"I really expected more of a blueprint for rebuilding Black America from a guy who won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award and has been doing this work for 40 years. Does he not have some well-developed hypotheses about how to build strong Black families by now? "
I think it's rather simple. Empower African American women and give them complete autonomy over their bodies and reproductive abilities.
That's a great point, but Dr Raj Chetty's research shows that African American women enjoy slightly high rates of social mobility than white women, but the lack of community choice in the dating field leads to a form of cruel intergenerational reset. It takes two income household to build family wealth in the West, because you're basically looking at a 40% drop in non-tax related living costs. Plus, men tend to budget more responsibly when they have a woman in charge.
Where most social reformers go wrong is that they focus on access to opportunity at the top- with many skilled blue collar workers earning more than non-STEM college graduates there is an opportunity for building wealth from the lower middle upwards. Stable family formation only works when young men in a community have the employment opportunities and direction to become responsible earners to which women will be attracted into longer term commitments.
"...Stable family formation only works when young men in a community have the employment opportunities and direction to become responsible earners to which women will be attracted into longer term commitments..."
Exactly backwards. Stable families are formed by a Man and a Woman who make staying together with their children their top priority regardless of their individual histories or cultural disfunctions. Groups that have moved out of poverty had intact families before, not after, opportunities (which they took advantage of) presented themselves
"I really expected more of a blueprint for rebuilding Black America from a guy who won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award and has been doing this work for 40 years. Does he not have some well-developed hypotheses about how to build strong Black families by now? "
I think it's rather simple. Empower African American women and give them complete autonomy over their bodies and reproductive abilities.
That's a great point, but Dr Raj Chetty's research shows that African American women enjoy slightly high rates of social mobility than white women, but the lack of community choice in the dating field leads to a form of cruel intergenerational reset. It takes two income household to build family wealth in the West, because you're basically looking at a 40% drop in non-tax related living costs. Plus, men tend to budget more responsibly when they have a woman in charge.
Where most social reformers go wrong is that they focus on access to opportunity at the top- with many skilled blue collar workers earning more than non-STEM college graduates there is an opportunity for building wealth from the lower middle upwards. Stable family formation only works when young men in a community have the employment opportunities and direction to become responsible earners to which women will be attracted into longer term commitments.
"...Stable family formation only works when young men in a community have the employment opportunities and direction to become responsible earners to which women will be attracted into longer term commitments..."
Exactly backwards. Stable families are formed by a Man and a Woman who make staying together with their children their top priority regardless of their individual histories or cultural disfunctions. Groups that have moved out of poverty had intact families before, not after, opportunities (which they took advantage of) presented themselves