Creating Justice in a Multiracial Democracy | Economic Policy Institute

Uh, good afternoon, everyone. I'm glad everyone's here. Uh, I love seeing everyone's greetings in the chat, everyone introducing themselves. Again, my name is Kyle Moore, economist with the Free Team, and I'm going to be moderating this discussion. I'll open up with just a few opening remarks, and then I'll move on to short introductions, and we'll have a discussion. Uh, so again, so June 19th, 1865, Juneteenth, uh, marks the day enslaved people in Texas finally learned what had been drawn paper for 2 years. They were legally no longer enslaved, but had been denied that freedom. It took federal troops marching into Texas to finally inform and enforce emancipation. Uh, 161 years later, Black workers, families, communities continue to face the harsh realities that rights on paper are not always the same as rights in practice. They remain held back from embodying the freedom that is their birthright. Today, as we reflect on the significance of the Juneteenth national holiday as a symbol of delayed promises, and of the doggedness with which we with which white supremacy must be fought and refought by each generation, our speakers are going to discuss how true multiracial democracy is essential to win policies that deliver on the promise of freedom, racial and economic justice, and shared prosperity for all. So, uh, with those opening remarks out of the way, I'd like to, uh, welcome Elizabeth Wilkins, president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, Alan Curtis, president and CEO of the Eisenhower Foundation, and Valerie Wilson, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy at the Free Team here at the Economic Policy Institute, uh, to what will hopefully be an enlightening dis- uh, discussion and conversation. Um, and Elizabeth is going to have to exit before the end of the webinar, so we'll hear from her first, and then I'm going to bring Alan and Valerie to the conversation next. Uh, Elizabeth, thank you for making the time to join us today. I'm really excited to get to talk to you about this, uh, these topics. Um, I'm going to give a a bit of a prompt for, uh, some of the opening remarks here. Um, so again, so Black America's ongoing fight for freedom, racial and economic justice, and equality exemplifies what all people want and expect from their government in a representative democracy, right? So, in many ways, the struggle for economic justice for black people has been the wedge by which the promise of good governance has been made more available for all Americans. So, Roosevelt Institute recently published their good life agenda, right? As a blueprint towards good governance to get our economy and democracy to do what they're supposed to do to make people's lives better. So, if you could, can you tell us a little bit more about the good life agenda and how it reflects the desires and expectations of good government that are shared by all people? >> Uh yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for having me. Um it is an honor to get to do um this conversation with you, Kyle, with EPI, and in um sort of recognition of what Juneteenth means to black America and to sort of the overall promise of what we want America to be. So, my honor to get to be a part of this. And I'm very excited to talk about Roosevelt good life agenda, but before I do so, I [snorts] actually have a really personal uh relationship with um some of the material that's coming up today that I wanted to share. So, the title of this webinar, creating um justice in a multiracial democracy, it's um a collection that's sort of an update of um the Kerner Commission's report uh from the 1960s, right? This report on the state of black America economically, racially. Um and uh in preparing for this webinar, um I found out that actually my dad, who was a public servant, um had an interaction with the Kerner Commission that is very resonant of how how I feel about the way we should think about governance today. So, um my dad, Roger Wilkins, um did many things over the course of his career, but one of them was to work in Lyndon Johnson's Justice Department as head of the Community Relations service. He really is the inspiration for my public service. He was the kind of public servant who believed that you use your institutional power to move the power of institutions to serve people. And he was obviously there in this movement moment, right? He was an inside guy during the civil rights movement. And so thinking about how he could use his insider position to lock arms with an outside movement to force government to truly serve people who had been really dispossessed and had never been able to count on the institutions of American government um for either their economic or their political freedom. Um and so he was the guy who would go meet with community leaders in cities where there were riots to understand what is it that people want. What does freedom mean to people? And truly the agenda that he would come back with is a an overlapping economic and just and democratic freedom agenda for people. People want jobs and education and freedom. And he saw his inside position as advocating for those things and advocating for the government to respond to riots not with a police response, but with an understanding that that is a cry for inclusion, um agency, and possibility for people. And so he was around when the original Kerner Commission happened and came out, this examination of the state of black America. Um and I stumbled across an interview that he did about it. And basically he said two things at once. First, what the Kerner Commission did was amazing. It said everything I wanted to say is what he said about the state of black America and about what people really needed. And it was this incredible act of governance to go out and say what is it that ails the people that we need to serve the most and how does government need to respond? And he was super excited. And then he was extraordinarily disappointed that the Johnson administration essentially refused to respond to it, right? Um so much so that he almost quit uh actually. And um uh the one thing that really stuck with me is one of the things he said was basically that was such a missed moment to take the anger that was represented in that report and turn it into a mandate for change uh on the part of the government. Um and that I think precisely is the moment that uh Rosedale is trying to respond to in our good life agenda. To understand this moment of anger and frustration and not to use it as some do as a reason to stoke division, xenophobia, um but to turn it into a real mandate for radical change for people who've been waiting for that change for a really long time. So, as I think about today, um what kind of a future do we need to build for our democracy and our economy starting for the same place that I think my dad did, which is um let's get a little bit beyond uh the sort of buzzword of this is an affordability moment and say, "What is it that is really ailing people?" It has been being locked out of opportunity for a very long time. It is um uh living in a state of fundamentally of like uncertainty, precarity, and anxiety about one's current economic well-being and the future. And that that is not just like a little thing. That is like a deep abiding frustration and anger that again could be chan- channeled into an affirmative vision for how we could really reset the stage for people. And that is what our good life agenda attempts to do, to explain the roots of that frustration, the roots of the erosion of the possibility in people's economic lives. To explain the reasons why erosion of our economic well-being translates into frustration frustration and lack of trust of our democratic system. And then to say if we want a democratic renewal, we have to be laser-focused on the barriers to opportunity people face and the building blocks that we really need to put in place for people to regain that sense of security, opportunity, possibility. And not just for survival, but for thriving, for what it would really look like to provide people with the opportunity to make meaning with their families and communities. Um we have sort of four pillars of what we think that good life agenda would take to actually execute. The first is really about governance. It's about rebalancing that um very now mismatched tug-of-war between public power and private power. That is, between the government and between concentrated economic forces that are extracting wealth from our communities and aggregating that economic power into political dominance at the same time. So, what tools and capacities do we need to restore to government for it to be capable of driving markets and driving our economy towards the public good rather than towards the extraction that we see today. That's the first pillar. Then second, third, and fourth are how do we lower costs, how do we increase incomes, and how do we reclaim time for people. Now, those things understood at surface level can feel not transformative, but understood deeply, I think are truly transformative. When we say lower costs, we don't mean band-aid solutions. We mean why are markets structured in ways to extract wealth from individuals, families, and communities, and how could we use public power to restructure those markets to ensure that our everyday essentials both today and into the future um are within reach for people. Um when we say raise incomes, that is wages, but that's also power at work and um allowing people to regain agency in their workplace. And then the third one is a little bit different. The idea of reclaiming time for people is the notion that economic policy isn't actually just about dollars and cents. It's about flourishing and thriving. It's about reclaiming from uh the sort of um economic rat race some sphere of human activity that we believe belongs to people, belongs to families, belongs to communities, belongs to creativity, belongs to meaning. Um that's the agenda that we have put forward. Um it is the combination of a robust governing philosophy paired with a relentless focus on fixing the power structures that could actually deliver things that matter to people in their daily lives. Um I think that's a lesson that we can take from the Kerner Commission um and from creating justice is that our agenda has to come from the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the people to whom we want to serve. And then it's our job to create the governing structures and capacities and the policy to fulfill those promises. >> I love that. I I I love that as a I think of the good life agenda as kind of a almost a long overdue rejoinder to that uh dismissal of those of those recommendations from the Kerner Commission report. I mean, I think this is a very clearly a continuation of that legacy uh that that your dad, you know, talked about and was was committed to. So, I I I love to see that happening. Um and I love the Good Life Agenda's emphasis on trust-building, as well, right? Um and again, like one of the things that it asserts is that public servants need to earn people's trust, right? Um Now, we know uh reflecting on Juneteenth uh throughout our history, Black Americans and other marginalized communities have had plenty of reasons not to trust public officials, right? Especially as it relates to the inconsistency they've had in effectively enforcing civil and human civil rights, human rights, workers' rights. Um and in recent years, the harmful direct actions and policies of uh the current administration, right? Um uh you know, we've seen Congress and the Supreme Court uh really only served to erode further erode those protections um and have given Black and Brown communities even more reason to be skeptical of, you know, our current national leadership. So, I want to know, you know, like from your perspective, uh what would be required today for public servants to try to re-earn, rebuild that trust uh of Black folks and other marginalized communities? Uh since that's going to be a really important part of moving us towards this good governance. Um and then if you have time, uh as as a as a follow-up on that, right? Um are there maybe specific and like targeted race-conscious policies you might see as a part of, you you know, uh charting out this Good Life Agenda? >> Um both great questions, and I'll try and answer quickly. I will just say the the first in any relationship, the first step to regaining trust is to admit you were wrong. One of the things that I think we see over and over again is a by policymakers, by government, is, "But we've done so much for you. Why are you still upset and angry?" Um and that is a real disconnect between the people who have power and the people who are supposed to be serving, right? So, the beginning stance has to be humility. You know what? Folks are right. These institutions have been broken, and not just like in the last year and a half, but for at least the last 50 years, and in some ways, especially with respect to black communities, they have never in our country's history functioned the way they should. So, step one is to truly admit that we have never had the structure that we should have had. And that points to the radical nature of the change that we need to make both in the institutions that can deliver policy, and in frankly the people who make up those institutions. What kind of public servants do we need, and what kind of attitude do they need to have towards governing in order to truly do things as differently as people are demanding. So, a couple of things. One, I will just say I do not think the government is supposed to be neutral. Government has a thumb on the scale, right? Agencies in the executive branch have missions in their organic statutes. Most of them have missions that have to do with serving the public good. We have to reconceive what that is, and to understand that that doesn't mean that all comers are equal. It means that there's a certain segment of the public that needs us most. And so, when we are making policy decisions, there's a real thumb on the scale for robust and kind of fearless action um biased toward helping the people who government who need government the most. Um that really means having people inside government who are ready, willing, and prepared to act with ambition. Um I think too often there is a bias towards the status quo because there's a worry about taking a risk and failing. And we have so underestimated the danger of under-delivering for democratic trust more broadly. We have to show people that government is fighting for them in a real tangible way. Um and uh and that we show up. Um that means like relentless focus on delivery, relentless focus. This is sort of technocratic, but it is the stuff that government is made of. Of um, user experience. It means relentless focus on treating members of the public who interact with government with respect. It means designing policy with implementation understood up front. To understand that like that's part of the policy success is that it is experienced by the end user in a meaningful way. And then there are other things that are just um, you know, I think people think of it as politics, but I do not. I also think of it as policy. We have to understand that we can't bring a pencil to a knife fight when we are talking about technical policy versus the kinds of concentrated power and economic structures against which we are um, uh, uh, right? Um, you can't um, you can't believe that you're a neutral arbiter uh, when one side has big guns, big lobbyists, and willingness to fight you. So, you have to be prepared for the actual fights that you're going to have inside of government. >> [gasps] >> To break up the centers of power that are choking off opportunity for people and redistributing that power and agency to people. Now, um, to your point about targeted or race conscious policy goals, I will just say this is um, such a a This is an extraordinarily difficult moment for this, right? We are I think about this all the time as we are thinking about governing plans. Um, we do not have the court system that we should have. And we have to have really strategic about what it is that we are going to do in the face of courts um, that is really going to help people. There are race conscious policies that I think would be um, uh, that could could be the most effective at most targetedly helping the people that need it most. We also have to think about um, for folks who have trust who have had a lack of trust in government in a long time, part of trust is showing up over and over and over again um consistently. And so, I think it's a really delicate thing to say, "Okay, like how do we make sure that the things that we are promising are things that we can deliver?" Um I am not I That is not to say that I don't think that we should do race-conscious programming, but I do think we have to be really thoughtful about what can we promise that we can deliver that's going to have the most impact. One of the things we are doing at Roosevelt is thinking about which we Most of what we have in the good life is universal programs. But you can't do everything. And so, how do you prioritize them? And one of the ways to prioritize them is which ones are going to have disproportionately the most impact on the most vulnerable populations, and how can we put those first? So, Roosevelt has advocated for a long time for full employment. As we know, black unemployment is always something like twice white unemployment. Full employment helps black communities the most. Um policies that target um the ways in which the possibility for wealth building is eroded. So, if we think about long-term care long-term care and the way in which um the expense of long-term care erodes intergenerational wealth transfer or the costs that prevent people from saving in the first place, looking at public options for those kinds of policies will disproportionately help the communities that cannot get even to the first step of wealth building dramatically more. So, how do we have a lens for which of these policies we should prioritize because um we can uh we can promise them, we can deliver them, and we know that they will be disproportionately useful to the people that we want to help the most. I want to say that with care because even in the most adverse circumstances, we should really think about not negotiating against ourselves. We have We can't let our environment clip our ambition. So, there is a dance between pragmatic um pra- pragmatism and ambition that I think is like something that our communities now, this is a really good set of topics to fight out and to come to some conclusions about what do we think is worth fighting for or that we think we could get done that's worth doing and how do we think about those trade-offs. >> Yeah, I I love that answer. Again, I'm hearing I'm hearing tangibility being very important. I'm hearing understanding that this is an actual fight and always has been, being strategic and respecting the contingencies of the moment, but being bold and insistent as well. And again, making that impact on the most vulnerable. Make moves towards those policies that have the most impact on the most vulnerable, right? And I'm really going to stick with that not bringing a pencil to a knife fight thing. Like that's that's important. We got to be We have to be mindful of what's actually happening, right? And not just leave these for discussions, but do stuff on the ground. Elizabeth, I know you have to hop off, but really grateful that you came in and got to speak with us and we're going to be reflecting on these as we go through the rest of the conversation. >> Thanks so much. Sorry to leave you guys. >> No worries. Thanks. Okay, that was that was great. And and now we're going to going to move in and and welcome Alan to the discussion as well, right? And so, we kind of prefaced talking a little bit about the current commission report already. Um and you know, and we opened this webinar with the idea of Juneteenth as a symbol of delayed promises. And so, just for a little bit of background for folks, again, in the in the late '60s, we had these major protests against racial injustice, particularly that Red House summer of 1967. And and that prompted the establishment of the Kerner Commission so that folks could come to an understanding of what was going on and why, right? Um we saw similar protests in the early 2020s again centered around this these ideas of racial injustice and the frustration over again delayed promises. So, Alan, want to want to kick it to you like, you know, what connections do you see between the 1960s and 2026, right? And what was the motivation for publishing this book Creating Justice in a multiracial democracy that was uh serving as an update to the find findings of the Kerner Commission report. >> Uh well, thank thank you, Kyle, for the for that uh uh framing. Uh thank you to EPI and and to Roosevelt. Uh this is really, I I think, a much-needed Juneteenth reunion to to address what Kyle is saying. Um, actually, uh Valerie uh Wilson and Jeff Fo have worked with the Eisenhower Foundation for many years, and Elizabeth's uh uh father, uh my friend, was a long-time trustee of the Eisenhower Foundation. So, there there is this uh uh framing that goes all the way back to the '60s. Uh our uh Creating Justice in a Multiracial Democracy is the Eisenhower Foundation's updated the Kerner Commission, and it was called the Kerner Commission after uh the chairman uh Otto Kerner, who was governor of Illinois. Uh uh Maryland Governor Wes Moore and New Jersey uh Senator Cory Booker have written forwards to uh Creating Justice. Um, and create Columbia Teachers College Press uh is uh publishing this, and we have sent a uh a summary of of of that update to everyone. The Kerner Commission was formed um as Kyle uh suggested by President Lyndon B. Johnson after disorders in well over 100 American cities in the 1960s, whites tended to call the disorders riots. People of color of course called them protests. Composed predominantly of privileged white men, the commission nonetheless warned against white racism {quote} {unquote} and concluded that the nation was heading towards two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal. The Kerner Commission asserted in the 1968 uh new uh what works to reverse the two societies, but that we needed new political will to scale up. Uh today the chapter authors in Creating Justice conclude that we uh know much more about uh what works, yet rather than scaling up what works, today the federal government uh for the most part is pursuing what what doesn't work. So, for example, we need to recognize how the federal legislation passed in July of 2025 illustrates what Paul Krugman has called the zombie economics. Trillions of dollars will be uh redistributed upward over the next decades. Instead, we need to increase taxes on the rich and and on corporations as we make uh the nation more uh affordable and increase the minimum wage. Instead of closing down the Department of Education, uh we need to scale up Head Start, reverse school segregation, and eliminate uh the school achievement gap, for example. Instead of allowing ICE agents to terrorize citizens, and instead of uh spending $38 billion on immigration detention center prison building, we need to scale up uh adequately resourced evidence-based violence interrupter initiatives in low-income neighborhoods, and return to the legislation that banned assault weapons from 1994 to 2004. Instead of rolling back fair housing laws and promoting and empowerment zones with marginal impact, we need to return to the public-private partnerships that expanded uh low- and moderate-income housing before the 1980s. Instead of reducing Medicaid and SNAP and a hundred hunger funding to help pay for tax cuts for the rich and corporations, we need to expand coverage of the Affordable Care Act. Uh across all of these policy areas, we have in our our Kerner update uh identified aspirational, interdependent, evidence-based strategies to reduce economic inequality, poverty, and racial injustice among uh the working class of low-income students. We really offer a movement blueprint for the future that parallels uh what Elizabeth has set forth. Yet, we cannot scale up what works today because we still don't have the new political will that the 1968 Kerner Commission concluded was essential. Uh how then can we create new will today? I'm asking at a time of low public approval of government. That arguably is the most important strategic question we face this Juneteenth. To answer this new will question, our chapters in creating justice uh build, for example, on new voter empowerment strategies to secure the interest structure of elections. We embrace the Moral Fusion organizing methods of Bishop William Barber at Yale and Professor Cornell Brooks at the Harvard Kennedy School. We advocate for a new Department of Democracy as proposed by LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. We articulate how to reduce disinformation and misinformation, give much higher priority to evidence-based policy, and call for a new JFK public service movement at universities. We speak out with the Ford Foundation and Bad Bunny on how the visual and performing arts can better facilitate current values. Uh supporting for example both the Kennedy Center and the National Museum for African American History and Culture. We conclude that to overturn the present exploitation, corruption, and denial in an America where today 2 + 2 = 5, we need to create what the late Congressman John Lewis called good trouble. We need to call out the truth with Dr. King's Birmingham jail life outrage. We need to asymmetrically use the power of naysayers against them. We need to reaffirm our humanity with intensity. We need you here today to speak out with us in the months and in the years ahead. And we all need to recognize how the dream, again, has been deferred. I ask you what what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Perhaps that dream just sags like a heavy load. Or does it just explode? Next. >> Appreciate that. And that bringing in Hughes here, you know, is always important. Um yeah, and and yeah, I appreciate all the examples that you gave from uh from the grading of multiracial justice. Uh it's it's I think it does a lot a ton with the good life agenda. Like there's there's a lot there in terms of what we can do from economic policy to education policy. Uh you gave a ton of examples as to which of those um would be recommended from again from the folks who put together this this book. Um I would wanted to as a quick follow-up question just to ask like, you know, why was it such a Okay, can you speak to more about the need to have evidence-based policy specifically in this moment, right? Like Um I and I emailed you a little bit about this world where like 2 + 2 = 5, right? But I think evidence-based policy is really important. So I if you could speak a little bit more to, you know, uh what brought you to that emphasis for this work? >> Well, to today so much policy, especially at the federal level, is based on ideology and supposition. And we argue that should be based on facts and science. It's uh it's no more complicated than that. So Kerr in the '60s had a general sense of what needed to be done and and laid it out. And uh that was based on evidence-based even though those words weren't used. But in in the time since the '60s we've done so much work in terms of identifying uh based on evidence. And so we're we're making this argument that policy should be based on evidence rather than on supposition. Uh today that's not being done. Most federal policies are not evidence-based today. And so uh even though it's complicated today in terms of what's happening in Washington, we're saying in the long run we should continue to base policy and build up policy based on evidence. So, the Arnold Foundation, for example, has a whole evidence-based policy uh uh department and it funds uh programs, for example, youth empowerment programs that have randomized control trials. Uh The The John Barron has uh is a had an organization that uh communicates evidence-based policies. Uh Wes uh Moore, who who's written one of the introductions to creating justice, is in in effect the the the leader at the state level among governors in in building his policy based on the evidence. So, he's working with Arnold and working with John Barron. So So, that's that's uh the the outrageous assumption and argument we're making that policy should be based on uh facts rather than ideology. >> Yeah, you know, you would think some of these things go without saying, but clearly they do not, so we're going to say it. We're going to say it loud. Um yeah, so I I want to bring Valerie into the discussion now as well. Um and so, uh you know, we've talked a lot about federal policy and the federal government throughout most of this discussion, but as we kind of learned from the current commission what their focus was, so much of the evidence that we need to drive policy change at the national level is going to be informed by conditions facing black communities in major cities across the country. Uh so, one of probably these Breed it last summer was published report called A Tale of 10 Cities that focused on the economic outcome for black workers and families across 10 different metro areas um before Trump's second term. So, uh so, Valerie, could you uh talk a little bit about that decision to approach that that analysis through the lens of metro areas rather than just nationally. And what does that say about black economic progress and the intersections between federal, state, and local policy? >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, again, I want to thank Elizabeth and Alan for joining us in in the conversation today and thank you Kyle for moderating. Um, I think that focus on metro areas in particular really draws on the history of race in America. The very fact that there's a concentration um of black Americans in urban areas is one of the legacies of the Great Migration. That was the period between about 1916 and 1970 when about 6 million black Americans fled the violence and economic oppression of the rural South in order to get to places where they felt they could have safety, there would be more um economic opportunities. That was predominantly in cities uh in the Northeast, Midwest, and the West. But even in those places, poor working conditions and discrimination left them just only marginally better off than they were in the places that they fled. So, significant gains in economic status only became possible >> [sighs] >> through sweeping changes to federal labor and civil rights laws. And those changes were born from years of protest and political pressure during this period of the Great Migration and since. So, in writing that report, we were facing a situation where immediately after taking office, uh Trump began pushing anti an anti-equity agenda uh that would essentially roll back decades of hard-won federal policies establishing equal employment and core labor standards and protections um that were pivotal in expanding rights and opportunities that had been sought across the decades of the Great Migration and the Civil Rights Movement and in fact had been to the benefit of all workers, not just uh Black Americans. Uh additionally, uh Trump's economic policies posed real threats to the economy and at the time that jeopardized Black workers' labor market gains that we'd seen in relatively recent years. In 2023, 2024 in particular, uh we saw historically low unemployment and faster wage growth, um some narrowing of decades uh long racial wage gaps. And so, the objective in producing that report was one to just establish a benchmark for assessing what was at stake under Trump's anti-equity agenda. Uh we looked at unemployment rates, median household income, uh the size of federal workforce uh in cities across the country, and federal grant dollars that was going to those places in 2023. The second objective was to consider whether there were lessons we could learn across these metro areas uh in terms of observing whether there were metro areas that outperformed their state or even national averages based on those metrics. And then finally, um we wanted to consider what was the potential for state and local policy to provide a buffer against some of those damaging federal actions. Uh some of those local economic policy levers that we considered were changes to state unemployment insurance um um parameters, uh the minimum wage, paid leave, state preemption laws as a barrier uh to passing a lot of those policies, and then also uh the issue of right to work, which is also a state uh policy lever. We also considered racial progressivity in those cities uh as a way of considering the likelihood that local that there could be some local resistance to the administration's at anti-equity agenda. And for that, we were looking at whether or not the city had a history of black leadership and particularly electing black mayors or if there had been the existence of any state or local reparations initiatives. Um that was something that really emerged uh much more broadly uh in the wake of 2020 and all of the uprising that came So, we focused on the 10 metro areas with the largest black populations. That was New York, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, and Detroit. So, those were the 10 metro areas uh in this analysis. Now, clearly some of those were great migration destinations. Um but there were also four cities in southern states that were a part of this group. Now, these 10 metro areas collectively are home to almost 40% of the black labor force and account for at least 1/3 of their respective states' black labor force. So, that told us that focusing on these cities meant that getting a grasp on what was going on there could tell us a lot about what could happen with the national numbers. And some of the main findings that came out of that are that, you know, just based on unemployment rates and income, uh we found evidence of relative economic prosperity in some places and hardship in others. Um there were five metro areas that had black unemployment rates below the national average in 2023. Uh Atlanta, D.C., Miami, Dallas, and Philadelphia, the black unemployment rate in those uh metro areas was all were all lower than the national black unemployment rate. And median black household income was above the national median in eight of the metros. The only two not on that list were Chicago and Detroit. Uh in fact, also the DC metro area uh had a median black household income that was higher than the overall national median uh income. So, again, this just highlighted those diversity of experiences of black America and also pointed to some of the the factors why there were relative areas of economic prosperity and progress and others where we tended to see a bit more hardship. One factor was uh the large share of federal workers in some of these places. In particular, I think obviously in DC we draw that conclusion, but the DC metro area includes not just the city of Washington, DC, but also uh the surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia. The other place where we saw a significant share of federal workers was in Atlanta. 51% of Georgia's federal workers were in the Atlanta metro area. Now, at the same time um there was evidence of persistent inequities and economic hardship within metros. And that demands a commitment to long-term solutions and investment in underserved communities. Um two metro areas, as I mentioned, were below national measures in black unemployment and income. Uh but across all 10 metro areas we observed that principal city residents or residents in sort of the core uh inner city areas had higher unemployment and lower incomes compared with uh black residents in the broader metro area, which includes surrounding suburbs. However, even in those metro areas where there were higher incomes, there were large federal grants directed to meet the needs of disadvantaged communities in those principal cities. Specifically, there were significant Title 1 funds going to Atlanta to help low-income schools. Funding from EPA was bringing green projects to low-income and disadvantaged communities in the DC area. And then HUD funding was important for investments in public housing in New York. So again, we saw that there was this interplay between the conditions in the city and really the support of the federal government in helping to meet some of the most disadvantaged communities. Um So at the conclusion of all of that of all of that, we found that local leaders in red states like Florida and Texas faced a lot of state-imposed obstacles to passing progressive economic and racial justice policies that would counteract some of the things that were happening federally. And state preemption was a major challenge for cities wanting to pursue more progressive economic policies. For example, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta each stuck at a $7.25 minimum wage. Um and due to preemption can't really raise those because the state preempts those policies, but they have done what they can. They have passed or proposed increases at least for city council and county contract workers to receive a higher minimum wage. Uh finally, while many of the cities we observed could be considered more racially progressive than the country as a whole based on those metrics of, you know, elected black leaders and state or local reparations initiatives, um there are concerns about federally led anti-DEI backlash that raises the possibility of legal challenges against local policies in support of equity and racial justice. >> Yeah, you know, it's it's really important that we we have that framing we're looking at localities. You know, I don't know people have that idiom that states of the states of the laboratories of democracy very much is the case that we can see that harm happening first in the cities often and cities are often like the laboratories of resistance. So like people can actually start to make those movements and resist from that level. So it's important. Um and I'm thinking a lot about the harm that the Trump administration had has put forward through like again attacks on the federal institutions, the attacks on federal workers. Um and again many of these actions that we've seen in the second term have been again you can look at them as backlash to the protests in the early stages of this racial reckoning and the murders in his first term, right? Um if you could can you talk a little bit about some of the specific anti-equity actions taken against black workers during this administration? >> Sure. The So Trump's anti-equity and anti-worker agenda um both undermined the relative economic progress of middle-class black families while also imposing even greater hardship on those in more precarious positions. Um just broadly speaking that includes decimating the federal workforce and attacking public public sector unions, uh cuts to the federal budget that cut Medicaid and SNAP benefits and other programs that benefit low-income families. And then weaponizing civil rights enforcement to discourage diversity, equity, and inclusion, and weakening core labor standards and protections. So those are sort of like the big umbrella changes uh that affect families again across the income distribution. But you know, I do a lot of work on labor market disparity specifically and so I do want to quickly highlight uh some of the direct threats to the future of equal employment and workplace anti-discrimination enforcement in particular. I mentioned already the destruction of the federal workforce. For Black Americans, public sector employment has historically been a pathway to better more equitable job opportunities. Through executive actions and legislation introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government once led in adopting anti-discrimination and affirmative action practices that increased the number of black workers in federal jobs. Um And that, you know, was the result of activism and pressure both from leaders in the labor movement, black labor leaders, as well as those workers themselves within the federal government. As of May 2026, however, we see that federal employment is down over 330,000 jobs since January of last year. And earlier this year, I published an analysis showing that large 2025 employment losses and labor force departures among college-educated black women were a direct consequence of the Trump administration implementing those massive federal layoffs and buyouts over the last year. In particular, because the federal government is a sector where nearly half of black workers have a bachelor's degree or higher. So again, those efforts impact people at the upper end of the income distribution. But the other thing that has happened that, you know, has much broader far-reaching impacts has been the weaponization of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC. That has happened because they're restructuring their priorities in a way that essentially weakens enforcement against race and gender discrimination, which are in fact the most common types of discrimination claims that are filed. On top of the benefits to affected individuals that EEOC enforcement of anti-discrimination law has had, we find that reducing discrimination has also contributed to economic growth. Uh based on widely cited research, we estimate that reduced discrimination boosted average living standards by almost $5,000 per person since 1960. So again, the impact of this weaponization not only has a direct effect on individuals, but again, reducing discrimination it is beneficial broadly to the economy. That That those uh boosted living standards were per person, not by race. Per person, period. So, you know, again, weaponizing that agency in a way that it no longer fulfills its mission is costly to our nation. Um they've also uh rescinded, you know, any number of executive orders that had anything to do with equity, including affirmative action. That was decades long. Uh and that has had implications for the operation of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, which was an agency that also often worked in tandem with the EEOC to make sure equal employment laws and anti-discrimination laws were enforced among federal contractors. Again, that enforcement has been uh rescinded as it relates to race and gender discrimination specifically. And so that uh department, which is a department within the in the Department of Labor, has all but been gutted. Uh the last thing I want to mention is really a a more recent development and the proposal to end collection of the EEO-1 report from private uh employers. Um that had been the nation's only federally collected source of firm-level information on employment by race, ethnicity, sex, and job category. And that data allow the EEOC, employers, researchers, and advocates to assess aggregate disparities in employment by key job categories and industries. It was also essential for the EEOC's charge intakes and systemic enforcement and was used in selecting commissioner's charges and preparing special reports on on different issues in the the labor market. Uh current EEOC chair uh has repeatedly affirmed her commitment to redirecting the EEOC's uh priorities towards those of the administration rather than enforcing anti-discrimination law as an independent federal agency. And we've seen a lot uh of news about, you know, the specific uh charges against Nike, for example, uh for their, you know, {quote} {unquote} DEI policy. So, a lot has happened to undermine, again, this this undergirding structure that many of us maybe didn't notice on a day-to-day basis. Maybe doesn't show up so clearly um in the labor market data, but without those things, I think we will definitely start to see an impact and changing uh of a lot of those statistics. >> Indeed. Indeed. Yes, um you know, this has been uh a a shame to see that happen um throughout this uh throughout this administration, all the different attacks that we've seen. >> Can I can I just pose a question to you because I want to kind of like continue on this tack of policies and laws that, you know, were intended to address inequities uh in our society and those really sort of being mislabeled as things that were beneficial only to one group and then even under this administration harmful for example to white Americans. False narratives like that have always been a part of the white supremacist playbook and I know you've written about how those kinds of tactics have been used throughout history to usher in massive economic inequality. So I want to ask you for few seconds to to quickly weigh in on that connection as well. >> Oh, you know I you know I got those on it. You know I got those. So so yeah, I mean you know from my perspective there are two real major threats to consolidate corporate power in American political economy. So there's existing government institutions that can regulate and then there's worker solidarity. And so the white supremacist playbook is really an attempt to disrupt and dismantle both of those levers of people-centered power. You always start with establishing distrust with respect to government institutions that that came in presenting these institutions and public servants that have been tasked with moderating and restraining corporate power as being like inefficient and corrupt and ineffectual. That's what DOJ was doing, right? Often at the same time you have an intended campaign that's mounted against non-white populations presenting them as violent and lazy and shiftless and unworthy of camaraderie support. And so these campaigns have happened as as part of white supremacy in each of in response to each of our nation's attempts at reconstruction or trying to move us towards like full citizenship for black folks. Once that trust has been broken and the masses of people are are weary of the possibility of effective government intervention or the benefits of multiracial class solidarity, the second phase of that of these track will continue. And so like when people no longer look to the government as an ally, they're not going to flinch when regulatory institutions are dismantled and career public servants are unceremoniously fired, right? And similarly when the people no longer see their black and brown neighbors as worthy of protection or capable of decency, they they're going to be on base when those people are paid less than a living wage or work under dangerous conditions or attend poorly funded schools or get rounded up in the street by mass agents. Um and so this is a tragic misunderstanding with respect to white supremacy, right? When white Americans when white America accepts the relative privilege they come from having a government that like targets black and brown folks and allows their hyper exploitation to continue without being corrected, that weakens the entire working class, right? As well as democracy. And so when you have an emaciated government now, it can't protect anybody from corporate power. And so as people watch government institutions fall apart and budgets get reprioritized away from like solidarity building, social support, and social safety net towards corporate tax breaks and strengthening the police state, um I mean what more are you going to expect than for the powerful to be able to consolidate power and get richer at everybody else's expense? Um again, black and black black and brown families are going to get the worst of it and black and brown workers are going to get the worst of it, but the masses of white people are going to are going to suffer as well. And again, the end result you get you get massive economic inequality. So that's like how this playbook has played out across a number of different instances in the United States and you know, hopefully we learn a lesson at some point, you know. Um I I and I know we're we're we're getting towards time here, um but I want to I want to kick it back to Alan uh real quickly um just to ask, you know, again, it's it's challenging to pass all these policies um that that that you and Valerie and and Ludovic mentioned. Um it even so, we continue to believe that democratic process works, right? We kind of have to believe this. Um but democracy is about again, you mentioned this a little bit earlier, it's it's about so much more than just having a good idea. You have to mobilize and persuade voters and build real multiracial solidarity and generate the will amongst policy makers to get things done, right? And so what are some what are some of the strategies you look towards to generating that new will and really you know, building that multi-racial solidarity today? >> We certainly have to focus on the November elections and the 2020 and elections. I think in in the long run our strategy has to to draw on John Lewis' good trouble. In order to create goodwill new will, we need good trouble. The Urban League last year at its national meeting asked everyone to go back home and to do something that created good trouble. And that's that's an action process. It's not just doing an an analysis or a paper. And we also I think need what Bishop Barber calls moral fusion. What we're doing now is moral fusion. We're we're different organizations are are are binding together. And I find as I speak around the country that moral fusion is is really essential. I think we have to create new voter coalitions. For example, the percentage of blacks in poverty is greater than percentage of whites, but the number of whites in poverty is greater than the number of blacks. Is is that not a possibility for for coalition building? I think we have to fight against the efforts now to to stop mailing voting and to to prevent voting machines. We we certainly have to fight the Supreme Court Shelby decision. We need [snorts] to reduce misinformation and disinformation and we can draw on what European countries are doing along those lines. And we certainly have to reduce the polarization we now face in our update LaTasha Brown who's co-founder of voters rights and Black Voters Matter, has called for a Department of Democracy, which would develop programs to reduce polarization. We need a new movement for public service inspired by the legacy of of JFK. When I was in college in the '60s, we all wanted to to do public service. Today, all undergraduates want want to do computers and finance and and consulting. And I think we have to follow the Ford Foundation in mobilizing the visual and performing arts. There was a reason why Bishop Barber had Aretha Franklin with him in in terms of how he projected his his action. So, those are just a few examples. We we could we could have a separate seminar just on the notion of creating new will. But, I would urge people who are part of this meeting today to to think about what the creation of new will is all about. >> Yeah, I I I completely agree. Completely agree. We need to use all the tools at our disposal. Um Valerie, any any last word you want to you want to take on this and on maybe the importance of like our research and data play into this fight for racial and economic justice. >> Sure. I know we're we're over time, but you know, just really quickly, you know, that question for me always brings to mind a definition of racial equity that I like to quote when I'm talking about racial disparities from the Center for Assessment and Policy Development. And it says, "Racial equity is a condition that would be achieved if one's racial identity no no longer predicted in a statistical sense how one fares." Now, in reality, we know that race is often a measurable significant and predictor [laughter] and persistent predictor of economic outcomes. And so for me the the purpose the way that research and advocacy align is that we bring these facts to bear along with those who are organizing in communities putting on political pressure to get the change that we need. We work together with those organizations as researchers to bring those facts to bear and to draw attention to the conditions as they are much like was done in the Kerner report and to use that to to push and to build support for the change that we need. >> What we hope to do Alan Valerie [clears throat] thank you for for joining joining me for this conversation and thanks to Elizabeth as well and thanks to everyone who who came in and joined and participated in the chat. I'm looking at the chat now there's a ton of conversation was happening here that's great to see. I hope you all will follow up with the the work that we're doing here. Hope you guys will attend future webinars as well and hopefully I can connect with you as well folks. And take care and and happy Juneteenth to everyone.