 Looking at ethnicity is tricky because of the fluidity of self-identification and category definitions – people of Hispanic origins, for example, are counted in two different categories. Still, this data is educational. There are 31.6 million “White” or 19.6 million “White, not Hispanic” people living in poverty; that’s a poverty rate of either 13.0 percent or 9.9 percent. There are 10.7 million “Black” people (a 27.4 percent poverty rate), 1.7 million “Asian” people, and at least 13.2 million “Hispanic origin” people in poverty. One fact shines brightly in the data: two, or possibly three, white people live in poverty for every black person. Many black-majority areas in the United States are suffering terribly, but they are not solely causing the strains on local, state and federal budgets. Poverty is crushing dreams and ruining lives across all ethnic cohorts. Pandering sound bites will not change that reality. Years ago, we should have set aside the self-indulgent tantrums, agreed on a comprehensive, multi-decade strategy to strengthen the economy, and started the long, hard implementation of our plan. Anything less is not real governance; it is political fiction. Nick Capo, associate dean and associate professor of English at Illinois College, writes as a public scholar and private citizen. See also
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