Bootstraps and Silver Spoons

Most of us prize stories of people who start with nothing in life, and then become rich. Americans even have a saying for it: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.  However, new economic research is revealing how wealth is actually built in the US and how difficult it is for some people to gain wealth, even when they do everything right.

This episode features William “Sandy” Darity, Professor of Public Policy, African American Studies and Economics at Duke University. Darity also directs the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke.

• Look at the Color of Wealth in Boston report, the Color of Wealth in Los Angeles report, and the Color of Wealth in the Nation’s Capital report.
• Here’s the book we referenced, Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success.
• Read the article The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
• Read more about Taisha Sturdivant
• Here’s Taisha and Mack’s wedding video
• Read the episode transcript.
• Music by David Schulman and Sound of Picture. Also, Memories of the War 1861-1863 Conway’s Band from the Library of Congress National Jukebox; Begin the Beguine from the 1938 short Artie Shaw and his Orchestra; Pick Yourself Up performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, 1936.

[http://youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye83SwDrKNw&w=854&h=480]