USA Decides
What the Statistics Say
Following the great stock market and banking crash of 2008, unemployment in the United States shot up to a high of 9.9% in 2010. Since then, the rate has been slashed to about 5%.
However this doesn’t tell the whole story of where U.S. society is at. Despite some moderate social measures by the Obama administration, poverty and inequality continue to increase in the United States. According to US Conference of Catholic Bishops, in 2014, 47 million people lived in poverty in the United States - 2.3 percentage points higher than in 2007, the year before the 2008 recession.
Meanwhile, those in the top 0.1% are making over 184 times the income of the bottom 90%.
The inequality is not only reflected in incomes, but also in access to basic services and even geography.
In education for example, while the United States spends significantly more on education than other OECD countries, access to and quality of education differ dramatically depending on where you live and who you are. Only 10% of students attending the best 146 US universities come from lower- or middle-class backgrounds, and public schools across the country are - especially in poorer neighborhoods - arer overcrowded and underfunded.
Meanwhile, racial inequality remains all too present. While 12 percent of black students are held back in ninth grade, just 4 percent of white students - a trend that replicates itself all the way to kindergarten.
This social situation has framed much of this election thus far, with voters in both the Republican and Democratic Parties signalling that declining standards of living and decaying social fabric being major concerns.
Race and Systemic Racism: What role do these play?
Race and ethnicity are significant electoral issues for the parties and candidates as they look to secure votes from groups largely perceived as 'blocs' with similar concerns and interests.
Prime among these are the Black and Latino communities.
Of the estimated 45.7 million Black people in the United States, 66.2% Percent of those of voting age voted in the 2012 presidential election - higher than the percent of whites who voted.
The Latino community in the United States is the fastest growing group in the country, but has historically had a low turnout rate - 48% in 2012. Nonetheless, there are 27.3 million eligible Latino voters for 2016, up 4 million from the previous election.
Despite receiving increasing attention from parties, there is still marked racial inequality and systemic racism.
While unemployment for white people fell to 4.5% in June 2016, unemployment for Latinos was significantly higher at 6.0% and almost double for Black People at 8.8%. The spacial dimension of the racial divide is seen across U.S. communities, with crumbling infrastructure and dwindling investment in neighborhoods where Black and Latino people are largely situated.
Moreover, the number of high-profile police killings of Black people - from Michael Brown to Tamir Rice to Philando Castile - have shown the reality of institutional racism in what was supposed to be 'post-racial' America.
A 2014 study of incarceration rates showed that while whites were 64% of the population, they represented only 39% of those in jail. Latinos accounted for 16% of the population, but had almost double the rate of incarceration in comparison to whites at 831 per 100,000 compared to 450 per 100,000 for whites. For the Black community, this was far more pronounced. While Black people comprised 13% of the population, they made up 40% of the prison population with an incarceration rate of 2,306 per 100,000
This is but one of the measures used to disenfranchise people of color - an issue which has been increasing in prominence across the country as laws are passed to make voting more restrictive for poor and racialized people.
For example, an estimated 5.9 million Americans were denied the right to vote because of a felony conviction in 2010, according to the Sentencing Project. Barriers to voting - including deregistration during primaries as occurred in a number of states leading up the Democratic nomination - disproportionately affect Black and Latino people.
