“A National System of Income Supplementation”
Richard America’s analysis of the crippling legacy of racial discrimination in the United States was underscored by a study released last summer. In the wake of a spate of riots in urban America in the 1960s, a federal government commission concluded in 1967 that the violence stemmed from racism and economic inequality [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6545/]. The so-called Kerner Report, warning that the United States was in danger of becoming two “separate but unequal” societies, recommended federal initiatives to boost education, employment, and housing opportunities in black urban neighborhoods. It also called for “a national system of income supplementation,” whose goal was not so much to increase “welfare,” but to economically stabilize impoverished communities in order to encourage private-sector investment and individual initiative.
Last year’s follow-up study, led by original members of the Kerner panel, concluded that serious inequalities still exist; it called for spending some $55 billion on social change, particularly by investing in programs and initiatives with successful track records, such as Head Start.
