theatlantic | There’s little disagreement
about the fact that economic inequality is problematic. But arguments
persist over its origins, solutions, and which economic gaps are
ultimately the most pernicious.
In his new book, Toxic Inequality: How America's Wealth Gap Destroys Mobility, Deepens the Racial Divide, and Threatens Our Future,
Tom Shapiro, a professor of law and sociology at Brandeis University,
lays out how government policy and systemic racism has created vast gaps
in wealth between white and black Americans. Shapiro and his colleagues
followed 187 families from Boston, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Half of
the families were black and half white. They interviewed them in 1998
and then again in 2010, to see what had changed: how were their kids
faring, how had they weathered the recession—were they any better off in
2010 than they had been in 1998?
I spoke with Shapiro
about his new book, how policy impacts racial wealth, and what he makes
of current conversations about race and economic pain.
The interview below has been lightly edited for clarity.
