On Sunday, The New York Post posted an article about President Biden’s promise to promote equity as President.
A website called thoughtCo.com defines the difference between equity and equality as follows:
Key Takeaways: Equity vs. Equality
- Equality is providing the same level of opportunity and assistance to all segments of society, such as races and genders.
- Equity is providing various levels of support and assistance depending on specific needs or abilities.
- Equality and equity are most often applied to the rights and opportunities of minority groups.
- Laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provide equality, while policies such as affirmative action provide equity.
There are a number of problems with equity–the most obvious being determining who decides the level of assistance or the specific needs or abilities. If reparations is ‘equity’, who decides which people were harmed by slavery (does slavery include indentured servants?) and which people did the harm (were your ancestors in America during slavery? did your ancestors fight to free the slaves?). As you can see, equity is complicated and does not have fixed guidelines and is thus open to major abuses.
The New York Post article reports:
Joe Biden began his presidency with a promise to advance equity, which means favoring some races and ethnicities over others to shrink outcome disparities. Like many of his fellow liberal Democrats, Biden is tethered to the belief that black upward mobility won’t happen without coddling and special treatment from the government. Donald Trump’s record complicates such claims.
One of the most underreported stories of the Trump presidency is the extent to which black economic fortunes improved. The mainstream media presented Trump daily as a bigot whose policies would harm the interests of racial and ethnic minorities. Meanwhile, black economic advancement occurred to an extent unseen not only under Barack Obama but going back several generations — until the pandemic shutdowns brought progress to a halt.
Over the first three years of Trump’s presidency, blacks (and Hispanics) experienced record-low rates of unemployment and poverty, while wages for workers at the bottom of the income scale rose faster than they did for management. Whether that was the goal of the Trump administration or an unintended consequence is a debate I’ll leave to others. But there is no doubting that the financial situation of millions of working-class black Americans improved significantly under Trump’s policies.
I am reminded of the John F. Kennedy quote, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Putting a businessman in the White House benefited all Americans. I am hoping we can do that again.