The Continuing Racial and Ethnic Income Gap in New York and the Nation

Race has been a defining aspect of American society since Europeans came to this continent. Although racial identification reflects where people’s ancestors lived, not biological differences between people, it gained a connotation of superiority or inferiority as a justification for actions by dominant settlers of European descent to subjugate non-Europeans for economic benefit. One consequence […]

Poverty in Upstate Metropolitan Areas: Myths and Realities

We live in an era in which long-held attitudes about race have been heightened by political campaigns that attempt to mobilize fears among white voters about minority group members and immigrants.  These appeals have ranged from claims that President Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya and claims that criminal undocumented immigrants endanger […]

Misconceptions About People in Poverty: Are Work Requirements Effective?

This is an expanded version of the essay, “False Stereotypes Harm People in Poverty” that appeared in the Rochester Beacon, containing additional information relating to the five largest upstate metropolitan areas. __________________________________________________ Misconceptions about people in poverty appear to drive proposed changes in social welfare policy, particularly the work requirements either being promoted by the […]

Left Behind: Missing from the Labor Market in New York State

A reader of this blog recently wrote, “We know that labor force participation rates across the country have declined noticeably for a number of years, and many economists have warned of the troubling implications of this.  Such rates across Upstate NY have declined as well, and in most cases are significantly below the national average – not an encouraging sign.  […]

School Segregation is Increasing in New York’s Cities and Suburbs

Recent articles in the New York Times and The Nation have focused on efforts to resegregate schools in the South, by carving new predominantly white school districts out of larger county-wide school districts that are predominantly black and Hispanic.  The articles examined a recent federal court decision that permitted the creation of the Gardendale School District […]

More Regional Diversity but a Larger Racial/Ethnic Divide in New York Schools

This post examines changes in the ethnic and racial compositions of kindergarten through twelfth grade schools in New York State metropolitan areas over the past 25 years.  During that period, the student population, like the general population has become more diverse, with the percentage of students identified as white decreasing, while minority group members, particularly […]

The Persistent Gap Between White and Black Incomes in New York

There has long been a substantial gap between the incomes of white Americans and those who describe themselves as African/American or black.  As early as 1964, with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, the Federal and state Governments began passing laws aimed at preventing discrimination in the workplace.  Has New York seen significant progress in reducing wage […]

Poverty in Upstate Metropolitan Areas – Characteristics and Change: 1999-2013

This is a paper based partly on data previously presented on this blog site. This paper examines the incidence of poverty in upstate New York cities compared to the surrounding suburbs. The data shows that while residents of upstate suburbs enjoy incomes that are substantially higher than the national average and poverty rates that are […]

More on Race, Income and Student Achievement

A few months ago, I wrote about the link between economic disadvantage and poor student performance.  I looked at the performance of students on the State’s annual student assessment for grades 3 to 8, and found that the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in schools and school districts accounted for about three quarters of the […]

Racial Divisions in Upstate Metropolitan Neighborhoods

In my last posting I described income differences in 800 upstate metropolitan neighborhoods in Albany, Erie, Monroe, Oneida, Onondaga, Rensselaer and Schenectady Counties.  The data comes from the United States Census Bureau which divides the nation into census tracts, the most detailed level publically tabulated. Overall, there are 73,000 census tracts nationally, averaging 4,200 residents each. […]