Kerner Report: A 20-Year Review

Following are excerpts from the report of the 1988 Commission on the
Cities, a citizen group that organized a recent conference of scholars
and policymakers, co-sponsored by the Institute for Public Policy at
the University of New Mexico and the Johnson Foundation, to reflect on
the 20th anniversary of the President's National Advisory Commission on
Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission).

For a time following the Kerner Report, America made progress on all
fronts--from the late 1960's through the mid-1970's. Then came a series
of severe economic shocks that hit the most vulnerable hardest. Poverty
is worse now for black Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians,
and other minorities. But not just for them. The rise in unemployment
and poverty has cut across racial and ethnic lines--and affects both
blacks and other minorities and whites. (More whites than minority
people are poor.)

Severe Economic Shocks

There were a series of recessions--most often precipitated or
accentuated by a restrictive monetary policy and high interest
rates--culminating in an economic crisis as bad as any since the
1930's.

The closing of manufacturing plants and the removal of blue-collar
jobs to the suburbs, as well as the loss of blue-collar jobs
altogether--trends the Kerner Report had called attention
to--accelerated. These were the very jobs upon which central-city
residents had been most dependent.

The movement of the unemployment rates through the last 20 years has
tracked the poverty rates very closely.

Fast-food and other retail service jobs replaced some of this lost
employment, but at much lower pay. The higher-pay new service jobs
which came to the cities--accounting, finance, professional, and
others--were those least available to the workers left in the inner
cities.

Efforts to break unions were successful. Wage "givebacks'' were
common. The federal minimum wage, which had been raised four times
between 1978 and 1981 (during which time, employment rose 9 percent),
was not raised again after 1980.

Poverty increased. Census figures show that in 1986, 32.4 million
Americans were poor (compared with 24.1 million in 1969). This included
about 22 million whites, nearly 9 million blacks, and about 5 million
Hispanics.

In 1986, according to the Census, two million Americans were poor
even though they were working full time and year round--52 percent more
than in 1975, 22 percent more than in 1980. Another 6.9 million people
were working part time, or full time for a part of the year, and still
could not earn enough to get above the poverty line.

From 1980 through June of last year, average weekly earnings
increased from $235 to $305, but, adjusted for inflation, this
represented, in fact, a drop in real wages--down to $227. (This was
true, even though productivity had risen at an impressive average of 4
percent a year from 1981 to 1985 and had increased in 1986 by 3.5
percent--better than either Japan or Germany.)

Nearly 6 percent of Americans--nearly eight million people--are
officially unemployed. They are actively searching for work without
success. Another one million "discouraged'' workers have given up and
stopped looking for jobs.

Cuts in Social Programs

Today, less than 1 percent of the federal budget is spent for
education, down from 2 percent in 1980. Job-training and
job-subsidization programs were cut nearly 70 percent--from $9 billion
in 1981 to only $4 billion.

Less than 1 percent of the federal budget is now spent on training
and job programs. Yet, that part of the federal budget spent on the
military has increased from 35 percent in 1980 to 41 percent today.

Job-training funds peaked in 1978. Not only have they gone down
since then, but the declining funds are mainly used, now, for the least
disadvantaged, leaving very little for the high-school dropouts and the
less skilled.

A quarter of a million young people--25 percent of the total when
President Reagan took office--have been cut from the Summer Youth
Employment Program.

Federal spending for non-insurance social programs, as a percentage
of Gross National Product, has gone down from 4.2 percent in 1980 to
3.7 percent last year, while defense expenditures have increased during
the same period from 5.2 percent to 6.9 percent.

With inflation, the real income of welfare recipients has been
reduced nationally by approximately one-third since 1970; in Chicago,
for example, the value of AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent
Children) has been halved during that time.

Poverty Worsened and Deepened

The gap between the rich and poor widened. In 1986, the top
one-fifth of American households received 46.1 percent of total income,
up from 43.3 percent in 1970, while the income share of the middle
three-fifths declined from 52.7 percent to 50.2 percent and that of the
poorest one-fifth of households went down from 4.1 percent to 3.8
precent.

Census figures also show that poverty has become more prevalent in
America's central cities. There, the poverty rates rose by half from
1969 to 1985--increasing from 12.7 percent to 19 percent, a much
steeper rise than for those outside.

Poverty has deepened. Typical poor people of the 1980's living in
big cities are farther below the poverty line than their unfortunate
counterparts of the 1960's. There was a sharp increase between 1970 and
1982 in the percentage of poor people with incomes less than 75 percent
of the poverty line.

Urban poverty has become more persistent. According to Professor
Greg J. Duncan of the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center,
"the chances a poor person in a highly urbanized county would escape
his poverty have fallen substantially since the 1970's,'' after some
improvement between the late 1960's and mid-1970's, and are now well
below the levels of 20 years ago.

A Growing American 'Underclass'

Blacks and other minorities have made important progress, legally
and politically. The black middle class has grown. There were only 200
black elected officials in 1965; by 1986, that figure had mushroomed to
6,500. Blacks and other minorities have made significant inroads into
the media, law enforcement, business, and the professions. But progress
has slowed, and the Reagan Administration has tried to turn the clock
back.

More 'Separate Societies'

The Kerner Report warning is coming true: America is again becoming
two separate societies, one black (and, today, we can add Hispanic),
one white--separate and unequal.

While there are few all-white neighborhoods, and there is some
integration even in black neighborhoods, segregation by race still
sharply divides America's cities--in both housing and schools for
blacks, and especially in schools for Hispanics. This despite increases
in suburbanization and the numbers of blacks and other minorities who
have entered the middle class.

For the big cities studied by the Kerner Commission, housing
segregation has changed little, if any, and is worse in terms of
housing costs for blacks, who are more likely than whites to be
renters. Segregation is not just a matter of income; it still cuts
across income and education levels. Studies show continued
discrimination in housing sales and rentals and in mortgage financing
for blacks and Hispanics.

From 1968 to 1984, the number of white students in the public
schools dropped by 19 percent, while the number of black students
increased by 2 percent. Hispanic student numbers skyrocketed, up 80
percent.

Public schools are becoming more segregated. There has been no
national school desegregation progress since the last favorable Supreme
Court decision in this field in 1972. After declining from 1968 to
1976, the number of black students enrolled in predominantly minority
schools increased from 62.9 percent in 1980 to 63.5 percent in 1984.
The percentage for Hispanic students enrolled in minority schools has
climbed steadily from 54.8 percent to 70.6 percent during the same
period.

University of Chicago political scientist Gary Orfield has found
that "a great many black students, and very rapidly growing numbers of
Hispanic students, are trapped in schools where more than half of the
students drop out, where the average achievement level of those who
remain is so low that there is little serious precollegiate
instruction, where precollegiate courses and counselors are much less
available, and which only prepare students for the least competitive
colleges.''

There have been severe cuts in federal student-assistance funds.

The American Council on Education has said that, today, the gap
between black and white college-going rates is the largest it has been
in more than a quarter of a century.

Greater Racial Contrast

Non-white unemployment in 1968 was 6.7 percent, compared with 3.2
percent for whites. Today, overall employment has doubled, and black
unemployment is more than double white unemployment.

Median black family income, as a percentage of median white family
income, dropped from 60 percent in 1968 to 57.1 percent in 1986. Those
who could be classified as "working poor,'' if they are white--those
with annual incomes between $9,941 and $18,700--is the middle class for
black families; that is the present range of median black family
income.

From these facts of black and Hispanic segregation and inequality,
Professor Orfield has concluded that the ghettos and barrios of
America's cities are "separate and deteriorating societies, with
separate economies, increasingly divergent family structures and basic
institutions, and even growing linguistic separation. The physical
separation by race, class, and economic situation is much greater than
it was in the 1960's, the level of impoverishment, joblessness,
educational inequality, and housing even more severe.''

The Urban Underclass

The result is a persistent, large, and growing American urban
underclass.

Poverty is both urban and rural, both white and minority. But the
great majority of the nation's poor people--70.4 percent in 1985--live
in metropolitan areas. From 1974 to 1983, over 33 percent of the highly
urban population (those living in the nation's 56 most highly urban
counties) was poor at least once, and 5.2 percent was poor at least 80
percent of the time. During the same period, 60 percent of blacks in
these areas were poor at least once, and 21.1 percent were poor at
least 80 percent of the time.

Central-city poverty has become more concentrated. From 1974 to
1985, in central-city poverty tracts with a poverty rate of 20 percent
or more, the numbers of people living in poverty nearly doubled--from
4.1 million to 7.8 million. In areas of extreme poverty--more than 40
percent--the numbers of white families living in poverty went up 44
pecent, the numbers of black families 104 percent, and the numbers of
Hispanic families 300 percent.

University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson has found a
resulting "rapid social deterioration'' in the inner-city neighborhoods
since the Kerner Report, with "sharp increases in social dislocation
and the massive breakdown of social institutions in ghetto areas.''

Concentrated poverty is "one of the legacies of racial and class
oppression,'' Professor Wilson has stated, and it has produced what he
has termed "concentration effects''--the "added constraints and severe
restrictions of opportunities associated with living in a neighborhood
in which the population is overwhelmingly socially
disadvantaged--constraints and opportunities with regard to access to
jobs, good schools and other public services, and availability of
marriageable partners.'' The result in these concentrated, central-city
areas, he has said, is "sharp increases in joblessness, poverty, and
the related problems of single-parent households, welfare dependency,
housing deterioration, educational failure, and crime.''

National Security Requires New Human Investment

"Quiet riots'' are taking place in America's major cities:
unemployment, poverty, social disorganization, segregation, family
disintegration, housing and school deterioration, and crime.

These "quiet riots'' may not be as alarming or as noticeable to
outsiders--unless they are among the high proportion of Americans who
are victimized by crime--but they are even more destructive of human
life than the violent riots of 20 years ago.

This destruction of our human capital is a serious threat to
America's national security. The Kerner report said: "It is time to
make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens--urban and
rural, white and black, Spanish-surname, American Indian, and every
minority group.''

Such a recommitment now to that kind of human investment could begin
to move us once again toward becoming a more stable and secure society
of self-esteem.

As former Assistant Attorney General, now Clarence Robinson
Professor of History at George Mason University, Roger W. Wilkins has
said, "The problem is not a problem of defective people; the problem is
a problem of a defective system.''

We know what should be done.

Jobs. Jobs are the greatest need. Full employment is the best
anti-poverty program. An economic policy of stabilization, greater
spending for targeted social programs, low interest rates, and greater
growth are essential. (A 1 percent decline in unemployment could reduce
the federal deficit by $30 billion.)

We need a strong public jobs program; there is plenty of
infrastructure work that needs doing. The minimum wage must be raised.
The tax laws should be changed further to see that the working poor get
to keep more of their earnings. Increased training for jobs, as well as
a sound national day-care program for mothers who want to work, must be
provided.

Welfare. We should provide better income for those who cannot work
or find work. There should be national standards for AFDC.

Desegregation. A stronger fair-housing law should be passed, and it
and other affirmative-action laws vigorously enforced. More large-scale
desegregation of schools is needed; where such actions have been tried,
they have worked and produced stability over long periods of time. A
majority of Americans under 30, as well as a majority of college
students as a group, support such desegregation. So do two-thirds of
the families whose children have actually been bussed for desegregation
purposes.

Affirmative Action. Vigorous enforcement of
equal-employment-opportunity and affirmative-action laws is vital.
Where public funds or subsidies are used, there must be strict
requirements for affirmative-action and contract compliance.

Health. We need to extend national health insurance to more
Americans, including the requirement of health insurance as a part of
job benefits. This is important if we are to change our present
two-tiered system, composed of those covered by health insurance and
those who are not.

General. Childhood development is basically important; we know that
programs like Head Start work, and they now are advocated by corporate
leaders like those on the Committee for Economic Development. So does
the Job Corps. We should give these programs added support. We should
replicate successes in inner-city schools like those in
Minneapolis.

These things are do-able. And we have the means. Doubling the
percentage of the federal budget that now goes for job training,
education, and community development, for example, would still only be
roughly equal to the percentage increase in military spending since
1980.

The numbers of people in the underclass are relatively small.
Improving their chances and their lives is increasingly in the
self-interest of whites as whites become a declining proportion of
America's population. Further, the fact that the labor force is
shrinking as a percentage of total population should be seen as an
increasing opportunity for finding work for the chronically
unemployed.

We must find the will. A majority of Americans support increased
spending for social programs (and believe that the military budget is
the best place for cuts). They support the idea that more should be
done to give a hand to black people and other minorities.

The problem is that, because we made progress for a time, most
Americans--as well as American policymakers--likely think that we are
still making progress or that most inequalities have disappeared. This
is not true.

We must bring the problems of race, unemployment, and poverty back
into the public conciousness, put them back on the public agenda.

That is our purpose in making this new report.

Participants in the National Conference on "The Kerner Report:
Twenty Years Later'' included:
Fred R. Harris, professor of political science, University of New
Mexico and Roger W. Wilkins, professor of history, George Mason
University, co-chairmen; Jorge Chapa, professor of sociology,
University of California, Berkeley; William R. Carmack, professor of
communications, University of Oklahoma; Lynn A. Curtis, president,
Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation; Greg J. Duncan, program director,
Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of
Michigan; David Ginsburg, Attorney, Washington, D.C.; David Hamilton,
professor emeritus of economics, University of New Mexico; Donna E.
Shalala, chancellor, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Gregory D.
Squires, chairman, department of sociology, University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee; LaDonna Harris, president and executive director, Americans
for Indian Opportunity; Henry B. Taliaferro Jr., Attorney, Oklahoma
City; John Herbers, distinguished lecturer in journalism, University of
Maryland; Ronald B. Mincy, visiting scholar, The Urban Institute,
University of Delaware; Gary Orfield, professor of political science,
University of Chicago; Gary D. Sandefur, associate director, Institute
for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, Madison; F. Harold
Wilson, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology, Bowdoin
College; Richard Nathan, professor of public and international affairs,
Princeton University; Willaim Julius Wilson, professor of sociology and
public policy, University of Chicago.

Web Only

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.