“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
It’s always the same map.
Here from Brad Delong is the map of the percentage who were slave by county in 1861
here is the corresponding area of a map of intergenerational relative income mobility by county from R Chetty 2014 (warning pdf)
update: link updated thanks to Amanda. thanks
Here is a map of male life expectancy at birth
It’s not past yet.
pulled back from comments. Thanks Marko
Marko
March 17, 2014 12:11 am
You see that pattern a lot in maps of various social and economic indicators. Here’s a couple more :
Poverty :
http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_poverty.gif
http://www.poverties.org/images/new-map-of-poverty-in-the-united-states-21563467.jpg
Inequality – Gini index :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Gini_Index_US_Counties_2010.jpg
It’s like Haiti. The slaves there were the first to stage a revolt , and they’ll probably still be paying for it 100 years from now.
There is no such thing as human progress. People don’t change , ever.
– See more at: http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/2014/03/the-past-is-never-dead-its-not-even-past.html#comments
You see that pattern a lot in maps of various social and economic indicators. Here’s a couple more :
Poverty :
http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_poverty.gif
http://www.poverties.org/images/new-map-of-poverty-in-the-united-states-21563467.jpg
Inequality – Gini index :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Gini_Index_US_Counties_2010.jpg
It’s like Haiti. The slaves there were the first to stage a revolt , and they’ll probably still be paying for it 100 years from now.
There is no such thing as human progress. People don’t change , ever.
Perhaps we would have been much better off if we let the South secede.
Marko: AGREED!
Haiti is a good example. ALL the world sends help and money and what they end up is a free dose of Cholera. I’m thinking those millions went to “Administrative Costs”.
It seems, blacks, who moved to other states, e.g. in the “north,” live in poverty too. (see map):
http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-17.pdf
“Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, and Wisconsin had rates above 35.0
percent (black poverty).”
Blacks didn’t have the same opportunities to earn income and accumulate wealth over many generations as whites, because of slavery and racism.
However, the enormous spending on federal poverty programs, over the past 50 years, have largely been ineffective and perhaps counterproductive.
There’ve been a large number of new immigrants, who’ve done much better in earning income and accumulating wealth, although blacks have been in the country for many generations.
U.S. population 1790 – Country Immigrants before 1790
Africa: 360,000 – 757,000
England: 230,000 – 2,100,000
Scot-Irish: 135,000 – 300,000
Germany: 103,000 – 270,000
Scotland: 48,500 – 150,000
Netherlands: 6,000 – 100,000
Wales: 4,000 – 10,000
France: 3,000 – 15,000
Jews: 1,000 – 2,000
Sweden: 500 – 2,000
Other: 50,000 – 200,000
Perhaps, workfare with a rising minimum wage would’ve benefited blacks much more than welfare, and also benefited the country. More money equals more choice.
Sorry, the first set of numbers is “country immigrants before 1790” and the second set of numbers is “U.S. population 1790:”
Africa: 360,000 – 757,000
England: 230,000 – 2,100,000
Scot-Irish: 135,000 – 300,000
Germany: 103,000 – 270,000
Scotland: 48,500 – 150,000
Netherlands: 6,000 – 100,000
Wales: 4,000 – 10,000
France: 3,000 – 15,000
Jews: 1,000 – 2,000
Sweden: 500 – 2,000
Other: 50,000 – 200,000
Somehow it makes me happy that Peak has chosen to show this side of his makeup.
The military has been a source of jobs for minorities. There are many successful upward mobility examples including well educated officers. It is bad to lose sight of the deep influence of opportunity. I am a product of that deep red zone in a era where going from low to higher middleclass income was possible for Southern whites. There were still some high school drop outs, usually for economic reasons or early marriages, but successive generation of whites were upwardly mobile even though it was harder the lower down one started.
But hopelessness is more powerful than could be imagined. I knew a young girl from “white trash” origins. She was in her last year of elementary school, was a straight A student and president of her school. I was impressed and spoke to her of her future plans. She told me she had none because she was destined to be just like them. “Them”, in this case, was her very poor and dysfunctional family. The limit of white hope? Perhaps, but an interesting data point.
It seemed to me at the time that things were impossible if one was black. We talk about Social Security. When I was growing up most blacks I knew something about earned incomes that were hidden from taxes. So, my dad, for example, was lower middle class but had a maid to keep house and provide day care. He lost this luxury with civil rights as blacks realized that they needed to be employed under employment laws and people suddenly received demands from domestic worker for reported income and tax withholding, including employer share. (Story from my dad as to why he could no longer afford household help.)
Well, Anna Lee, what ARE you talking about. I’m talking about cultural barriers to progression in some of the red areas. A book could be written about the religious, family, educational, etc. factors that impact the red areas. But opportunity is a big one and I wonder how this occurs today, even for poor whites, when the educational systems are in decay. (When I went to the northwest a professor announced to the class that he thought I would be unable to pass his class because I was from Mississippi. He eventually was one of the professors responsible for winning me a scholarship to finish my education.) The educational systems in my red area, segregated but limpingly equal, was quite good for both whites and blacks. Had the area continued to invest in it’s children, the area would not be red today. But within two or three years of integration the “Christian” white schools came into being and the public educational system started it’s decline.
Yes, these are my observations and interpretations but the red areas have a history that needs to be understood, including it’s more recent history.
And I too have often pondered that it would have been better had the South been allow to secede. But for whom?
Add to the policies that inhibit the south was the marketing of the south as nonunion. Still happening today.
Though the anti union movement which blossomed with Reagan has successfully spread across this nation. Has to be one of the more successful policy implementations the conservatives have achieved for themselves.
If The South had not been defeated SLAVERY would still be a legal institution and The Blackman would STILL be that slave.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Ole Black Joe’s still out picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
everybody knows—-Leonard Cohen
The North INFORCED The South’s poverty until Disneyworld and The Space Program was built in Florida. Price of rebellion and not winning, I suppose.