Beyond Race, Building A Movement For Economic Fairness – The Baltimore Sun

A new study from the nonprofit Maryland Center on Economic Policy shows that the state’s poor and middle class pay a greater share of their annual income in state and local taxes than the wealthiest families do.

“Low- and moderate-income taxpayers, those making less than $67,000 and who are more likely to be people of color, pay the highest share of their household incomes in state and local taxes,” the report said. “The top 1 percent of Maryland taxpayers, those making more than $481,000, are more likely to be white and pay the lowest share of their household income in state and local taxes.”

The report said Marylanders in the lowest 20 percent (below $24,000 per year) pay an average of 9.7 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes while Maryland’s top 1 percent pays only 6.7 percent. (Our 1 percenters, the report says, average $1.6 million in annual income. The state leads the nation in millionaires per capita, according to a market study published in January.)

I’ve seen a lot of reports on income disparity and skewed taxes. But the report from the Maryland Center on Economic Policy stood out because of the racial factor in its analysis.

Here I was, seeing income inequality as a sprawling common ground for blacks, whites and browns — a place where race disappears and working-class outrage over economic disparity becomes a uniting, driving force. It presents a great opportunity for a broad coalition and a populist movement.

And yet there’s a racial divide even here.

The report said black Marylanders are nearly twice as likely as whites to be among the poorest 20 percent (less than $24,000 in annual income) while white Marylanders are almost twice as likely as blacks to be in the richest 20 percent (income greater than $111,000). The report said blacks and Hispanics pay more in taxes as a share of their income than do whites.

Benjamin Orr, executive director of the center, says his group based conclusions on census data.

“We don’t have actual taxes paid by race — tax records are confidential — so I can’t give you an exact figure,” he says. “What we do in this report is say that African-Americans are more likely to be making less than $24,000 per year. That income group [pays taxes] at a higher rate than those making more than $111,000, which is the group white Marylanders are most likely to be in.”

While economic disparities disproportionately affect blacks — about 323,000 “persons of color” were in Maryland households that made less than $45,000 a year in 2013, according to Orr — there were 332,000 whites in the same bracket. That’s more than 650,000 in the bottom 40 percent. That’s a good starting point for a coalition and a movement.

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