The Columbia analysis also notes a sharp decrease in the racial disparity of poverty. The disparity in poverty between Black and white people would go down by over 67%, and the gap between Hispanic and white people nearly 90%. There’s a lot of talk about the need to remedy racial inequities, oftentimes linked with race-conscious policies like reparations or racial training exercises. What much of these initiatives fail to understand is that wealth and income disparities are so enormous in the US that virtually any race-neutral policy to reduce poverty would help minorities the most.
The common saying, “We can’t solve our country’s problems by throwing money at them” has become a conservative talking point in response to government programs to help the poor. The problem is that it’s largely nonsense-virtually every government program aimed at reducing child poverty does so, and there are a whole host of benefits in doing so, including decreased crime and increased education. One study by Harvard economist Raj Chetty actually finds that government welfare programs aimed at poor children actually increase the amount of money going to the government in the long-run. In other words, these programs are literally less than free. Talk about a deal!
Obviously you can’t expect an elected official to abide by all, or even most of their campaign promises. Presidents especially have to make deals and concessions to their opponents if they want a chance at being effective. However, if these proposals are a sign of what a Biden presidency is going to look like, then it is going to be a very, very good four years for poor children.
