Like many people, I was repulsed by watching Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin asphyxiate George Floyd in broad daylight. This murder has led to many protests. It has also led many people to go beyond the issue of police brutality and think about what policies would help us act on the principle that black lives do indeed matter. Some obvious low-hanging fruit is to end the drug war, which, even on other grounds, should be ended. Beyond that, what can an economist say about how to help black Americans?
Quite a lot, it turns out. One of the main ways is to recognize that black livelihoods matter.
The vast majority of black Americans, like very many non-black Americans, are not born into great wealth. The biggest challenge they face is how to make a living for somewhere between 40 and 50 years. And they don’t just want to make a living. Most black people, like most whites, want to make a good living.
That typically means having a decent car, a house or apartment, and some discretionary income to spend on clothes, trips and restaurant meals. To get those things, you typically need more than a minimum-wage job. To get such a job, you need two things: some skills; and few or no barriers that limit your ability to apply those skills. Although people have choices about getting skills, governments often have large negative effects on the acquisition of skills and can impose barriers that limit people’s ability to apply those skills. A sure way to make many black people better off is to get rid of the government restrictions that make acquisition of skills more difficult as well as the government barriers that prevent people from exercising those skills.
These are the first 4 paragraphs of my latest article for Hoover, “Black Livelihoods Matter,” Defining Ideas, June 17.
Read the whole thing, especially if you want me to pay attention to your comment.
READER COMMENTS
Phil H
Jun 18 2020 at 7:49pm
I thought that was very apt, exactly the kind of policy advice that economists should offer.
The only caveat is that it seems extremely unlikely that increasing housing density will actually bring prices down. It might help overall incomes to level up, which would reduce the gap between incomes and housing costs.
Rebes
Jun 18 2020 at 8:08pm
Great headline.
I did read the whole thing and kept notes: minimum wage, occupational licensing, housing, charter schools.
All excellent proposals, the kind any rational person with an economic mind would agree with.
Yet, here is what I am struggling with. The regulatory obstacles you highlight exist for all disadvantaged people, not just black lives. My wife is one of many children in a refugee family that came here with absolutely nothing, not even English language skills. Years later, both the parents and the children are upper-middle class, if not better. Here is what defines them:
total commitment to family;
unqualified respect for education;
never complain.
Economics can only go so far. Culture needs to supplement it.
David Henderson
Jun 18 2020 at 11:03pm
Thanks.
Good points. I’m talking about straightforward (economically if not politically) proposals that would make many black people better off. Also, they would make many non-black people better off.
I agree that people have a big say over what they can do with their lives.
Thomas Hutcheson
Jun 19 2020 at 11:09am
I’m not so sure about the headline if taken seriously. BLM is part of an argument that many actions by public officials seem to be based on an idea that Black lives matter less than other lives. Of course all sorts of policies that hold back economic growth — whether occupational licensing, the “Tax Cuts for the Rich and Deficits Act of 2o17,” low density zoning, or trade restrictions — harm Black livelihoods, but I do not think that they are motivated by the idea that Black livelihoods matter less than the livelihoods of others.
john hare
Jun 19 2020 at 4:38am
I read the article. One thing I would add is to cease regarding black people as helpless victims that must be treated with constant fear of giving offense. The constant stream of propaganda and policies that treat them as less than responsible creates somewhat self fulfilling prophesies.
I have worked with a lot of black people over the decades. The ones that I know that have moved forward “know” that they are on their own and can’t depend on others, including the government. They are also relatively insensitive to racial insult, mostly regarding them as your problem not theirs. People that go around with thin skins tend to not go very far around.
This is personal with me as I miss the working relationships that existed a few decades back. I learned some of my trade from black concrete finishers. Now even the black concrete contractors preferentially hire Hispanics. My crew is Hispanic because I have to use the people that will give value for value, and they have become family.
RPLong
Jun 19 2020 at 11:32am
Good article.
The business licensing issue is so important. I’ve met a rather large number of lower income people, many of them black, who could be running their own businesses — groundskeeping, security system installation, network installation and support, and various sub-fields of home construction — and who want to be able to do so. Why don’t they? Well, according to what they tell me, the stiff requirements for starting some of these businesses, at least in my area, are real barriers to their being able to become business owners, entrepreneurs, employers, and able to draw comfortable livings. Instead, they’re forced to work for a small cadre of local contractors. The landscape of these kinds of businesses would look very different if competition were opened up. Since much of this is peripheral to home construction, the competition would probably help keep home prices low, and that would further improve the livelihoods of lower-income people here.
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