Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, has raised the ire of his critics and political pundits alike with his recent article for CNS News – which has seen widespread social media traecd to Allen West – that took aim at local and federal governments as well as civil rights organizations for their role in failing black communities.
Williams observed that many of the problems in poor black communities are relatively new phenomena resulting from politicians and civil rights organizations using the government to serve the purposes of powerful interest groups under the guise of helping blacks, according to Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University.
"Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today's black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination. The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history," Williams writes for CNS News.
Williams continues: "Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father."
"Today's black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent," Williams writes. "It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote 'The Negro Family: The Case for National Action' and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks."
Williams goes on to claim that today's pathology seen in much the black population is a result of a growing welfare state "that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual."
For example, it's much less burdensome for a mother to raise a child "without the benefit of marriage" if she receives welfare payments, housing subsidies and food stamps. "Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished," Williams adds. "Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems."
What isn't often mentioned, is that black married couples are much less likely to be poor, Williams said, pointing to poverty rates being "in single digits since 1994."
"Black youth unemployment in some cities is over 50 percent," according to Williams. "But high black youth unemployment is also new. In 1948, the unemployment rate for black teens was slightly less than that of their white counterparts - 9.4 percent compared with 10.2."
Minimum wage laws also discriminate against the employment of low-skilled workers, who are often black youths, Williams says.
"Put yourself in the place of an employer, and ask: If I must pay $7.25 an hour - plus mandated fringes, such as Social Security and workers' compensation - would it pay me to hire a worker who is so unfortunate as to possess skills that enable him to produce only $5 worth of value per hour? Most employers view that as a losing economic proposition."
