and education. This reflects a growing national abandonment of belief in God and an increasing percentage who say they are “religiously unaffiliated” (atheists, agnostics, and those who don’t identify with a particular religion).
In Idaho, the authors report, blacks and whites share a strong fidelity to family as an institution. Nationally, however, nearly 9 million children of all races are are negatively affected by the absence of fathers.
Although positive male role models are critical for a child’s development, homes without fathers have grown significantly since the 1960s. As the so-called Moynihan report made painfully clear in 1965, the decline of the black nuclear family in America significantly slowed blacks’ progress toward economic and social equality.
By contrast, Idaho’s black families bear little or no resemblance to this national black experience. Consider the fact that American society as a whole has witnessed rapid gains in separation and divorce, as well as in never-married mothers.
The authors make two observations about the positive influence of Idaho’s black males in family life: 1) the proportion of single-family households headed by women is significantly lower than the country as a whole (6% vs. 26%), and 2) the proportion of single-family households headed by men is significantly higher (22% vs. 6%).
The authors conclude by noting that the history of black Idahoans “is neither well-documented nor studied in depth,” and suggest that more research could uncover “valuable insights” into what led to their prosperity.
More research undoubtedly would be helpful. But these remarkable preliminary findings by Malladi and Thompson show how a society that relies upon the traditional values of faith, family, freedom, and entrepreneurship is more likely to economically advance those who diligently work to succeed. Such findings are consistent with the experience of blacks in Idaho, since they generally raised themselves not to be dependent on government. Meritocracy and a Level Playing Field
The findings also defy the common belief that all personal problems are solvable simply by creating additional government interventions, including greater regulatory power. Such a view has led to an increasingly stifling orthodoxy of affirmative action programs with racial and gender preferences.
However, even the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning pillar of the Washington establishment, admits that the nation’s poverty rates have remained unchanged since the implementation of affirmative action policies.
Thus, one clear lesson of the Malladi-Thompson study is that a culture of meritocracy based upon a level playing field, as evidenced by the black experience in Idaho, creates prosperity.
Equal opportunity for all, as opposed to mandating equal results, is the best and most effective way for an individual to succeed—even while overcoming persistent inequality.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 