Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath created a renewed awareness of the unique isolation and vulnerability of people who live in communities where poverty concentrates and persists. The Federal Reserve’s Community Affairs staff partnered with the Brookings Institution to re-examine our understanding of concentrated poverty – defined as areas where at least 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

The last sixty years has been a period of profound change for Black Americans. In the 1950s and 1960s, Supreme Court cases and federal legislation eliminated many unfair and discriminatory laws passed over the course of the prior century that had effectively subordinated Black Americans to second class citizenship. A variety of social and economic conditions have changed during the roughly six decades since the modern Civil Rights Movement began, in part as a result of these decisions, and significant shifts in cultural norms and beliefs, as well. The purpose of this article is to explore some of the economic ramifications of this change, focusing specifically on the labor market and changes in income differentials between Black and White Americans during the period.