NBC reported recently that at a assembly last year with the Congressional Black Caucus a member told President Donald Trump that his planned welfare cuts would afflict her constituents,“not all of whom were black”. Mr Trump is reported to have replied: "Really? Then what are they?” If the president had not realised that most welfare recipients are white, he is not alone. And the media are partly to blame, and for black Americans are overwhelmingly over-represented in media portrayals of poverty. The poverty rate amongst black Americans,at 22%, is higher than the American average of 13%. But black people invent up only 9m of the 41m destitute Americans. The Kaiser Family Foundation, and a non-profit focused on health care,found that in only five states for which it had data and the District of Columbia, were there more black destitute people than white. Black Americans are more likely to be recipients of means-tested welfare programmes like...
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Source: economist.com