Racial Disparities in Income and Poverty Remain Stark, and In Some Cases, Are Getting Worse
Date Posted: September 3, 2019
Posted In: Discussion,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: After Mark Johnson catches the bus on West Florissant Avenue in the Walnut Park neighborhood, it’s a two-hour commute to a temporary warehouse job in Edwardsville.
But between child support payments and other expenses, that job alone can’t pay the bills. So last month, he headed to the city’s weekly job fair, where he managed to secure an interview at a downtown restaurant. He hopes it turns into a permanent job, one a little closer to home.
“You’ve basically got to work two to three jobs,” Johnson, 42, said. “It’s really hard, especially if you catch a bus.”
Johnson, who is black, lives in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the region, and one that is some 99% African American. In neighborhoods like his, largely abandoned by those with means, it can be difficult to believe that the country is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, or that unemployment is at near record lows in St. Louis and across the country.
Five years after the death of Michael Brown and the ensuing protests sparked a regional conversation about disparities among black and white St. Louisans, the region has a long way to go if it hopes to minimize the correlation between race and social mobility.
Improving economic mobility for African Americans was one of the four signature priorities outlined in the Ferguson Commission’s ambitious report, released in 2015.
Some economic policy recommendations in that report have been partly accomplished — Missouri voters approved a minimum wage increase in November, for instance — but many have not.
By some measures, racial economic disparities are getting worse. In 2017, median white households in the metro area were earning 2.07 times what the median black household made — seventh highest among 48 large metro areas. That compared to a 1.88 ratio between white and black household income in 2010, according to the annual “Where We Stand Report” from regional planning arm East-West Gateway Council of Governments.