AMNA NAWAZ: Now we continue
our Race Matters coverage about
inequality, racial justice

and specific challenges for
black Americans, the first, a
story on major economic gaps

in wealth and income, the
second on Hollywood's need for
better representation on and off

the screen.

Economics correspondent Paul
Solman starts with a report
on the historic disparities

African-Americans face, and
how that history is making the
current problems of COVID even

worse.

It's part of his regular
reporting for our
series Making Sense.

LYDIA CHATMON, Selma Center
for Nonviolence: When the rest
of the country catches a cold,

a place like the Black
Belt catches the flu.

PAUL SOLMAN: Or, these
days, something worse.

WOMAN: COVID hit us hard.

PAUL SOLMAN: The pandemic has
delivered a knockout blow to
black Americans physically.

They're dying at twice or
more the rate of whites.

MAN: Good afternoon.

PAUL SOLMAN: But they
are also hit much harder
economically. Why?

LISA COOK, Michigan State
University: African-Americans
are concentrated in the
areas of the economy

that have been hardest
hit by COVID-19.

PAUL SOLMAN: Economics
Professor Lisa Cook.

LISA COOK: Let's just look
at unemployment statistics.
There's 14 percent unemployment

rate among black women, 16.3
percent among black men.

PAUL SOLMAN: Compared to
10.1 percent for whites.
Now, it so happens a
black-white unemployment

gap, widening when times are
bad, is, sadly, par for the
course, in the Great Depression,

in the Great Recession,
as economist William
Rogers told me in 2009.

WILLIAM ROGERS, Rutgers
University: When we
entered the recession,
African-Americans started

with a higher unemployment rate.
And, as we have gone through
these last 16 months, the

gap has widened.

PAUL SOLMAN: Pre-pandemic, black
unemployment had hit a record
low of 5.8 percent, a fact

President Trump often touted.

DONALD TRUMP, President of
the United States: We have the
best numbers we have ever had.

PAUL SOLMAN: But Cook says
black workers, stuck in low-wage
service jobs, embody the

old adage last
hired, first fired.

LISA COOK: The last hired means
that there is not the ability
to accumulate income. That

makes African-Americans less
able to weather such a storm.

PAUL SOLMAN: In Alabama's
so-called Black Belt, the
jobless rate is at 20 percent.

Lydia Chatmon of the Selma
Center for Nonviolence.

LYDIA CHATMON: So, where
other people are able to still
survive, work from home, we

don't have a whole lot of
businesses and industries
that allow for that.
So, the financial impact

has been great.

DAVID LEONHARDT, The New
York Times: The black-white
wage gap among men is
as large as it was in

1950.

PAUL SOLMAN: That's New York
Times writer David Leonhardt.

DAVID LEONHARDT: We see that
black men make only 51 cents on
the dollar, relative to white

men.

PAUL SOLMAN: Therefore,
says economist Trevon Logan:

TREVON LOGAN, The Ohio
State University: Much
less of a cushion to
cushion the blow. Much

more likely, then, of course,
to need to be employed in the
places where they are essential

workers.

LISA COOK: So, yes, there would
be desperation with respect
to trying to find another job.

DERRICK PALMER, Amazon Worker:
You guys need to provide us
with masks. You need to provide

us with gloves.

PAUL SOLMAN: Starting in
March, Amazon warehouse
workers, disproportionately
people of color,

staged protests around the
country over what they said
were unsafe working conditions.

GERALD BRYSON, Amazon Worker:
They was talking about, we're
going by CDC standards. But when

we call the CDC, they are not.

PAUL SOLMAN: Amazon fired
several of the activists,
though the company has
since rolled out safety

measures. But good protection
still isn't available to many
of America's essential workers.

JASON HARGROVE, Bus Driver:
This coronavirus (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) is for real. And we out

here as public workers doing
our job trying to make an honest
living to take care of our

families.

PAUL SOLMAN: Detroit bus driver
Jason Hargrove on March 21, in
a Facebook video complaining

about a passenger.

JASON HARGROVE: That woman that
was on this bus that stood up
behind the line, where they

are not supposed to be, and
coughed four or five times,
and didn't cover up her mouth.

PAUL SOLMAN: Eleven days later,
Hargrove, a 50-year-old father
of six, died of COVID-19.

African-Americans like Hargrove
make up only 13 percent or so
of the U.S. population, but

nearly double that percentage
of transportation, warehouse
and delivery workers.

Just imagine what happens
to a family's finances
when that worker is
incapacitated, or worse.

And the problem is,
African-American finances
have been deteriorating
for years, says economist

Logan.

TREVON LOGAN: Wealth
actually has receded
for African-Americans
since the last Great

Recession. And, in fact, the
wealth disparities are larger
than they were 20 years ago.

DAVID LEONHARDT: The typical
white family has a net worth
41 times the typical black

family, which is
just remarkable.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, adds David
Leonhardt, to a large extent,
the wealth gap is a function

of policy.

DAVID LEONHARDT: The U.S.
government in the decades after
World War II subsidized families

to buy houses, which is a key
way that people build wealth.

But the way the policy was
written, they essentially
said, to get these
low-interest loans, you

have to live in a predominantly
white neighborhood. The
government justified
this by saying that

white neighborhoods
were essentially better
housing investments.

TREVON LOGAN: And then I
looked at the map of Columbus,
my home, right in that giant

red box.

PAUL SOLMAN: Black neighborhoods
were literally redlined on
maps for decades, off-limits to

the housing investment
which builds wealth.

TREVON LOGAN: I can show you
every city in the United States.
It's the same in Indianapolis.

It's the same in Cleveland.
It's the same in Detroit.
It's the same in Philadelphia.

PAUL SOLMAN: And during
the crash of 2008,
those neighborhoods
became hotbeds of sleazy

subprime loans and often,
as a result, foreclosure,
less wealth, and thus
less access to capital

for buying a home, for
building a business.

ALPHONZO CROSS, Owner, Parlor:
Having operating capital is
everything. We are not afforded

the same kinds of opportunities,
because we're looked at as a
risk. And we're looked at as

a risk because we don't have
access to the capital in order
for there not to be a risk.

PAUL SOLMAN: Alphonzo Cross
owns Parlor, a craft cocktail
lounge in Atlanta. It's in

a building his family owns in a
less fashionable part of town.

ALPHONZO CROSS: As a black
business owner, there are still
places that you cannot get

a lease, no matter what.

PAUL SOLMAN: But they don't
say to you, we're not leasing
to you because you're black?'

ALPHONZO CROSS: Well,
this isn't 1952. Of course
they're not saying that.

(LAUGHTER)

PAUL SOLMAN: But being locked
out of high-traffic areas means
less revenue, even during the

good times.

ALPHONZO CROSS: Throw a pandemic
into the mix, and you now
need access to more capital

to get through this
dumpster fire of a year.

MARC MORIAL, President, National
Urban League: African-American
businesses come to the pandemic

smaller.

PAUL SOLMAN: Marc Morial
is president and CEO of
the National Urban League.

MARC MORIAL: Less of a reserve
in cash and money, and,
therefore, harder to weather the

storm.

PAUL SOLMAN: What's so
infuriating to African-Americans
is that this is a
legacy of an intentional

past, slavery and Jim Crow,
most notably segregation.

DAVID WILLIAMS, Harvard
University: Segregation
is the secret sauce that
creates racial inequality

in the United States.

PAUL SOLMAN: Harvard
sociologist David Williams
in a 2017 TED Talk.

DAVID WILLIAMS: If you could
eliminate statistically
residential segregation,
you would completely

erase black-white
differences in income,
education and unemployment.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, Williams
might have added, perhaps the
differences leading to a very

different COVID-19 death rate.
It's the reasons behind that
death rate that we will explore

in our next Making Sense report.