At a time when the United States and its Western allies are struggling to determine the proper oversight of digital platform companies, the Chinese government is moving decisively ahead with its own plan. That China has designed regulations for these digital platform companies to stimulate competition and innovation should send a message to Western policymakers.

The new policies—ranging from competition enforcement to opening corporate data hoards—are an exercise of raw autocratic power. Apparently, one reason for the action is preservation of that power against the growing strength of the platform companies and their charismatic leaders. Another rationale for the move, however, is that the new enforcement will make Chinese digital platform companies more competitive and stimulate innovation.

Deflating Anti-Regulation Rhetoric

American digital platform companies, such as Facebook and Google, have long argued that regulation would not only put the U.S. at a competitive marketplace disadvantage to China, but a national security disadvantage as well. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, played the “competition with China” card when she told CNBC, “[w]hile people are concerned with the size and power of tech companies, there’s also concern in the United States with the size and power of Chinese companies, and the realization that these companies are not going to be broken up.”

Given this supposed “realization,” it is significant that the Chinese government itself has punctured that myth by reining in digital platform giants. “There have been over 50 regulatory actions against scores of [Chinese] firms for a dizzying array of alleged offenses, from antitrust abuses to data violations,” The Economist reported.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has promoted the supposed national security argument against regulation. He told CNN, “I worry that if you regulate for the sake of regulating, it has lots of unintended consequences…[including] implications for our national security.” Of course, no one advocating for oversight of digital platform companies has suggested regulation simply “for the sake of regulation,” but for the protection of consumers and marketplace competition. And the fact-of-the-matter is that a competitive marketplace drives innovation (and national security) better than a monopoly.

“Big Tech” Moniker is Misleading

The moniker “Big Tech,” which is frequently applied to digital platform companies, has helped perpetuate an American policy misconception that the consumer-market dominance of digital platform companies is essential to their ability to innovate in ways beneficial to national security.

China’s actions seem to be built on a contrary recognition: that there is a difference between “consumer tech” innovation that produces new consumer-facing services and the “deep tech” cutting edge innovation needed for national security. These “Big Tech” businesses are first and foremost consumer-facing companies whose principal activity is to pair information gathered from users with targeting sought by advertisers.

They may be technology companies insofar as they use technology such as the internet, the Internet Protocol suite standards, microchips, and other relevant technologies—most of which were developed by others (and often at taxpayer expense). While these companies have undoubtedly innovated to aid their activities, that doesn’t mean their development has either been done for—or is integral to—national security. Self-driving cars and new algorithms may have a tangential impact on national security, but the companies are developing them for their own purposes. In fact, their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders focuses such development on capabilities that further the interests of the company, not the country.[1] Social media, search, and commerce platforms are simply not a substitute for focused national security research and development.

Until the Chinese government’s recent action, these American companies loved to point to China as a bogeyman to justify their actions. “Mark Zuckerberg says breaking up Facebook would pave the way for China’s tech companies to dominate,” was the headline from his interview in Recode. Now, not only is China “breaking up” companies, but it is also “breaking open” the data hoards that made those companies dominant in the first place. Chinese companies will be required to share the data they have gathered. The Chinese state will have access to that data, but apparently so will companies that can use it for competitive purposes or for innovative development beyond the platforms’ purposes.

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has also proposed additional regulations, including prohibiting the use of “data, algorithms and other technical means” to influence user behavior or “hijack traffic, interfere or impose barriers” to the operation of other internet services. Just how such broad, ill-defined, and seemingly open-ended language is enforced remains to be seen, but it certainly would seem to open the door to aggressive intervention, should the government decide.

China’s actions could be described as “progressively autocratic” in that they adopt many of the market oversight policy suggestions made by progressives in Western democracies in proposals such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act. Make no mistake, the actions of the Chinese government are far removed from the processes of liberal democracies. Yet, China’s recognition that the anti-competitive and anti-consumer actions of their dominant digital platform companies do not have to be condoned because they are driving cutting-edge technological developments should be an eye-opener for Western democracies.

A Western Democratic Alternative

Consumer-facing platform companies on both sides of the Pacific have amassed huge amounts of personal data about individual citizens. “Right now, we have two versions of the internet,” Harvard’s Shoshana Zuboff explains, “a market-led capitalist version based on surveillance, which is exploitative; and an authoritarian version also based on surveillance.”

As the Chinese government utilizes the internet for non-democratic purposes, the question Zuboff asks is, “will Europe and North America pull together to construct the legal and technological frameworks for a democratic alternative?”

Such a democratic alternative begins with asserting the legitimate role of the government to protect the public interest. Because the U.S. government has failed to establish independent oversight of the platforms, digital platform companies have been able to act like pseudo-governments to create and impose policies which naturally benefit themselves. The introduction of a countervailing power to balance the control of these companies is essential – and can only be done through government oversight.

The decision-making process of liberal democracies is certainly more open, deliberative, and time-consuming than in China. As the United States and other Western governments move through that process, however, China’s recognition that reining in unsupervised consumer-facing monopolies not only promotes consumer welfare, but also technological advancement in support of national security is an important data point.

Facebook and Google are general, unrestricted donors to the Brookings Institution. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions posted in this piece are solely those of the author and not influenced by any donation.

1. See page 10 of Alphabet’s recent earnings report Q&A for an illustration.

      

Just a few months ago, we almost sang a song of triumph in the fight against the pandemic. The infection numbers drastically decreased in countries with high vaccination rates. The Tokyo Olympic Games ended without a big outbreak. Many sports leagues resumed their activities, like Major League Baseball and the English Premier League. We dreamed of a world that was back to normal.

And then the COVID-19 delta variant emerged and changed everything. Although there is still some debate around booster shots, distributing a booster shot and tackling vaccine hesitancy seem to be needed to end the pandemic. A recent Israeli study shows that the booster shot is 86 percent effective in preventing infection among the older population. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also reported that while vaccines show declining effectiveness against infection in general, they still show strong protection against hospitalization despite the variant. Once the model for defeating COVID-19, Israel is now facing a new stage of the pandemic—the infection count hit 8,000 as of August 17 (a month prior there were only 27 new cases) due to the delta variant. The booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine is more necessary than ever. The problem is encouraging people to get it.

In March and August 2021, the Social Policy Institute (SPI) at Washington University in St. Louis and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya launched two nationally representative surveys to understand vaccination trends in Israel. The second survey asked respondents’ intention to get a third booster shot if available. Through the survey we found:

• Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics were significant predictors of vaccination behaviors of Israelis in March 2021, but less so in August 2021.
• Throughout the pandemic, confidence in COVID-19 vaccines is a major factor in vaccine hesitancy.

Findings

Who are the unvaccinated Israelis?

To understand those who are vaccine hesitant, we investigated the demographic and socioeconomic correlates to vaccination in Israel. In March 2021, 61.5 percent of 1,517 respondents answered that they had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Notably, vaccination rates varied by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The logistic regression model estimated that males (65.7%), older adults (Generation X: 71.0%; baby boomers: 83.4%), parents with one child (66.8%), those with a bachelor’s degree (67.2%), those in higher-income groups (fourth quintile: 68.7%; fifth quintile: 72.4%), and employed respondents (64.5%) were more likely to get vaccinated than the average population (p <0.05). In contrast, those in the youngest adult group (i.e., millennials and Generation Z; 47.7%), Haredi Jews (49.2%), Arab Israelis (52.4%), and those in the lowest income quintile (52.1%) were significantly less likely to be vaccinated (p <0.05). That is, receipt of a vaccination dose was a function of Israelis’ demographic and socioeconomic conditions.

In August 2021, almost 9 out of 10 survey respondents (n=895; 89.1%) received one or more doses of the vaccine. Interestingly, most of the vaccination disparities that we observed in March were no longer present. However, Haredi Jews (78.0%) and Arab Israelis (82.7%) exhibited significantly lower vaccination rates (p<0.05), yet these disparities also disappeared when we limited the sample to those who had not been infected. In other words, disproportionate COVID-19 infection rates across ethnic/religious groups substantially explain the lower vaccination rates in minority Israeli communities who think they received immunity through sickness.

Who will not get a booster shot?

To understand who is not willing to get a booster shot, we first explore Israelis’ intentions. The results are quite similar to those in March. Overall, 66.9 percent of the survey respondents answered that they would get a booster shot if it was available. Similar to the results in March, males (72.1%), older adults (83.7%), and those with a bachelor’s degree (71.2%) were more willing to get the third shot (p<0.05). In contrast, females (63.1%), young generations (60.4%), and minority groups (e.g., Arab Israelis, 58.8%) hesitated to get another vaccine (p<0.05).

Vaccine hesitancy

The World Health Organization describes three reasons (3Cs) for not getting vaccinated—convenience, complacency, and confidence. Given that COVID-19 vaccines are highly accessible in Israel (and we asked “given COVID-19 vaccines are accessible”), we assume that the latter two—i.e., complacency and confidence―are the two driving factors for the vaccine hesitancy. That is, people would not get vaccinated because they think they don’t need it (complacency) or, they are concerned with vaccines’ effectiveness and/or safety (confidence).

Results from our survey suggest that confidence was the key reason for not getting a vaccine. In March, more than half of those who did not get a vaccine (51.7%) cited concerns over the vaccines’ long-term safety. Also, more than a fourth of the unvaccinated (25.7%) believed that COVID-19 vaccines would not be effective. Surprisingly, substantial numbers of the respondents exhibited mistrust of the government (30.3%) and pharmaceutical companies (31.0%). When asked about risk, only 9.2 percent of unvaccinated respondents answered that they refused a vaccine because COVID-19 was not fatal.

When we asked the same questions five months later (August 2021), confidence was still the main reason for anti-vaccine behaviors. However, people’s concerns about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines shifted. On one hand, respondent’s concerns with the long-term safety of vaccines were a bit alleviated (51.7% to 45.9%). On the other hand, a higher proportion of respondents questioned the effectiveness of the vaccines (25.7% to 39.8%) even though they observed how vaccines lowered COVID-19 cases. Interestingly, while people’s mistrust of pharmaceutical companies did not change substantially (31.0% to 34.7%), their mistrust of the government was lower (30.3% to 24.5%).

How information sources translate to vaccine hesitancy

Then, what affects people’s vaccination behaviors? We asked what source of information would influence the decision to get vaccinated. Our second survey (August 2021) shows that more people were influenced by information from experts, such as health care providers (80.0%) and scientific articles (75.6%), as well as family members (76.0%). Almost half of the respondents refer to opinions and information from friends (54.1%) and acquaintances (e.g., neighbors, colleagues; 47.2%). While two-thirds of the respondents (64.9%) reported that media affects their vaccination decisions, one-third answered that social networks impacted their decisions.

The disparity between those who did and did not get a vaccine is striking. Our logistic model estimates that people’s vaccination status is significantly related to their susceptibility to particular information sources regarding vaccination. For instance, people who are influenced by family members are 2.7 times more likely to get vaccinated (p <0.01). Also, those influenced by information from the press and the mass media are 2.2 times more likely to get a vaccine (p <0.01). Strikingly, those who rely on information from social media are 35 percent less likely to get vaccinated (p <0.05).

How to encourage people to get a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine

Our research shows that confidence in the booster shot matters. To encourage the third shot, we need to assure people that an additional booster shot is safe and effective. Our survey also shows that message and media matter—that is, the media is a pivotal pathway to convince the public. Our findings indicate that younger generations are the most hesitant to receive booster shots and social media is correlated with increased vaccine hesitancy. In order to combat this, an effective program should target youth with social media campaigns that promote scientifically sound information. We also need to devise a plan to address the spread of false information on social and other media channels. Although we have a better understanding of the board that we are playing on, the game is not yet over and vaccines still matter.

Along with the variation in willingness to get the vaccination across population groups and age groups, our data also shows that a major part of the vaccination action is determined by people’s perceptions. The more people are afraid of being infected with COVID-19, the more likely they are to get the vaccine, and the more they are afraid of the vaccine’s side effects or feel that there is not enough transparency in this regard, the less likely they are to get the vaccine. These three perceptions together—fear of COVID-19, fear of vaccine side effects, and belief in a lack of transparency—provide an explanation for approximately 40 percent of vaccination action, compared to approximately 20 percent explained by subpopulation affiliation. This suggests that information matters and therefore governments should invest much effort in conveying precise and transparent information to the public.

Israel’s experience vaccinating its population is a relevant example for the world, as it is a leading country with respect to the share of the population that is vaccinated and it is the first to broadly offer a third booster shot. Therefore, while the above recommendations are relevant to the Israeli government for improving its vaccination effort, they may be more effective for governments in the earlier stages of vaccination for which it is worthwhile to learn from the Israeli experience. It is also worth noting that the Israeli media extensively supports vaccination, whereas in the U.S. vaccination is more controversial. The conclusions from this study demonstrate how public perceptions about the decision to vaccinate are heavily influenced and shaped by the media.

      

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in a lot of different ways. Lower-wage workers have suffered far greater employment losses than high-wage workers, with employment slower to recover, as the W.E. Upjohn Institute found. Permanent job losses among Black workers have been almost twice those of white workers. Mothers have seen a much sharper decline in their labor force participation rate than fathers.

Beyond that, the COVID-19 disaster has hit geographies in divergent ways, though the causal effects have been variable and sometimes hard to sort out. For example, regions dependent on tourism and areas dependent on global supply chains—such as manufacturing and production centers in the industrial Midwest—have been disproportionately slammed.

Initially, large global city regions struggled while lower-density suburb, exurban, and rural areas experienced less illness. Later, new viral hotspots emerged in the South, West, and rural areas, where strict lockdown and masking measures were less common.

Now, the latest phase of the pandemic—with vaccines widely available but significant vaccine hesitancy and denialism in the face of the Delta variant—is tracing its own geography. And it is following and exacerbating the same intractable red-blue divide that has organized so much strife in America in recent years.

Since 2016, we have been analyzing the sharp divides in U.S. economic variables—whether they track output, employment, income, population density, or education levels—across the stubborn gap between “red” areas that voted for President Donald Trump and “blue” ones that have been voting Democratic. Now, as we explained to Bloomberg Businessweek last month, vaccine rates—a critical influence on economic recovery and growth—need to be added to that list of divides, as they will likely delay a return to normal in “red” communities.

Examining information on the local share of fully vaccinated people age 12 and above, county by county, we found that the vaccination rate in counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 was 61% late last month. In Trump-voting counties, by contrast, the vaccination rate was just 47%—a gap that has widened substantially since April.

That means that the vaccine divide—now aligned with the red-blue divide—will likely exacerbate the other economic divides that are already weakening the nation. Whereas the more heavily vaccinated blue counties will be better able to withstand the economic effects of the Delta variant, red communities will likely struggle as the virus keeps frustrated shoppers, travelers, and workers at home.

In sum, as unvaccinated communities—nurtured by the politization of the pandemic response—resist safety precautions, their lagging economies could fall further behind faster-recovering “blue” communities. This dynamic will likely serve to exacerbate the polarization of American society and stoke red county resentments of better-off, healthier blue county elites. As a result, the challenge of pulling our country together is greater than ever.

      

A coalition of 20 states recently filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the Biden administration had overstepped in extending anti-discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity. The federal agencies targeted by the litigation include the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit argues, for example, that the federal government cannot require schools to allow students to join athletic teams and use bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.

As with so much else happening in education today, the issue of transgender student rights is deeply partisan. Each of the 20 states involved—shaded orange in the map below—has a Republican attorney general spearheading the effort. Several Republican-leaning states—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, South Dakota and West Virginia—have enacted legislation or executive orders restricting transgender students’ participation in sports. Other legislative efforts have targeted bathroom and locker room access or restrictions on transgender medical care. Collectively, this legislative activity has made for the most active year to date for anti-transgender bills at the state level. Many states’ athletic associations also have issued guidance aimed to restrict transgender students’ access to team sports.

The specific legal issues involved are complicated and beyond the scope of this post. For those interested in more detail on these issues, Suzanne Eckes and Maria Lewis wrote an excellent primer on this blog last October.

Rather, we intend this post as a reminder—grounded in data—that when culture wars descend upon schools, vulnerable children are often caught in the crossfire. That is certainly the case with transgender students’ rights. The data available, limited as they are, reveal clear vulnerabilities among many students who identify as transgender.

Data on transgender students from the YRBS

We explored data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The CDC, in partnership with states and school districts, has administered the YRBS and related surveys since the early 1990s to monitor the health and well-being of U.S. high school students in most states. (Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington did not participate in 2019.) It contains a set of standard questions, asked of all students in schools randomly selected to participate. It also contains a few optional questions that states (and districts) can decide whether to include. One of these optional questions asks students whether they identify as transgender. (“Some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel about their gender. Are you transgender?”) Since this item appeared on the state YRBS but not the national YRBS, responses to this item are representative of the participating states but not necessarily the country as a whole.

In 2019, 15 states opted to include the transgender question in their YRBS (with Massachusetts including the question but not making its data publicly available). In doing so, these states not only provided a glimpse of what percentage of their high school students identify as transgender (roughly 2% by our calculations, which is similar to CDC estimates from the 2017 YRBS), but they also enabled researchers to examine these students’ experiences and well-being.

Notably, the states that included this question—shaded in blue in Figure 1 above—are completely distinct from the 20 states that filed the lawsuit against the Biden administration. As a result, we have the least data on transgender students’ experiences in the states that are most hostile to them legislatively. For transgender students, even data collection seems partisan.

While there is, of course, a great deal of variation within any subgroup of students, the YRBS data from states that asked about transgender identity paint a concerning picture. Figure 2 compares responses from transgender students (those who responded, “Yes, I am transgender,” to the item above) and cisgender students (those who responded, “No, I am not transgender”). Differences between transgender and cisgender students’ responses do not necessarily mean that identifying as transgender increases children’s victimization or mental health risk, but the differences are striking and provide insight into the difficulties that many transgender students face.

Transgender students are more than twice as likely as cisgender students in these states to report having been bullied at school (43% vs. 17%) and bullied online (34% vs. 14%) in the last 12 months. Over one-third did not go to school at least once in the last 30 days because they felt unsafe, and, jarringly, nearly as many (28%) reported being forced to have sex in the last 12 months. A majority (61%) of transgender students reported having felt sad or hopeless for two weeks, and disturbingly large percentages had considered (45%) or attempted (29%) suicide at least once in the last year. Across the board, these percentages are significantly higher than the corresponding percentages for cisgender students. Self-reported drug use by transgender-identifying students is also strikingly high, especially for harder drugs such as heroin and methamphetamines (as seen in the 2017 YRBS data).

Transgender students’ participation in team sports has become an especially relevant issue, and the YRBS contains an item, administered to students from select states, that asks “on how many sports teams did you play” during the past 12 months. In the states where we can disaggregate responses by gender identity and sports team participation status—Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, and Pennsylvania —we find that 42% of transgender students played at least one sport, compared to 52% of cisgender students. The survey does not ask whether these students played on teams aligned with their gender identity or sex assigned at birth.

This makes it possible to compare responses for transgender students who played team sports and transgender students who did not. Importantly, this does not allow for a causal interpretation of the effects of sports participation on transgender students’ mental health and well-being. There is too much that we can’t observe to make a causal analysis possible, such as personality differences between transgender children who play and don’t play sports.

Figure 3 shows victimization and mental health outcomes for transgender-identifying students, disaggregated by whether they reported playing on a sports team in the last year. We don’t see substantial differences between these groups. However, some of the samples are quite small and corresponding error bars quite large. For context, YRBS data also show similar outcomes between cisgender students who played sports and cisgender students who did not. (Though cisgender students who played sports were slightly less likely other cisgender students to have felt sad/hopeless and considered suicide.)

While the argument for making team sports accessible does not depend on sports participation having positive outcomes for transgender students, this is a topic worth exploring with richer data. Some research—on all students, not just transgender students—suggests possible (positive) links between youth sports participation and students’ longer-term mental health, psychological and social health, and educational and economic outcomes. Effects along these lines for transgender students are certainly plausible, as are negative effects from being denied opportunities on the basis of gender identity.

This brings us to our two primary takeaways.

The first is about data. Our ability to assess the mental health and needs of transgender students shouldn’t be limited to blue states or any other subset of states or districts. Hopefully, the YRBS item on gender identity will soon move from the optional list to the standard list of survey items. Beyond the YRBS, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has, during the Biden administration, prioritized resources and protections for transgender youth—and expanded its collection of civil rights data. OCR, as well as local and state leaders, could explore appropriate ways to collect data on transgender students’ experiences.

The second is about politics and people. Schools have long been a battleground for culture war issues, but seldom to the extent they are now. Whether the issue is critical race theory, masks, or transgender students’ rights, politicians—specifically, conservative politicians—are finding opportunities to score political points by running with controversial issues in schools. These actions have real consequences for children. Kids know when adults are talking about them, and they get the message when those adults are saying they’re unwanted. Transgender students, as a group, are especially vulnerable, and the numbers above should give anyone pause. We should be going out of our way to ensure that transgender students feel welcome and embraced, not excluded and ostracized.

      

During her unsuccessful 2017 campaign for mayor of St. Louis, Mo., Tishaura Jones wrote a powerful and stinging letter to Tod Robberson, editorial page editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, vowing to “look at every issue through a racial equity lens.” Then the city treasurer, Jones took aim at Robberson’s assertion that “neglect by city leaders” allowed for graffiti and blight. Instead of laying blame on people, Jones pointed to structural inequality.

“What is killing our city is poverty,” Jones wrote. “What is killing our region is a systemic racism that pervades almost every public and private institution.” She promised to “ask if every decision we make helps those who have been disenfranchised, red-lined and flat-out ignored for way too long.”

Jones ran for mayor again in 2021, and was elected this April. Just a few months into her tenure, she is making good on her promises for racial equity. She involved the public in participatory budgeting for decisions on how to spend $68 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds the city received. Within what the mayor’s office calls The People’s Agenda, Jones explains her approach: “Process is policy, and I believe that bringing in diverse perspectives will help us make wise investments and build a diversified portfolio.”

Adding to her progressive bona fides, Jones reallocated $4 million from the police budget by eliminating 98 vacant positions—a move that local Republican officials are seeking to block via the state legislature. And Jones’ commitment to close the Workhouse—the city’s medium-security jail, which community organizers critiqued for years for its substandard living conditions—has led to a sharp dispute among city leaders, which is delaying efforts to pass the city budget for next year.

These kinds of funding battles reveal the ongoing challenges that progressive leaders and activists face in their efforts to help marginalized communities in places marked by pronounced racial inequalities. Jones is right: Black communities in St. Louis are simply not getting needed public investments in critical areas such as school funding and the revitalization of vacant property. The city needs new budget priorities, rather than simply directing more resources into overpolicing and mass incarceration.

Incarceration isn’t an effective economic or community development strategy—nor is it a moral one. Cities can’t arrest families’ talent and breadwinners and then expect to achieve prosperity. Of course, safe streets with resilient homes and thriving businesses are important, in that it’s harder to get the kind of investments that drive economic and social mobility when people don’t feel safe getting to work or school. But as recent research from Philadelphia shows, community development can be a powerful tool for lowering crime while simultaneously increasing communal wealth and neighborhood resiliency.

In this report, we examine the nature of St. Louis’ racial inequalities, with particular attention to the intersection of poverty, incarceration, and educational disparities. We then highlight grassroots, citywide efforts to end mass incarceration and advance equitable development.

St. Louis’ Black residents experience poverty and incarceration at disproportionate rates

As part of her efforts to educate the public on the nature of the problem, Mayor Jones introduced an equity scorecard showing the numbers behind St Louis’ deep racial inequities. For instance, the scorecard shows that the city’s Black residents are more than three times as likely as white residents to live in concentrated poverty (defined as census tract areas where the poverty rate is greater than 40%), and nearly twice as likely to live in areas with low access to healthy food.

One main indicator of neighborhood-level poverty is lack of access to wealth-building opportunities through homeownership. The scorecard reports that there are almost eight times the number of home loan originations per capita in majority-white census tracts than in majority-Black census tracts, and more than nine times as much vacant land and buildings in majority-Black census tracts than in majority-white census tracts.

The racial disparities in financial outcomes can be seen at the individual level as well. St. Louis’ Black residents experience poverty, severe rent burdens, unemployment, and home loan denial at disproportionate rates, and are also less likely to work in high-wage occupations, own a home, or own a business. All of this translates to a large median household income gap, with white residents earning $55,000 annually while Black residents earn only $28,000.

These citywide racial disparities in income and wealth mirror those found statewide. A 2020 article from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reports that:

• Black Missourian households earned 62 cents per dollar of white Missourian income at the median.
• The typical (or median) white household in Missouri had an income of $58,000, whereas the typical Black household had $36,000.
• Over a quarter (26%) of Black Missourians were in poverty in 2018—over twice as high as that for white Missourians (11%).

As with wealth metrics, the city and the state also have parallel disparities in incarceration. Black people represent only 12% of the state’s population but are a staggering 39% of its incarcerated population. Much of this racial disparity is tied to the ongoing legacy of the war on drugs—a federal program explicitly aimed at Black communities that pumped billions of dollars into policing efforts in cities across the country. Today, Black people in Missouri are almost three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession (which itself accounts for 50% of drug arrests) than white people, according to a 2020 American Civil Liberties Union report.

The story is not much better in the city itself. According to the equity scorecard, St. Louis’ Black residents are four times as likely to be incarcerated than white residents, and four times as likely to be serving probation. Black residents are also subject to more traffic stops and arrests, and Black-majority neighborhoods experience more use-of-force incidents. Black people’s drug use has been criminalized, and that racial bias has led to excessive levels of imprisonment and punitive sentencing practices. Police budgets are a vestige of that discrimination.

Mapping how poverty and incarceration intersect

The disparities in financial outcomes are deeply connected to those found in the justice system, restricting economic mobility and opportunity for Black people. Opportunity Insights’ research on social mobility demonstrates that future life outcomes for adults are deeply rooted in the demographic characteristics of the specific neighborhoods where they grew up. This research is vital for illuminating why the racialized rates of concentrated poverty at the neighborhood level are so damaging for St. Louis’ Black population.

Using Opportunity Insights’ Opportunity Atlas data, we created a map of St. Louis that illustrates how growing up in Black-majority neighborhoods drastically increases the chances of being incarcerated as an adult. Opportunity Atlas tracks a neighborhood’s children into adulthood, with one metric being adult incarceration status. We show the mean outcome of males who grew up in these neighborhoods as the fraction incarcerated on April 1, 2010. We define “low incarceration” as fewer than three in 100, and “high incarceration” as greater than 10 in 100. We define “Black-minority neighborhoods” as neighborhoods with less than 5% Black population, and “integrated neighborhoods” as neighborhoods with between 5% and 49.9% Black population.

This map shows the stunning local variance in incarceration rates based on the neighborhood of where children grow up in the city. While St. Louis has an overall incarceration rate of 4%, some Black-majority neighborhoods have rates as high as 20%; these are places where poverty rates are as high as 56%. The severity of this variance extends to health outcomes, such that ”residents of zip codes separated by only few miles have up to an 18-year difference in life expectancy,” according to a 2015 report.

This map fits with research from Adam Looney and Nicholas Turner, who found that nationwide, those from the poorest quintile are significantly more likely to be incarcerated than those in the middle and top income quintiles.

The connection between poverty and incarceration underscores the importance of Mayor Jones’ belief that “St. Louis must focus on its most vulnerable populations to address core problems first, rather than respond to people’s needs with arrest and incarceration.” But to achieve that vision, the mayor and other elected officials will need to continue to work with grassroots organizers as well as other community leaders, businesses, and philanthropic foundations.

Learning from the grassroots effort to close the Workhouse jail

To pursue equity, it is important to have robust data collection that can help leaders identify disparities. But without decisive action from committed leaders, data alone cannot solve the problems facing St. Louis and other cities. To act on the data, cities need leaders with moral vision on how best to leverage resources and strategies to achieve important goals. Prioritizing budgets to meet Black communities’ needs should include efforts to hear from and invest in the very people who’ve been penalized by biased criminal justice policy. In this section, we highlight on-the-ground activism that has helped shape the equity agenda in St. Louis.

The Close the Workhouse (CTW) campaign, driven by local organizational partners ArchCity Defenders, Action St. Louis, and the Bail Project-St. Louis, has sought to close the infamous jail and reinvest its budget into the community. It reflects years of community organizing efforts leading up to Mayor Jones’ April decision to defund the jail. And while the future of the Workhouse is still uncertain, the campaign to close it provides a good model in local activism.

In an article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, CTW campaign leader Blake Strode and Amplify Fund director Amy Morris described what their partnership taught them about building trust and sharing power.

Strode is “a proud native son of St. Louis, a queer Black man and a former athlete-turned-litigator-turned-executive director.” His organization, ArchCity Defenders, works with “people seeking to rebuild their lives after being targeted and punished by a criminal legal system of police, courts, and jails in communities struggling to overcome decades of neglect, disinvestment, state violence, and exploitation.”

Morris, in contrast, is a white woman from out of state. Morris leads the Amplify Fund at Neighborhood Funders Group—a “pooled grantmaking fund with twin goals: Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) should have more power to influence decisions about the places where they live, and philanthropy should have a clear model for equitable development centered in racial justice.”

In the article, Strode explained that finding initial funding sources for the campaign was difficult, both because “CTW’s goals and political frame directly challenge the kind of power and privilege held by philanthropy” and because “funders responded that our initiative was insufficiently ‘measurable’ or ‘practical.’” Fortunately, CTW was the exact type of project that the Amplify Fund was looking to fund. But to be successful, Morris wrote that both she and her organization needed to reckon with the ways that previous white-driven philanthropy from outside the local community “exacerbated negative dynamics between leaders in the region and unknowingly deepened generational, political, and gender divisions between groups.”

The successful partnership between ArchCity Defenders and the Amplify Fund illustrates that great things can happen when outside capital is connected to community insiders who have a stake in the work and who are trusted by their community.

As St. Louis’ local leaders and activists work to build a more equitable city, the CTW campaign can serve as a model for achieving precise goals through coordinated action at the grassroots level. Ultimately, however, these campaigns need to be incorporated into a broader push for equitable development that can mitigate concentrated poverty and provide greater economic opportunity for everyone.

Student debt is holding back equitable development

When it comes to increasing Black wealth, civic leaders often focus narrowly on increasing postsecondary education. This is certainly an important goal, given that education provides social mobility for students born into low-income households or neighborhoods with concentrated poverty. Yet boosting Black postsecondary attainment is an intermediate goal; the larger aim is increasing Black wealth. And that aim is undermined by student debt.

A recent St. Louis city partnership (funded by the Lumina Foundation) between St. Louis Graduates, the St. Louis Regional Chamber, and other organizations provides one example of how to invest in residents by making college more attainable with less debt. This partnership builds on a 2017 Lumina Foundation report that highlighted best practices for schools, including emergency grants and flexible financial aid for low-income students. The partnership also allows for coordination on student advising and degree planning efforts that make degree completion easier. This and similar initiatives designed to improve educational attainment need to explicitly center racial equity, including by addressing racial wage gaps in St. Louis’ labor market, which are present at every level of educational attainment.

Nevertheless, focusing on individual educational attainment alone cannot address the surrounding economic conditions of neighborhoods and communities that are underinvested and consigned to concentrated poverty. In order to address Black wealth as a place-based issue, St. Louis needs a broader vision for economic development.

Recently, Mayor Jones has appointed Neal Richardson, a Black man, as the new executive leader of the St Louis Development Corporation (SLDC), a not-for-profit organization that works to attract private investment and coordinate economic development. In a profile in The St. Louis American, Richardson explained his focus on racial equity as part of a vision for economic justice, saying, “Economic justice is really being able to address the historical barriers and economic inequities that have prevented everyone from being able to contribute, have ownership in our economic future.”

This approach to economic development is a marked improvement on previous approaches, which have focused on adding jobs to the downtown area while simultaneously razing Black-majority neighborhoods in North St. Louis. Richardson’s previous work, by contrast, involved leading an organization that paid minority contractors and students to revitalize vacant property in those same neighborhoods, creating communal wealth by improving underutilized assets.

Richardson explained that to close racial wealth gaps, “we need to have interventions in our policies and procedures,” listing tax incentive allocation and workforce development investment as examples. Interventions will also need to consider the connections between incarceration and mental health and place-based social determinants of physical health. These investments must be directly focused on building wealth, capacity, and opportunity among Black people who’ve been penalized by biased policy.

The stakes are high. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately hurt Black Missourians, including those in St. Louis. But even before the pandemic, decades of racial injustice in development left the city’s Black communities and residents locked in intergenerational poverty. Without bold action, cycles of disinvestment, environmental degradation, and lack of opportunity will continue to divide the city and depress the local economy.

But if St. Louis can deliver on the promise of racial equity in its development, it can decrease concentrated poverty, increase citywide opportunity, and add an estimated $14 billion to its regional economic output. The vision Mayor Jones and other leaders are pursuing shows that there is a better way forward for the city.

      

Guinean special forces oust president and dissolve government

On Sunday, September 5, Guinean special forces led by Col. Mamady Doumboya announced on state television that they had removed President Alpha Condé from office and dissolved the current government. In the announcement, Doumboya indicated that military officials would rewrite Guinea’s constitution and also accused Condé of human rights abuses and corruption. Condé, who was elected to a third term in October following a controversial amendment to the constitution allowing him to extend his stay in power, remains in an undisclosed location, according to the country’s military. Social unrest in the country had been building in advance of the coup, particularly after Condé’s government oversaw violent crackdowns on those protesting the constitutional amendment that led to the deaths of 92 protestors over several months.

In response to the coup, leaders of the 15-country Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) suspended Guinea from the regional bloc on Wednesday and sent a delegation to meet with the junta behind the coup. The African Union (AU) followed ECOWAS in suspending Guinea from its decisionmaking bodies and related activities, stressing the importance of diplomatic efforts to guide Guinea toward a civilian-led, constitutional government.

In related news, the price of aluminum skyrocketed this week as buyers feared supply disruptions in Guinea, which has the world’s largest reserve of bauxite, an ore that’s the most common source of aluminum.

Côte d’Ivoire discovers new oil and gas reserves

Last week, Italian oil company Eni announced the discovery of a large oil and natural gas field off the coast of Côte d’Ivoire. A deepwater exploration detected the field at a depth of 3,445 meters (11,300 feet) and produced estimates that it contains as many as 2 billion barrels of oil and more than 50 million cubic meters of natural gas. In reaction to the news, the Ivorian Energy Ministry stated that the field would “greatly increase Ivory Coast’s proven reserves in coming years.” The discovery reveals yet another oil field off the Ivorian coast: In total, Côte d’Ivoire has identified 51 onshore and offshore oil fields, of which 21 are still untapped.

Also in Côte d’Ivoire, substantial rainfalls across most of the nation’s cocoa-growing regions bode well for crop yields this year, according to farmers in the region. The rains come weeks before Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, will begin its primary harvest season. In 2019, cocoa and cocoa byproducts accounted for almost 40 percent of the country’s exports. This week, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire agreed to cooperate on cocoa pricing after Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, reported that last year’s cocoa bean harvest of 1.1 million metric tons was its largest on record.

Africa’s vaccination campaign hits hurdles as COVAX lowers vaccine delivery goals

On Thursday, September 9, World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Director Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, announced that, for various reasons, Africa will receive 25 percent fewer doses than originally anticipated for the year. This statement came after a declaration on Wednesday from COVAX that is was lowering its delivery goal to 1.425 billion doses instead of its previous goal of 2 billion. According to a joint statement by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, and other involved organizations, the decision to lower the COVAX target is due to export restrictions of the Serum Institute of India as well as manufacturing problems at Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca facilities.

Criticisms of many developed countries’ vaccine policies are on the rise, as the U.S. recently announced it would make booster shots available to its population: In fact, on Thursday, September 9, Moeti stated, “in the past week, the COVAX Facility delivered over 5 million doses to African countries—while the United States has thrown away three times that amount of doses during the pandemic.” In addition, countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany have secured enough vaccines for five times their populations.

Experts predict that, at the current pace of vaccinations, Africa will remain far behind the rest of the world: In fact, forecasting by The Economist Intelligence Unit predicts that most countries in Africa will not achieve widespread vaccination until the year 2023 while others such as the Unites States will achieve the goal later this year. Indeed, the region is far behind the rest of the world in obtaining and distributing the vaccine due to a myriad of challenges, including supply, cost, poor infrastructure, few cold chain storage facilities, and patient hesitancy, among other constraints.

For more information on vaccine equity and strategies for accelerating the rollout in Africa, join the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative on September 15 for the event, “Accelerating COVID-19 vaccinations in Africa.”

      

Twenty years ago, I sat in a classroom on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with around 40 peers. We were concentration-shopping — the ritual through which students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) received presentations by faculty explaining the various courses of study available to them. This particular session was devoted to international security policy, and the content was being delivered by its then-director, the venerable Dick Betts. I remember very clearly watching Betts step behind the lectern to make the following statement with frank and unsentimental seriousness: “You may not be interested in war. But war is interested in you.” Some number of people tittered at what I presume they found to be the melodrama in the moment; the following Tuesday was September 11, 2001.

Betts’ caution reminds us that violent conflict has been a feature of all of human history and so we ought to understand it and to prepare for it. It also alerts us that war is opportunistic, that it can start and spread as a result of accidental events, seemingly mundane decisions, and a conspiracy of circumstances that arise when we are arrogant or inattentive.

The United States’ 20-year-long intervention in Afghanistan is a painful example of a failure to heed Betts’ warning in both ways. It is evidence that the United States has yet to let go of a mistaken set of beliefs about what brute force war can, and cannot, achieve. And, too, it is difficult to review the chronology of choices the U.S. government made in Afghanistan without seeing a steady accumulation of opportunities for the war to expand in space, to change in character, and to extend over time. This is not mission-creep — it is war doing what war does.

The post-Cold War environment was permissive of these misunderstandings and missteps, and relatively lenient in its imposition of costs on the United States. Those days are over. The consequences of misapplying brute force, and of neglecting or mistaking how to actively guard against war, will be harsh and unforgiving during a period of aggressive competition among powerful states.

This change is not lost on the defense community today, and there is a considerable amount of attention being given to the conjoined matters of how to prepare for great power war and how to prevent it. Both concerns arise specifically from worries about China’s intentions over Taiwan and about Russia’s designs on NATO’s eastern front. These scenarios have brought deterrent strategies back into fashion, and momentum is gathering behind the idea that deterrence is best achieved by amassing high-tech conventional warfighting superiority.

History informs us, however, that deterrence is never as logical, straightforward, and simple in practice as it seems it should be. Machine learning, autonomy, hypersonics, and other advanced technologies doubtless should and will be brought into military use but doing so doesn’t ensure deterrent effect, and neither is seeking to deter China and Russia selfsame as guarding against war. To the contrary, to the extent that the United States does not adequately account for how its own approach to integrating these technologies into its deterrent strategies can cause misperception, instability, and miscalculation, it does not minimize opportunity for war — it creates it.

This is never more true than during periods of flux and transition, when policymakers are subjected to the unsteadying influences of broken patterns, unusual events, and an inability to discern trends or anticipate future trajectories. Periods of rapid and pronounced technological change make deterrence especially tricky, as the possible applications of new tools used in new ways are many and their implications uncertain.

All of these dynamics are not just present but pronounced today, and we should be wary of their interaction with our defense strategy. Enhancing our warfighting capabilities with advanced technologies doesn’t guarantee deterrent success, and it won’t improve our skill at distinguishing between what brute force can and can’t achieve. It might, in fact, degrade it — having a fancier hammer, after all, might tempt us to see more nails rather than fewer, or to believe the hammer can do a scalpel’s job. So too might the promise of emerging technologies lure us into making a series of choices that individually seem innocuous under the banner of deterrence but that accrue to create mistrust and foment international instability.

An era of great power competition will not accommodate confusion about the uses and limitations of brute force, nor will it treat gently decisions made from ego, optimism, or wishful thinking. Wise defense strategy must now emerge from worst-case scenario planning, where strategies are based not on assumptions about what deters war but rather are tested for failures that might cause it. Emerging technologies cannot be pursued as panaceas, but must be chosen selectively to balance their benefits to us with the risks and threats they pose to others and to international stability. To do otherwise is either to forget or to willfully neglect the lessons of Afghanistan and to believe, mistakenly, that we can manage the consequences of war once again being interested in us.

      

The dramatic scenes from Kabul Airport of desperate Afghans seeking to escape reverberated around the world. The U.S., other governments, and a hodge-podge assortment of private groups succeeded in evacuating more than 120,000 people in the space of a couple of weeks. This was an impressive achievement, but also a chaotic one. And the chaos continues as Afghans are arriving in the U.S. by the thousands with different legal statuses which means different access to benefits.

In addition to U.S. citizens and permanent residents and citizens of allied countries, the U.S. evacuated more than 65,000 Afghans of whom 24,000 have already arrived in the U.S., 23,000 are on U.S. military bases abroad, and 20,000 are waiting in other countries. All are going through strenuous security vetting procedures. Some have Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs); some are in varying stages of the arduous process of applying for an SIV. Some, admitted as refugees or SIVs have access to benefits and a clear pathway to becoming legal permanent residents (green card holders) and eventually U.S. citizens. But the vast majority of the Afghans coming to the U.S. are being admitted through Humanitarian Parole—a process that has been used in the past to quickly process designated groups, such as Cubans and Kurds, who needed to be moved immediately. Humanitarian parole has the advantage of allowing people to enter quickly and was administratively the only way to admit large numbers of Afghans. U.S. resettlement agencies have been warned to expect arrivals of 75,000 Afghans, almost all under humanitarian parole in the next few weeks.

There remains a reservoir of experience in resettling refugees among U.S. government agencies, state and local authorities, Afghan diaspora groups, refugee resettlement agencies, and communities. We know how to resettle refugees.

The U.S. has a long and proud history of resettling refugees. At least until the Trump administration decimated the program, systems were in place to ensure that refugees were welcomed at airports, settled into apartments; received social security cards; accessed Medicaid; and helped to find jobs, learn English, enroll kids in school and other services intended to support their adjustment to American life. In the past funding has never been enough, and refugees have always struggled to make their way in the U.S., to deal with schools and supermarkets, and often to find jobs significantly below their qualifications. The road for resettled refugees was always hard—even during refugee-supportive administrations. Until the Trump administration, refugee resettlement enjoyed not only broad bipartisan support in Congress but widespread public support. Refugees were warmly welcomed in red and blue states. Those systems and the support behind them were badly hurt during the Trump years. But there remains a reservoir of experience in resettling refugees among U.S. government agencies, state and local authorities, Afghan diaspora groups, refugee resettlement agencies, and communities. We know how to resettle refugees.

The problem now is that most Afghans are not arriving as refugees, but under humanitarian parole. This enabled them to be moved quickly—a speed not afforded to traditional refugees. Going through the regular refugee resettlement process takes around two years and normally is not carried out in the U.S. So, it’s a good thing that humanitarian parole was used; it was intended to be used in precisely these kinds of emergencies. We don’t yet know much about the Afghans who have arrived—whether they have families in the U.S. that can take them in or whether they have resources although, it’s unlikely that most of the refugees arrived with sufficient cash to furnish an apartment, pay the security deposit on utilities, or acquire a phone. The government has been able to mobilize some emergency funds to provide small grants to refugees and secure 30 days’ access to Medicaid. But what happens when they don’t have medical insurance and the small grant runs out? Moreover, humanitarian parole is temporary—for two years—during which time the Afghans will need to adjust their status; some may be able to legalize their status through family reunification or other immigration processes. But most will need to apply for asylum—a system that presently has a backlog of 1.4 million cases.

Congressional action is needed to assure that all arriving Afghans have access to refugee benefits and that they can adjust their status without going through the onerous asylum process, which in spite of recent proposals to speed up the system, can still take years. This type of legislative action has been done in other cases and urgently needs to be passed now. The Biden administration should also consider using already-approved refugee admission places for Afghan refugees.

We also need action to enable refugees who didn’t make it on those chaotic evacuation flights to be admitted to the U.S. as refugees.

Fewer than 10,000 refugees have been admitted so far this fiscal year—a fiscal year which ends in a few weeks—of the 62,500 refugee ceiling. This could be a quick and relatively uncontroversial fix to a desperate humanitarian situation. We also need action to enable refugees who didn’t make it on those chaotic evacuation flights to be admitted to the U.S. as refugees. Refugees International has proposed humanitarian corridors and some form of in-country processing so that Afghans at risk don’t have to leave the country to be admitted to the U.S. as refugees. This will be complicated but we have done it before: in Vietnam in large numbers and in Central America in very small numbers.

Afghans seeking refugee status are likely to end up all over the world—in South America, Africa, Asia—and more guidance is needed about how they will be processed as refugees. Under the U.S. refugee program, Priority 1 is for individual cases where resettlement is urgently needed and almost always come through United Nations referrals. Priority 2 is for groups of special humanitarian concern to the U.S. and Priority 3 is for family members of resettled refugees. In August, the Biden administration announced that Afghans who don’t qualify for an SIV visa, are now eligible for a Priority 2 (P2) designation, including those who worked for the U.S. government or a U.S.-based NGO or media company. This was an important move. But there are other Afghans at risk—such as women’s rights activists or women mayors or judges—who should be included in this designation. This would also be a good time to look at the U.S. refugee system which has gotten incredibly complicated and bureaucratic over the years to see if some of the processes could be simplified and sped up.

The U.S. public is ready to welcome the Afghan refugees. Public opinion polls show that a strong majority favor allowing refugees to resettle. Heart-warming stories of local communities bringing food and furniture to newly-arriving Afghans are popping up in the media. Governors of both parties have shown traditional bipartisan support for resettlement with their willingness to do what they can to assist refugees. Our communities will respond generously and compassionately, but we need strong government policies to ensure that the refugees get the support they need.

The whole world watched the flights taking off at Kabul Airport, and the world is watching now to see how Afghans are received. We need to get this right. The Biden administration and Congress need to act and act quickly to provide medical coverage and financial assistance to the arriving Afghans and allow them to adjust to permanent residence status.

  ***

Elizabeth Ferris is a former Senior Fellow at Brookings and now a Research Professor at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration.  She also serves on the board of Church World Service, one of the 9 agencies resettling refugees.

      

This week in Class Notes:

• Adult children and women play the crucial role in Black extended family networks.
• The wage premium of lesbian women has declined over time.
• More immigrant students in schools has no effect on their native-born peers and some positive impact on their own wellbeing.
• This week’s top chart shows that the gender pay gap for business majors is driven in part by the greater risk tolerance of men.
• Michael Strain argues for a focus on expanding the supply of child care rather than subsidizing demand, in this week’s choice op-ed.
• Check out our latest piece on how to improve the fortunes of America’s working class.
• For your calendar: virtual events exploring how systemic racism impacts health outcomes, how to ensure high-quality college programming in prisons, and how direct philanthropic cash assistance has helped during COVID-19.

Adult children and women play the crucial role in Black extended family networks

Black family networks play a vital role in the exchange of emotional, financial, and caregiving support. While previous research has focused on differences between Black and white families, Robert Joseph Taylor and his colleagues look at the reasons for variation among Black families. Using nationally representative data from the African-American sub-sample of the National Survey of American Life, they find that women and younger adults are most likely to provide and receive support within extended family networks. Younger Black women therefore serve as crucial pillars in their families, due to their high levels of involvement within their family networks, as well as within the labor force. Younger adult children are often the primary caregivers to their older parents, which means that older adults without children often lack social support, along with ex-prisoners and military veterans.

The wage premium for lesbian women has declined over time

M.V. Lee Badgett, Christopher S. Carpenter, and Dario Sansone summarize recent research on LGBTQ economic characteristics and family structures. Notably, those who identify as gay or lesbian are more educated and less likely to be married or to have children, compared to those who identify as straight or bisexual. However, lesbian women were four times more likely than gay men to have children in their household (20% versus 5%). Using data from the American Community Survey, the authors find that the previously high wage premium for lesbians (20% in 1990) had virtually disappeared by 2018. Lesbian couples also have the lowest family income among all couple types, because of a double gender pay gap.

The field of LGBTQ economics is of course very new, with sparse data and many questions needing to be answered – including the outcomes for transgender individuals, and how LGBTQ people of color fare in the labor market. As the authors conclude, “there are numerous research opportunities for health economists, public economists, development economists, economic historians, and macroeconomists to contribute their expertise to research questions addressing this important population.”

More immigrant students in schools has no effect on their native-born peers and some positive impact on their own wellbeing

As the share of immigrant students in U.S. schools increases, how does this affect outcomes, both for native and foreign-born students? Jason Fletcher and his fellow authors use a quasi-experimental design that exploits within-school, across-grade variation to assess the academic or social effects of attending a school with more foreign-born students. With data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, they find no statistically significant impact on U.S.-born students in any domain. The picture for foreign born students was mixed, however. Relative to native students, they saw improvements in social acceptance, mental health, risky health behavior, and academic effort. But there was a downward impact on vocabulary scores, which translated into fewer years of schooling long-term. Perhaps surprisingly, these negative effects did not appear to influence socioeconomic outcomes in adulthood. Most of these effects seem to be explained by stronger friendship networks among foreign-born students.

Top chart: Gender pay gap for business majors partially driven by greater risk tolerance of men

This week’s top chart shows the gender gap for business studies college majors, over the period of job search before and after graduation. Men earned more on average, in part because of their willingness to hold out for a higher-paying job offer. But many men were also victims of overconfidence, ending up with a lower wage than a previous offer.

Choice opinion: Focus on increasing the supply for child care rather than subsidizing its demand

“Instead of subsidizing demand [for child care], Congress should try to boost the supply of providers. This would reduce — not raise — the cost of care,” writes Michael R. Strain. “One way to do this would be to reduce regulation around child-staff ratios… Other regulations to consider are minimum qualifications for workers and size limits on classrooms. Another way… is to make sure that any subsidies can be used to compensate grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and other care providers in informal networks. The focus shouldn’t exclusively be on getting more kids into commercial centers.”

Self-promotion: How to improve the fortune of America’s working class

Gary Burtless and Isabel V. Sawhill propose some policies to improve the fortunes of America’s working class. A primary goal is to maintain a tight labor market in order to maximize employment and lengthen economic expansions. This could be done with more robust automatic stabilizers, including refinancing state unemployment insurance funding, and increasing the matching funds rate for federal-state medical and social service programs during recessions. Policies that strengthen workers’ bargaining power – for example through higher rates of union membership or training – can benefit workers and their employers. Finally, more generous wage subsidies, gradual increases to the minimum wage, and increased fringe benefits financed by a payroll tax on workers are all viable ways to boost working-class incomes.

For your calendar: Virtual events on systemic racism and health outcomes, high-quality college programming in prisons, and direct philanthropic cash assistance amid COVID-19

Racism and the economy: Focus on health

Thursday, September 9, 2021 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT

U.S. Federal Reserve System

Philanthropic support for direct cash assistance during the COVID-19 crisis: What have we learned?

Monday, September 13, 2021 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT

Urban Institute

College education in prisons: A how-to guide for corrections officers

Thursday, September 16, 2021 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

RAND Corporation

      

Evidence has been mounting in recent months that the Chinese leadership may be implementing a hard pivot toward asserting greater state control of society and the economy. In the months following Beijing’s surprise November 2020 decision to block Alibaba’s Ant Group from listing on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges, Chinese authorities have launched a widening series of crackdowns on technology giants, wealthy individuals, education services providers, celebrities, and even youth video gamers. Restraints on Beijing’s interventions in society and the economy have become harder to identify.

Beijing’s spate of actions has sparked questions among policymakers, investors, journalists, and interested observers about what is motivating China’s actions. Why would the normally tightly controlled Chinese media communicate such sweeping changes in a ham-fisted way that would lead to over $1 trillion in market value for China-listed firms being wiped out? Is China teetering on the cusp of social upheaval, or is the leadership using a moment when it feels strong at home to make major policy adjustments?

What is happening?

According to China business and technology reporter Chang Che, China has 14 “crackdowns” simultaneously underway on business sectors and individuals at the time of this writing. Many — though not all — of the crackdowns fall under the umbrella of the concept of “common prosperity.” President Xi Jinping highlighted this concept during his comments to the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs on August 17, suggesting that “common prosperity” is a fundamental requirement of socialism and is necessary to balance growth and financial stability. Following its meeting, the committee called for “reasonably adjusting excess incomes” and encouraging high-income individuals and businesses to “give back more to society.”

This sweeping series of regulatory measures has sparked a rare public debate inside China. On one side are those favoring bold measures leading to a broad reorienting of China’s economy and society. A previously low-profile blogger, Li Guangman, captured this sentiment in an essay that went viral and was republished online by party and state-controlled media. In his essay, Li called for a “profound revolution” to correct the inequalities that capitalism has wrought.

On the other side are more establishment-minded advocates of reforms to steadily advance social progress while still nurturing conditions conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship. One of the proponents of this view, Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the nationalist Global Times newspaper, has chastised those arguing for “revolution,” suggesting that such loose rhetoric arouses unwelcome comparisons to previous eras of tumult inside China.

Historical context

The concept of “common prosperity” has deep roots in the Chinese Communist Party. Party mouthpiece People’s Daily first used the term in a headline on December 12, 1953, as part of an effort to bolster the case for socialism over capitalism. Capitalism, the newspaper warned, would allow a few to get rich while the vast majority of people remained poor.

As China Media Project Director David Bandurski has chronicled, under former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, China’s propagandists turned the argument on its head, suggesting instead that “allowing some peasants to get rich first is a practical policy to achieve common prosperity.” They suggested it would be better to allow some to get rich first and then pull others up behind them.

In the decades since, China’s economy boomed and social inequality rose. These twin developments prompted the Chinese Communist Party to launch a war to stamp out poverty. Beijing commendably succeeded in eradicating extreme poverty in China earlier this year. Even so, there still are still some 600 million workers who live off a monthly income of $154 or less. The fact that a poor population nearly twice the size of the full population of the United States lives alongside a wave of first-generation billionaires and millionaires who consume nearly half of all luxury goods sold globally creates complexities for social cohesion in China.

In launching a recent wave of actions to redress social inequality and economic disparity, China’s leaders may view themselves as correcting some of the excesses of Deng’s decision to “let some people get rich first.” Such efforts align with Xi’s efforts to recast himself from a princeling to a populist leader. As some of the initial awe of Xi’s anti-corruption efforts begins to fade, his efforts to champion greater equality, including by soaking the rich, presents Xi a new opportunity to align with the people against the powerful. Such efforts also have a corollary benefit of chastening China’s new oligarchs against challenging his authority or that of the Chinese Communist Party in governing China.

Xi Jinping also is a committed believer in the superiority of China’s governance model. He may believe the recent wave of crackdowns is necessary to bring about socialism at home to differentiate from capitalism as practiced in the West. To do so, an important step is redistributing wealth, leveling opportunity for social advancement, and reducing social inequalities. A more conventional approach for advancing these objectives might be to implement measures such as a property tax, a more progressive income tax, or an inheritance tax, but those measures would be controversial and likely resisted by party elites.

There also may be a national security dimension to the Chinese leadership’s decision to pursue such wide-ranging crackdowns. In a speech to the Central Party School on September 1, Xi spoke darkly of mounting challenges to China’s rejuvenation. He suggested that complexities resulting in “changes unseen in a century” were intensifying, and told cadres, “It is unrealistic to expect a peaceful life without struggle.” He appeared to be seeking to mobilize people for the possibility of growing challenges on the horizon.

The Chinese leadership also appears to be signaling that it wants to exercise greater say in where resources are allocated within society to meet future challenges. They do not seem to be dazzled by improvements to e-commerce platforms, video games, or food delivery services. Rather, they appear to want talent and capital focused on strengthening China’s competitive position in key strategic sectors, such as high-end manufacturing, green technology, semiconductor production, electric vehicles, and other national priorities that were identified in the Made-in-China 2025 initiative and the 14th Five-Year Plan.

Is there a bottom?

In recent years, public attitudes in the United States and other developed countries toward China have soured considerably. Beijing’s recent wave of crackdowns may add to unease abroad about China’s overall trajectory, including by sending a chill to the international business community, traditionally among the more active supporters of constructive relations with China.

Perhaps recognizing this dynamic, senior Chinese officials have sought in recent days to reframe the narrative around China’s regulatory tightening and “common prosperity.” The state-run Economic Daily published an op-ed on August 20 suggesting that recent regulatory actions and the ensuing market sell-off were a short-term cost for healthy long-term growth. A senior economic official, Han Wenxiu, built on this theme at a briefing in Beijing on August 26, when he explained, “Common prosperity means doing a proper job of expanding the pie and dividing the pie… We will not ‘kill the rich to help the poor.’”

In case Han’s message did not come through clearly for Western observers, Chinese state media outlet Xinhua published an English-language explainer article on “common prosperity” the same day. In the piece, Xinhua explained, “Common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism… Common prosperity is not egalitarianism. It is by no means robbing the rich to help the poor as misinterpreted by some Western media.”

President Xi underscored the point several days later. In remarks to the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services on September 2, Xi emphasized, “We will work with all other parties to uphold openness, cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win, share opportunities in the growth of services trade, and promote world economic recovery and growth.” Less than a week later, Vice Premier Liu He publicly assured businesses of the Chinese government’s support for the private sector. On September 8, the People’s Daily published a front-page reassurance that China will “unswervingly promote high-level opening-up, protect property and intellectual property rights, and enhance policy transparency and predictability.”

Even with this wave of authoritative clarifications, it remains too early to tell where this regulatory crackdown will end. Has the Chinese leadership decided to rely upon a one-way ratchet to inalterably tighten control over society and the economy? Or have recent steps, such as the announcement of a new Beijing stock exchange, served as a signal that Beijing is searching for ways to reset the relationship between the party, society, and the market, but in ways that do not choke off dynamism that will be needed to sustain high-quality growth?

While the answers to these questions is as yet unknowable, it already is clear that Beijing’s actions in the coming months will bear careful watching for signs of the direction the country is heading. Actions — not words — will be the currency in which Beijing’s intentions will need to be understood.