A “Third Way” for Black America? Rethinking Equal Opportunity

The fruits of economic growth are no longer widely shared across class and color lines in America, but are instead increasingly concentrated among the best-educated and wealthiest citizens. Economic mobility in this country is being stymied as the growing importance of education and technical knowledge binds the economic outcomes of children ever more tightly to the good or bad fortune of their parents.

This session will focus on what declining economic opportunity and mobility mean for black America — and what to do about it. Three leading thinkers will assess the economic predicament of black America as well as new roads to development, equality, and opportunity. Is there a “third way,” beyond left and right, for blacks to move forward? Is a new social contract between blacks and political parties on the left and right possible? If so, what would it be?

Participants

• Margaret C. Simms
  Vice President, Governance and Economic Affairs, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
• William Spriggs
  Senior Fellow, Economic Policy Institute
• William Darity
  Boshamer Professor of Economics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Marcellus Andrews
  Economist and Senior Research Fellow, Asset Building Program, New America Foundation