ABSTRACT

The chapter describes the sobering reality that there has never been a black American middle class when defined by the most paramount indicator of economic well-being: wealth. The public discourse that situates education and hard work as the pathway to ascendancy and stability of middle-class status ignores the generational role in which wealth is generated. White families have always been better positioned to make intergenerational transfer and these differences are predicated in an American history that have facilitated the wealth of whites and inhibited the wealth of blacks. The chapter ends with a policy frame—baby bonds—intended to remedy some of the generational effects associated with maldistribution of wealth so that every newborn, regardless of race, is seeded the necessary capital to attain the economic security associated with an asset-based middle class.