Therefore, to address some of these adverse outcomes for Black boys and men, there should be greater investment in neighborhoods. Moreover, evidence suggests that boys tend to be more sensitive to their environment growing up, which often materializes in behavioral issues, lower educational attainment, lower earnings and more. High-poverty neighborhoods are typically characterized by poorer quality schools, less access to jobs, social networks, and health care, and higher rates of crime, pollution, congestion, and noise. Place-based policies: In 2017, 26% of Black households lived in high-poverty neighborhoods as compared to just 5% of white households.Policy should respond by providing scholarships and other incentives to encourage more Black men to become nurses, health aides, teachers, social workers, and other similar professions. Most prominently, there is rapid growth within the HEAL sectors (health, education, administration, and literacy) and a lack of Black men in these roles. But beyond that, policy should aim to match unemployed Black men with gaps in the labor market. As a starting place, improving educational outcomes for Black boys and men will consequently improve their chances in the labor market. To address this, policy should promote better employment opportunities for Black men. Rashawn Ray noted that there are about 1.5 million Black men missing from social life entirely. These trends are not only indicative of lower economic power, but also lower access to quality healthcare, and fewer social connections. Improving employment rates and opportunities: On average, Black men experience higher unemployment rates, lower labor force participation rates, and lower earnings than their white male counterparts.Second, the infrastructure of the education system should be improved to better support Black male students so that they can achieve their full academic potential. First, federal student loans should be made available to those with a felony conviction because it will provide many Black males with the opportunity to further their education. To improve the economic outcomes for Black men, there needs to be a policy response to these educational disparities. This includes grading biases, higher suspension and expulsion rates, higher rates of in-school arrests, lack of Black male role models within the school, and other forms of overt and covert racism. Moreover, many of the service providers within the educational system do not cultivate the full potential of Black male students. Comparatively, Black men have fewer opportunities to receive higher education because those with a felony record face limited access to federal student loans. Only about 28% of Black men (aged 25-29) have a bachelor’s degree or higher, while about 30% of Black women, over 40% of white men, and nearly 50% of white women do. Improving the education system: As compared to Black women, white men, and white women, Black men have lower levels of educational attainment.The objective should be first, to reduce the number of Black men behind bars and second, to improve re-entry conditions. To address these obstacles, criminal justice reform must be made a policy priority. All of this taken together reduces the economic opportunities available to Black men and hinders their role in social and family life. They face barriers in finding employment and housing, many lose the right to vote, and many lack access to social services, including federal student aid. This reality has multiplicative effects on the life chances of Black men. They are five times more likely to be incarcerated during their lifetime than white men and they are more likely to serve longer sentences than white men (on average, 19% longer). Black men are drastically overrepresented in the prison population, accounting for 32% of the prison population but only 6% of the overall U.S.
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