Poverty, Racism, and Income Inequality in the United States

Poverty, Racism, and Income Inequality in the United States
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Poverty, Racism, and Income Inequality in the United States
Poverty is one of the contemporary issues in modern America. Census data shows that approximately 16% of Americans live in poverty (Bureau, 2018). Poverty is usually propagated through some systematic structures in the labor market and in housing that deny Americans of poor Americans an equal opportunity for prosperity. Despite the numerous efforts that have been put towards ensuring equality in the labor market, income inequality still exists in the modern American labor market and specifically the disparity is between races (Reed, 2018). Income inequality and Americans of color are often overlooked for job promotions, get underpaid compared to their white counterparts or being denied the jobs altogether in favor of white candidates despite equal or better academic qualifications. Additionally, discriminatory housing, zoning, and other policies are causing a dramatic rise in racialized poverty in America (Goodin and Le Grand, 2018). The number of people living in ghettos has nearly doubled since the turn of the millennium (Bureau, 2018).
Racialization of poverty in the US has been an issue of national debate since the introduction of the Jim Crow laws, after the 15th amendment, which sought to marginalize African Americans by separating them from whites and erasing all the gains they had made during the Reconstruction (Rountree, 2018). Blacks were banned from using the same public facilities or schools as whites or even live in the same towns. Although the Jim Crow laws were not implemented in the northern states, blacks were still discriminated at workplaces, when trying to purchase houses in certain areas, and in education. Blacks across America continued to work as low-wage farmers, factory workers and as domestic help. When World War II came, blacks were denied the well-paying war-related jobs and were also advised against joining the army until thousands of African-Americans threatened to march to Washington demanding equal rights. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dispensed Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941, which gave equal employment opportunities to all Americans (Rountree, 2018).
Despite President Roosevelt's order, the discrimination did not end. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Junior started a fresh protest against racialized poverty. King felt that "African Americans are not truly free until they reach economic security." Together with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference King formed the Poor People’s Campaign (also identified as the PPC and the Poor People March) (Rountree, 2018). King, however, died a month before the planned campaign and the campaign did not go on as planned. However, the remaining leaders managed to get the government to change some federal policies to improve the plight of the poor (Rountree, 2018).
Social Movement Analysis
The New poor People’s Campaign as a Resistance to Racial Economic Inequality
Similar to Martin Luther’s PPC, the new PPC is composed of an assorted alliance of activists fighting poverty, and racial inequality together with other social prob...