Policymakers have long understood that structural unemployment is a source of community decline. A neighborhood in which people are poor but employed, the American sociologist William Julius Wilson observed, is different from a neighborhood in which people are poor and jobless. Yet while the federal government has made substantial investments in communities through infrastructure, tax, and housing incentives, these efforts have not expanded economic opportunity for millions of American families locked out of the economic mainstream.
White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, has said that one of the main priorities of the Biden administration would be focusing on the racial equity crisis. While the administration is rightly focused on combatting the pandemic and helping communities of color who were disproportionately impacted, urgent action is also needed to help tackle perceptions and practices that perpetuate racial inequality of opportunity.