WEBVTT 00:02.033 --> 00:04.700 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% HARI SREENIVASAN: New research finds class matters a lot less in America when it comes 00:04.700 --> 00:07.600 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% to economic mobility for black males. 00:07.600 --> 00:12.600 align:left position:10%,start line:71% size:80% Income inequality is often cited as an important factor in holding people back, but a new analysis 00:14.566 --> 00:18.333 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% suggests black boys and black men face economic disadvantages even if they start off from 00:20.200 --> 00:22.400 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% a similar point of income and wealth as their white counterparts. 00:22.400 --> 00:25.333 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% Yamiche Alcindor is back with our conversation. 00:25.333 --> 00:30.333 align:left position:20%,start line:71% size:70% YAMICHE ALCINDOR: A new study released this week underscores just how big a gap African-American 00:31.766 --> 00:34.866 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% males face when it comes to moving up the economic ladder. 00:34.866 --> 00:37.200 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% Some of the findings are dramatic. 00:37.200 --> 00:41.400 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% White boys who grew up in rich households are likely to remain that way. 00:41.400 --> 00:45.366 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Black boys who are also raised at the top are more likely to become poor, instead of 00:45.366 --> 00:48.733 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% staying wealthy in their own adult households. 00:48.733 --> 00:53.466 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of America, even when children grow 00:53.466 --> 00:57.666 align:left position:20%,start line:77% size:70% up next to each other, with parents who earn similar incomes. 00:57.666 --> 01:01.133 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Raj Chetty of Stanford University is one of the co-authors of this study. 01:01.133 --> 01:02.866 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% He joins me now. 01:02.866 --> 01:05.233 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% Thank you so much, Raj, for being here. 01:05.233 --> 01:09.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% This report seems to indicate that black men will fare worse than white men even if they 01:09.900 --> 01:12.433 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% are raised in households with similar incomes. 01:12.433 --> 01:14.433 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% Can you explain what's happening there? 01:14.433 --> 01:16.566 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% RAJ CHETTY, Professor of Economics, Stanford University: Yes, so one of the most striking 01:16.566 --> 01:21.566 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% findings of the study to us was that, even if you take black and white boys raised in 01:23.566 --> 01:27.000 align:left position:20%,start line:71% size:70% families at exactly the same income level, even at high income levels, you see that black 01:27.000 --> 01:31.000 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% boys end up with very different outcomes on average relative to white men. 01:31.000 --> 01:33.066 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% They're less likely to complete high school. 01:33.066 --> 01:37.566 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% They're less likely to go to college, to have significantly lower earnings in adulthood. 01:37.566 --> 01:41.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And that phenomenon, interestingly, applies really only to black men. 01:41.900 --> 01:46.600 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% When we look at black vs. white women, but see much more similarity in their outcomes 01:46.600 --> 01:48.700 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% if they grew up in families of similar incomes. 01:48.700 --> 01:53.700 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% So it's something unique to what's happening to black men in America that I think is really 01:55.600 --> 01:59.266 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% a concern for generations going forward in terms of perpetuating inequality by race. 02:00.933 --> 02:02.966 align:left position:20%,start line:77% size:70% YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And that inequality is really striking to me. 02:02.966 --> 02:07.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% One of the things the study reports is that African-American men who grow up in households 02:09.800 --> 02:13.466 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% with two parents that are earning $140,000, they fare about the same as a white young 02:14.900 --> 02:18.366 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% man who is raised by a single mother making just $60,000. 02:18.366 --> 02:21.300 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% How can that be true, because it feels so counterintuitive? 02:21.300 --> 02:24.000 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And what does that mean for African-American families and their futures? 02:24.000 --> 02:28.066 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% RAJ CHETTY: Yes, what you're getting at really is the finding that there's a great deal of 02:28.066 --> 02:30.733 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% downward mobility in black families. 02:30.733 --> 02:34.166 align:left position:20%,start line:71% size:70% So, you would have thought intuitively -- that is what we expected going in -- is, when you 02:34.166 --> 02:38.666 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% get to a certain income level, maybe racial disparities disappear, that at some point 02:38.666 --> 02:40.600 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% kind of escape the poverty trap. 02:40.600 --> 02:42.866 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% But that really doesn't seem to be the case. 02:42.866 --> 02:47.500 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Even once your parents reach a high income level, it continues to be the case that black 02:47.500 --> 02:51.900 align:left position:20%,start line:71% size:70% men have higher odds of essentially ending up in the bottom of the income distribution 02:51.900 --> 02:54.100 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% than staying at the top of the income distribution. 02:54.100 --> 02:59.100 align:left position:20%,start line:71% size:70% And that's why you get this pattern that black men's outcomes look comparable to white men 03:00.566 --> 03:02.566 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% growing up in relatively low- or middle-income families. 03:02.566 --> 03:05.600 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% YAMICHE ALCINDOR: You mentioned in the study that there are unique obstacles that black 03:05.600 --> 03:07.533 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% men face. 03:07.533 --> 03:09.733 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Are we -- just to be clear, are we talking about racism and racial bias? 03:09.733 --> 03:12.966 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And what are those unique obstacles that black men in particular face? 03:12.966 --> 03:14.966 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% RAJ CHETTY: Yes. 03:14.966 --> 03:17.433 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% So, to try to get at that, we look at how this varies across different parts of the 03:17.433 --> 03:21.733 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% country, so look neighborhood by neighborhood, and ask, are there some neighborhoods in America 03:21.733 --> 03:26.600 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% where you see small black-white gaps, or perhaps black men doing better than white men? 03:26.600 --> 03:29.933 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% And, surprisingly, you find essentially no such areas. 03:29.933 --> 03:34.933 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% In 99 percent of neighborhoods in America, you see better outcomes for white men than 03:35.533 --> 03:37.533 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% black men. 03:37.533 --> 03:40.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Now, digging in deeper, you can ask, where do we see relatively good outcomes for black 03:40.900 --> 03:42.533 align:left position:40%,start line:89% size:50% men? 03:42.533 --> 03:44.500 align:left position:20%,start line:77% size:70% And there are a couple of factors that pop out from that analysis. 03:44.500 --> 03:49.100 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% One, you see that areas with larger rates of father presence in homes among black men, 03:50.800 --> 03:52.833 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% you have better outcomes for black boys there. 03:52.833 --> 03:57.833 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% So, if there are more two-parent families, particularly among African-American households, 03:58.933 --> 04:00.966 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% you see better outcomes for black boys. 04:00.966 --> 04:04.800 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And, second, you see that areas with lower levels of racial bias among whites tend to 04:04.800 --> 04:06.866 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% have outcomes for black men. 04:06.866 --> 04:11.233 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% So those are a couple of factor that I think could be associated with these better outcomes. 04:11.233 --> 04:15.166 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% But I think more remains to be understood in terms of exactly what's driving these really 04:15.166 --> 04:16.166 align:left position:20%,start line:89% size:70% sharp differences. 04:16.166 --> 04:18.233 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Gotcha. 04:18.233 --> 04:20.833 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And I want to talk about the differences between black women and black men. 04:20.833 --> 04:24.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% There are some critiques out there, critics of the study out there that are arguing that 04:24.900 --> 04:29.066 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% black women who don't have long-term incomes weren't counted in your study. 04:29.066 --> 04:31.100 align:left position:20%,start line:89% size:70% Is that accurate? 04:31.100 --> 04:33.666 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And could you talk a little bit about your findings of black women and the data that 04:33.666 --> 04:34.933 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% you used? 04:34.933 --> 04:37.000 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% RAJ CHETTY: Yes, so we include everyone. 04:37.000 --> 04:41.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% So, the power of the study is that we're able to track, using anonymized data, about 20 04:41.900 --> 04:46.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% million Americans from birth to adulthood, people born in the early 1980s whose incomes 04:48.100 --> 04:49.600 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% we're looking at, in their late 30s. 04:49.600 --> 04:51.700 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% And that includes everyone, whether you're working or not. 04:51.700 --> 04:54.233 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% Every single person is counted. 04:54.233 --> 04:57.633 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And so, if you're not working, you're assigned an income of zero and you're counted in the 04:57.633 --> 04:59.666 align:left position:40%,start line:89% size:50% study. 04:59.666 --> 05:03.500 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And what we show is that, even taking that into account, black women, conditional on 05:03.500 --> 05:08.500 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% growing up in a family that is at the same income level as white women, they end up with 05:09.233 --> 05:11.733 align:left position:20%,start line:89% size:70% very similar outcomes. 05:11.733 --> 05:14.433 align:left position:10%,start line:71% size:80% They have similar levels of earnings, similar wage rates, similar college attendance rates. 05:14.433 --> 05:16.533 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% They work at similar rates. 05:16.533 --> 05:20.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% So, it's really remarkable how, for women, you don't see that much of a black-white disparity. 05:22.666 --> 05:24.733 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% Very starkly different from men. 05:24.733 --> 05:29.066 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Now, I should emphasize that doesn't mean that women are living in households with the 05:29.066 --> 05:34.066 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% same income levels, because black women tend to be married to men who are black who have 05:34.900 --> 05:36.466 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% lower incomes. 05:36.466 --> 05:38.966 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% And they also are married at lower rates. 05:38.966 --> 05:42.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% And so if you look at household income, of course, you do see a significant disparity 05:42.900 --> 05:44.533 align:left position:20%,start line:83% size:70% between black women and white women. 05:44.533 --> 05:47.266 align:left position:20%,start line:77% size:70% But when you look at their own earnings, they look very similar. 05:47.266 --> 05:50.900 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And then I guess I have one quick question, which is, tell me a little 05:50.900 --> 05:52.933 align:left position:10%,start line:89% size:80% bit about the solutions here. 05:52.933 --> 05:56.200 align:left position:20%,start line:71% size:70% You mention in the study that mentoring might be a possibility, that there might be some 05:56.200 --> 05:57.666 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% policy changes. 05:57.666 --> 06:00.366 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% What do you have to say about how this could change? 06:00.366 --> 06:02.900 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% RAJ CHETTY: Yes. 06:02.900 --> 06:05.500 align:left position:10%,start line:71% size:80% So, in thinking about the solutions, I think it's very important to remember that you continue 06:05.500 --> 06:10.433 align:left position:10%,start line:71% size:80% to see these disparities even among kids growing up on the same street, going to the same schools, 06:11.033 --> 06:13.633 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% and so on. 06:13.633 --> 06:16.500 align:left position:10%,start line:71% size:80% And so, often, solutions people think of are things like, we need to create greater opportunities 06:18.433 --> 06:21.533 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% for black and white kids to grow up in the same neighborhoods, to attend the same schools 06:21.533 --> 06:26.533 align:left position:20%,start line:77% size:70% and so forth, to reduce residential or physical segregation in America. 06:29.033 --> 06:31.200 align:left position:10%,start line:71% size:80% And while I think that can be extremely valuable, what this study shows is, you need to do more 06:31.200 --> 06:33.266 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% than that. 06:33.266 --> 06:36.666 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Even among kids growing up in the same area, you need to create the same opportunities 06:36.666 --> 06:39.600 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% for black men to thrive as you see for white men. 06:39.600 --> 06:43.600 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% That could involve things like mentoring programs, for example, like the My Brother's Keeper 06:43.600 --> 06:47.766 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% Program, targeted at low-income men to give them pathways to success. 06:47.766 --> 06:50.700 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% It could involve efforts to try to reduce racial bias. 06:50.700 --> 06:55.500 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% It could involve efforts to try to create more racial integration within schools and 06:55.500 --> 06:58.833 align:left position:10%,start line:77% size:80% within neighborhoods, so black and white kids have similar opportunities. 06:58.833 --> 07:01.200 align:left position:10%,start line:83% size:80% YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Thank you so much, Raj, for joining me. 07:01.200 --> 07:02.300 align:left position:20%,start line:89% size:70% I really appreciate it. 07:02.300 --> 07:03.500 align:left position:20%,start line:89% size:70% RAJ CHETTY: My pleasure. 07:03.500 --> 07:04.133 align:left position:30%,start line:89% size:60% Thank you.