Promote Economic Policies That Exclude Poor Black People
In the last two decades, the concentration of wealth in the hands of one percent’ers, who are predominantly white, has increased due to unfair economic policies . In the book, Kivel points out some of the policies in the U.S. that brought this about:
Income, capital gains and inheritance taxes have been significantly cut allowing those with the most wealth to pass on even greater amounts to their children. We have corporate welfare policies, such as unlimited deduction for interest on corporate debt, intangible asset write-offs, foreign tax credits and write-offs for the banks’ debt losses. Such government policy favors the rich over the rest of us, and white people over people of color.
via vwmin.org
Use Racism to Depress White Wages
The Berkeley economist Michael Reich published a study in the 1980s that revealed “where racism is greater, income inequality among whites is also greater,” and that “most of the inequality among whites generated by racism [is] associated with increased income for the richest 1 percent of white families.” Reich also found that “increases in…racism…had an insignificant effect on the share received by the poorest whites and resulted in a decrease in the income share of the whites in the middle-income brackets.” This remained true even when data from the South was ignored.
