State of the Dream: Drained
United for a Fair Economy, a Boston-based advocacy organization, recently released its annual State of the Dream report, documenting the nature of the national racial wealth divide (appropriately published every Martin Luther King Jr. Day). This year’s report is entitled Drained.
This report first examines the racial employment gap. The recent rise in unemployment has struck communities of color the hardest. In several states, non-white individuals are 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed compared to their white counterparts. In response, the report argues that stimulus money should be primarily funneled to those low income communities of color which are in most need of investment and job creation.
The current recession has also taken a heavy toll, as documented in past State of the Dream reports, on what is commonly the highest valued asset for a family of color – its home. Foreclosures continue to disproportionately affect communities of color, driving down house values and forcing many families from their homes.
Concurrently, the report details how certain federal policies (for example, recent tax cuts and reductions in the estate and capital gains tax) help to strengthen the economic security of the richest, and mostly white, of our society and also serving to widen the racial wealth divide.
Click here to download a free copy of this year’s report, or see past years’ reports.