EXPERT REPORT OF THOMAS J. SUGRUE
Gratz, et al. v. Bollinger, et al., No. 97-75321 (E.D. Mich.)
Grutter, et al. v. Bollinger, et al., No. 97-75928 (E.D. Mich.)
XI. QUALITY OF LIFE: WEALTH AND HEALTH DIFFERENCES
In large part because of pervasive racial separation in residence, education, and opportunity, minorities and white Americans experience significantly different qualities of life. As a result, individuals from different racial and ethnic backgrounds have different expectations and perspectives on some of the most fundamental aspects of day-to-day life. There are stark racial and ethnic gaps in income, wealth, poverty, and health.
African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are far more likely than whites to be economically insecure. Hispanics, blacks, and American Indians are unemployed at twice the rate of whites. 58 The median household income of blacks is 62.6 percent of that of whites, Hispanics 63.9 percent of whites, and American Indians 55.6 percent of whites. 59 Minorities are also disproportionately poor. In the nation as a whole, each group has high rates of poverty (Table 11). The experience of poverty is not unfamiliar to minority children (Table 12). A large percentage of black and Hispanic children grew up poor; many more are likely to have near relatives who live in poverty. Michigan's minorities are also more likely to be living in poverty or at low economic status than their white counterparts.
The reasons for high rates of impoverishment among African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are many-fold. Blacks are most likely to live in areas that have been left behind by the profound restructuring of the national and international economy: major metropolitan areas, particularly in the northeast and midwest or underdeveloped and very poor areas in the "black belt" region of the deep South. In addition, many black families are headed by women, whose income alone is often insufficient to raise families above the poverty line. 60 Residential segregation has also led to a concentration of poverty in urban areas, such as Detroit. The experience of Hispanics is more varied. Hispanics of African descent or black Hispanics are the worst off, in part as a consequence of their long subordinate status in most Latin American countries; in part because they face similar discrimination by color that affects African Americans. Many Hispanic migrants and immigrants, particularly those from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic have been employed in the poorest paying, lowest status jobs in the United States, such as farm labor, household service, groundskeeping, and janitorial work. Educational deprivation and lack of language skills also limits many Hispanics' opportunities in the labor market. 61 American Indians, particularly residents of reservations, face staggeringly high rates of impoverishment, in large part because they were relegated to marginal lands, with few natural resources, that had little value for white American settlers. Among American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts who lived on reservations, native lands, or trust lands, poverty rates in 1990 exceeded 50 percent. 62
The experience of poverty among large segments of the minority population is noteworthy in its own right, but it also has far-reaching consequences for many middle-class and well-to-do minorities. The most detailed research on the cross-class effects of poverty concerns middle-class blacks. The black middle class has not, by and large, been able to escape poverty to the degree that middle-class whites have. To be sure, many well-to-do blacks have attempted to move to neighborhoods or communities away from poor and working-class people. But there is little evidence that they have been able to move far from poor people or that the degree of rich-poor separation among blacks has grown. As a consequence many middle-class blacks have direct experience with poverty and its consequences. 63 Middle-class black neighborhoods in cities are often "nestled between areas that are less economically stable," meaning that poverty and its consequences are seldom distant realities in their communities. 64 In addition, middle-class blacks are very likely to live in neighborhoods with large numbers of blue-collar workers, a trend much less likely among whites. 65 The proximity to poverty has many other consequences for middle-class African Americans. Blacks of all classes are more likely to be victims of crime. As Alba, Logan, and Bellair have shown, "[e]ven the most affluent blacks are not able to escape from crime, for they reside in communities as crime-prone as those housing the poorest whites." 66
The life experience of minorities is fundamentally different from that of whites in another crucial area: wealth. The median household net worth of blacks as of 1993 was only 9.7 percent of that of whites. Hispanics' median household net worth was only 10.2 percent of whites. The wealth gap persists at all levels of household income. The highest quintile of black households by income had only 36.5 percent the median net worth of the highest quintile of white households by income. Upper middle-class blacks and Hispanics -- those in the second highest income quintile -- had a median household net worth less than that of lower middle-class whites -- those in the second lowest income quintile. 67 Large gaps persist between blacks and whites at all levels of income, age, and education. The median net worth of blacks with college degrees is only 23 percent of the median net worth of whites with college degrees. 68 Part of the explanation for wealth differentials are that whites are more likely to own homes than either blacks or Hispanics. And the value of homes owned by blacks is significantly lower than that of whites. 69
The difference in wealth shapes the opportunities and outlooks of blacks, Hispanics, and whites in different ways. Whereas many whites can expect financial support at crucial junctures in their lives (going to college, getting married, buying a home) and inheritances as the result of their parents' accumulated wealth, few blacks and Hispanics can expect such good fortune. Because of the white-minority wealth gap, most black and Hispanic parents cannot offer substantial subsidies and bequests to their children. Wealth differentials are not just important in terms of life chances: they also shape attitudes. Whites are far more likely to express optimism about their future economic prospects than are members of racial and ethnic minority groups. This is in part the consequence of different expectations about the job market. But differential wealth shapes different expectations about family support and future wealth accumulation. 70
One of the most important indicators of quality of life is health. One's long-term expectations are shaped in fundamental ways by one's experience with illness, injury, and death from the care of a sick child or adult, to the economic impact of disease and disability, to the devastation of seeing a family member die, particularly in an untimely fashion. The racial and ethnic gaps in health and life expectancy are stark. The life expectancy of whites in 1995 was 76.1; for blacks, it was 69.8. The life expectancy gap between black men and white men was particularly large: white men can expect to live 73.4 years; black men can expect to live only 65.4 years. 71
Racial gaps in health are significant throughout the life course. Blacks and Hispanics are nearly twice as likely as whites to incur a fetal loss (a stillbirth or miscarriage) during pregnancy. Blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to have an induced abortion; Hispanics are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to have an induced abortion. 72 In 1994, infant mortality rates were nearly two-and-one half times as high for blacks as for whites, and fifty percent higher for American Indians. Blacks have significantly higher death rates than whites for most of the top fifteen leading causes of death in the United States (Table 13). 73
Throughout the life course, blacks are more likely than whites to die of homicide, residential fires, drowning, and pedestrian accidents. The gap in homicide rates is enormous. Black men have a rate of death by homicide nearly nine times greater than that of white men; the homicide rate for black women is nearly six times greater than that of white women. The gap between black and white homicide death rates is greatest among young men. Homicide is the leading cause of death for black men aged 15-44. The grim reality of violence affects large segments of black America, not merely the poor. A remarkable 70 percent of blacks surveyed stated that they knew someone who had been shot in the last five years, more than double the rate of whites. 74
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