RECOVERED HISTORY: WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE THE KERNER COMMISSION REPORT

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EISENHOWER FOUNDATION - The Kerner Commission responded to the wave of
disorders around the nation from 1963 to 1967.  They were called "riots"
in the mainstream media, but often were called "rebellions" in the
communities where they took place. . .

In terms of long run policy outcomes, the Kerner Commission in large
part focused on how to reduce poverty, inequality, racial injustice and
crime.  American media emphasized the commission's characterization of
two societies, black and white, separate and unequal. . .

The commission saw the federal government as the only institution with
the moral authority and resources to create change "at a scale equal to
the dimension of the problems." The "most persistent and serious
grievances" were unemployment and underemployment, in the view of the
commission. Education and desegregation also were high priorities.  The
commission concluded that new attitudes, new understanding, and, above
all, "new will" would be necessary to carry out its recommendations.

There are important exceptions, but America has, for the most part,
failed to meet the Kerner Commission's goals of less poverty,
inequality, racial injustice and crime:

- The child poverty rate has increased slightly, from 15 percent in 1968
to 17 percent in 2006.

- The American child poverty rate is about 4 times the average poverty
rate for Western European countries.

- Poverty has deepened for those who have remained poor. The proportion
of the poor below half the poverty line was about 30 percent in 1975 and
43 percent in 2006.

- The poverty rate has declined for African Americans since the Kerner
Commission, but poverty in African American female headed households
with children under 18 was almost 44 percent in 2006.

- The Kerner Commission found that unemployment and underemployment were
the most important causes of poverty, yet African American unemployment
has continued to be twice as high as White unemployment during each of
the 4 decades since 1968.

- Since the late 1970s, the real after tax income of those at the top of
the income scale has grown by 200 percent, while it has grown by 15
percent for those in the middle and 9 percent for those at the bottom.

- Over the last 40 years, America has had the most rapid growth in wage
inequality in the industrialized world.

- America has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the
industrialized world.

- In terms of wealth, America is the most unequal country in the
industrialized world.

-  Since the 1970s, productivity has increased significantly in America,
but wages have increased little in real terms. 

- In the 1960s, the average CEO earned about 40 times more than the
average worker.  Today, the average CEO earns about 360 times as much. 

- School desegregation proceeded rapidly in America from the 1960s to
the 1980s and then was dramatically reversed by the courts.

http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/

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