Marketplace’s Econ Extra Credit team spent the past month focusing on reparations and racial inequality in wealth.
The argument for reparations for Black Americans goes beyond our nation’s history of slavery. Reparations also aim to help repair the damage of structural inequality that has held Black people back.
Yet, when it comes to how Americans view our nation’s progress toward becoming a more equal society, there’s a strong misperception that we’re doing better than reality suggests. For example, a 2019 paper found that many underestimate the severity of racial economic inequality in this country — by a lot.
“We’re invested in a belief that the world is just, that society is operating as it should, that all of our successes are due to our hard work,” said Ivy Onyeador, who worked on the study. “And so, the idea that that is not the case for certain groups of people is very threatening to the very idea of what America is supposed to be, what it means to be American,” explained Onyeador, who’s also a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Marketplace’s David Brancaccio spoke with Onyeador about why there are so many misperceptions about the racial wealth gap. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.