A Wall Street Journal writer misuses statistics to fan the flames of racism

As someone with an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics, I am often disappointed by articles in the mass media that misinterpret or misuse statistics. But what I find even more upsetting is when journalist purposefully misuse statistics, especially when this is done to create animosity and polarization.

Recently I was really bothered by a particularly egregious example of a journalist abusing statistics to write a story whose purpose is clearly to create division between Black people and White people: Arian Campo-Flores published a piece in the The Wall Street Journal provocatively titled America’s Role Reversal: Working-Class Blacks Make Gains While Whites Fall Back.

This title of this story is grossly misleading, as is much of the content. The Harvard University study cited by Campos-Flores tracked changes in income and other socioeconomic factors and found that between 1978 and 1992 the class gap (gap between low-income and high-income families) has grown for White individuals, but has stayed roughly the same for Black individuals. But the study also shows that Whites still do much better than Blacks not just in terms of income, but across every single socioeconomic factor analyzed.

I provide more details below, but in a nutshell, what the results of the study suggests that because Blacks had virtually no access to the kind of unionized industrial jobs that were booming in the 70s, they were forced to take lower-paying jobs. However, when heavy industries collapsed—partly because of competition from overseas, and partly because of the shift to a knowledge economy—White people were impacted more heavily because they had a dominant presence in those jobs. In other words, they were hurt because our economy shifted, but our government did not provide a safety net for the people impacted. This, in a nutshell, is what an earlier WSJ story by Justin Lahart had concluded. But rather than blaming a capitalist economy that pursues financial gains without caring for its people, Campos-Flores chose instead to misuse the study to fan the flames of interracial anger.

For those of you who identify as White (as I do), and who were upset by Campo-Flores' article and are indignant about this alleged "Role Reversal," I have a simple question: if I had a magic wand and offered to let you go back in time and re-live your life as a Black person in this country, would you take me up on the offer?

The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for allowing Campo-Flores to use such as blatantly misleading and provocative title, and even more so for the not-so-subtle way in which Campos-Flores manipulates statistics for what is clearly an attempt to create indignation among White people. It is also embarrassing that the Journal had published an earlier article describing the same exact study, but with a significantly more balanced viewpoint. Why did Campos-Flores recycle old news and turn them into an instrument of division? Why did the Journal allow this?

The use of rhetoric to create division between Blacks and Whites in this country, and especially in low-income segments (which in this country represent a large number of voters) is not new. I hope that more people like me will use our collective intellectual power to identify and expose hate-mongers for what they are, and use our logic to reduce the polarization that plagues our country.

Additional details for those interested

In his story, Campos-Flores refers to a recent study by a team of 美国哈佛大学 researchers, who analyzed economic mobility for Black and White children from low-income segments in the USA by comparing a variety of economic factors for children born between 1978 and 1992. The most relevant economic factors discussed in the report are household income and individual income (when the child has reached age 27).

The study focuses on two types of gaps: (1) the class gap, calculated as the gap in income between children raised in low-income families compared to children raised in high-income families, and (2) the race gap, calculated as income gaps between Whites and Blacks.

Here are the key findings of the study:

1. The class gap for Whites grew between 1978 and 1992. For children born in 1978, the gap in household income levels between low- and high-income families was $17,720, while for children born in 1992, the class gap in household income grew to $20,950. In contrast, during the same period the class gap in household income for Black children was essentially unchanged.
2. When comparing average household income for Blacks and Whites from low-income families, for the 1978 children the gap was $20,810, while for children born in 1992, it was "only" $14,910. In other words, the race gap for low-income families shrunk by about $6,000. In contrast, during the same period, the race gap for high-income families remained unchanged.

But these numbers are showing changes in the gaps between low- and high-income families, and between Black and White individuals. The obvious fact that remains is that Blacks are still earning much less than Whites across every income level.

In fact, you can look at Table I from the original report to see that, when considering the entire sample of people born between 1978 and 1992, the median household income is $91,800 for parents in White families, and only $38,250 for parents in Black families.

The same table also shows that if we consider a 27-year old person born between 1978 and 1992, the median individual income is $33,180 for Whites and $19,270 for Blacks. The table also shows that Blacks do significantly worse than Whites across every possible indicator: household income percentile, employment, marriage, mortality, incarceration, education and home ownership.