This week, the National Urban League published its annual State of Black America report, Locked Out: Education, Jobs and Justice. There is much to parse for policy makers and citizens alike. But the truth is, not much has changed, which is a cause for concern.
The report uses a benchmark called the Equality Index, based on nationally collected data from federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Education Statistics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Census Bureau. It attempts to measure full equality with white people in the areas of economics, health, education, social justice, and civic engagement. This year, the League said the equality index for black people stands at 72.2%, compared with last year’s 72%. For Hispanic people, it’s 77.8% compared to 2015’s 77.3%.
The report, which was first published in 1976, is now in its 40th year. In a video intro to the event that announced the report, Vernon Jordan recalled the early history of a report he helped to establish. It’s worth putting on your headphones and giving it a listen.
Jordan talks about his work in the Ford administration, and the deep disappointment he felt that the President never mentioned race in his first State of the Union. “The 1970s were a time about making real the rights of black people,” he said. It was also a time of political turmoil, recession, and the waning days of an expensive war. Sound familiar? The data that the League published were so grim that The New York Times published an editorial about it. “In all aspects of life that could be measured statistically, the gains that were made in the 1960s have been decimated.” In fact, the Times wrote, “the gears have been thrown into reverse.”
Things remain fraught today. With the poverty rate for black Americans stuck at around 27%, and a 33% high school graduation rate, this year’s report calls for a trillion-dollar “Main Street Marshall Plan.” Proposals include public investments in universal early childhood education, expanded summer youth employment programs, expanded homeownership strategies, urban infrastructure funding, and a $15 federal living wage indexed to inflation.
But corporate America is also where other solutions can scale, and investing in underserved communities can be part of that. One example: Starbucks is opening stores in neighborhoods like Ferguson, Mo. and Jamaica, N.Y., with significant investments in training and support. I’ll be reporting on those in future newsletters. Howard Schultz recently told me, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the millions of people being left behind in the United States through the ills of society, specifically racism in America. What is our responsibility to create an agenda to address that?”