Full Citation
Title: Economy: Inequality in New York City: The Intersection of Race and Class
Citation Type: Book, Section
Publication Year: 2019
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ISSN:
DOI: doi.org/10.1515/9781438476018-005
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Abstract: In a December 2013 speech, President Obama stressed that government programs such as Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, and Medicaid, have enabled the United States to build the "largest middle class the world has ever known." Despite this achievement, former President Barack Obama highlighted what he believes is "the defining challenge of our time;' namely, income inequality that has been on the rise since the late 1970s. Not everyone has benefited equally from these and other programs. He observed that racial discrimination has "locked millions out of opportunity;' and that women "were too often confined to a handful of poorly paid professions:, President Obama went on to note that "it was only through painstaking struggle that more women and minorities . . . began to win the right to more fairly and fully participate in the economy" (Obama, 2013). Ironically, victories in these equality struggles occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, just as the political and economic forces fueling polarization were gathering steam. New York City is a case in point. The postwar era of broadly shared prosperity in New York City and elsewhere ended in the 1980s when economic gains began concentrating at the top. Initially, income polarization did not preclude rising real incomes for those in the middle.
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Authors: Parrott, James A.
Editors: Bowser, Benjamin P.; Devadutt, Chelli
Pages: 3-24
Volume Title: Racial Inequality in New York City since 1965
Publisher: Suny Press
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Race and Ethnicity
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