The death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter marches that have followed have made headlines the world over. But the longer-term political impact from these events could be more wide-ranging than anticipated — these protests over racial justice also have the potential to seed a new labour movement in the US.
Race and class are inexorably linked in the US. Hundreds of years of oppression of African Americans have led to higher levels of poverty and unemployment, as well as poorer educational outcomes. The net worth of an average white family was nearly 10 times that of a black household in 2016, according to a Brookings Institution study. This is partly because black families do not benefit from inherited wealth nearly as much as white families do.
Nearly one in five black families have debts that exceed their assets, but to the extent that they are able to accumulate wealth, it is being held in housing rather than stocks — 60 per cent of white families own equities as compared to 30 per cent of African American households. That means black families have not benefited as much from recent US Federal Reserve emergency actions that have buoyed the stock markets.