African Americans Still Experience Economic Injustice in Maryland
Even as Maryland becomes an increasingly diverse state, inequity in the economic success of different racial groups remains a persistent problem.
When comparing measures of income, employment, poverty, housing, and incarceration, African American residents in Maryland and across the country fare far worse than other groups.
One major disparity is in the rate of home ownership. Less than half of black households in Maryland own the home that they reside in. More than three fourths of whites are homeowners. Home ownership is an important way for families to build wealth, however black Marylanders lag behind for a number of reasons that can be attributed to institutional and systemic barriers.
For example, while the practice of “redlining” that led to segregation in many Maryland communities in the 20th century is thought by many to be a thing of the past, a 2015 report found that it remains very difficult for people to get mortgages for homes in predominately African-American communities. The racial makeup of a neighborhood – more than average income or education levels – is the greatest predictor of mortgage lending in Baltimore, according to the report.
Building wealth has also been much more challenging for African Americans. Black households are nearly twice as likely as white households to live in poverty. And the median household income for blacks is 20 percent lower than that of whites, according to the most recent Census estimates.
Evidence shows that the Great Recession exacerbated wealth inequality and low homeownership rates in the African American community. From 2007 to 2009, the net worth for new white homebuyers dropped 33 percent; new black homebuyers lost 43 percent of their wealth. However, even before the widespread declines in the housing market, white first-time buyers enjoyed net worth gains of 50 percent from 2005 to 2007. At the same time, new black homebuyers lost 47 percent. In dollar terms, while whites were gaining about $24,000, blacks were losing $16,911, according to a John Hopkins study.
Another major area of disparity exists in education. Because blacks are more likely to live in neighborhoods where the majority of residents struggle to make ends meet, they are more likely to attend schools that lack the resources needed to give all students the chance to succeed. Students from high-poverty high schools are less likely to immediately enroll in college and to remain enrolled after one year than students from more well-off high schools, according to a study from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Because education is so important to getting many higher-paying jobs, these under-resourced schools contribute to the high rates of incarceration and poverty that affect many predominantly African American neighborhoods. Inadequate education leads to reduced chances for a good-paying job, which in turn means that it may be easier to feed your family by participating in the illegal economy than the legal one.
Maryland’s criminal justice system has received a significant amount of attention since the unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray last April. There are more than 109,000 people supervised by the adult correctional system throughout Maryland, according to the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics estimate, and African Americans living in Baltimore have a much greater chance of being among this total.
People who have been in the criminal justice system often have a hard time getting a job once they are released. For example. Having a criminal record reduces the likelihood of a job callback or offer by approximately 50 percent.
Maryland’s state and local tax system also adds inequity. The state’s highest-income households pay the lowest percentage of their yearly earnings in state and local taxes, compared to middle-class and low-income households. African American Marylanders are nearly twice as likely as white Marylanders to be in the bottom 20 percent of income – so they are more likely to pay a higher share of their household incomes in state and local taxes.
All of these factors create obstacles for people of color who work hard and want to build a future for their families. It is important for policymakers to understand the racial equity impact of legislation they support or propose and to have uppermost in their minds the need to promote economic security for all Marylanders.
