Do Policy Levers Close Racial Gaps? Evidence Across Wealth, Taxation, and Higher Education

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Racial and ethnic disparities remain among the most persistent and consequential challenges in American public policy. This panel brings together four empirical studies that examine how federal policies, market forces, and philanthropic institutions shape — and often deepen — racial inequalities across economic domains spanning wealth accumulation, taxation, and higher education.

The first paper investigates how the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion affected marriage and divorce behavior among low-income adults, revealing that expanded public insurance coverage altered the economic calculus of marriage, with implications for how household-based eligibility rules may carry unintended consequences for family formation among racially diverse low-income populations.

The second paper evaluates whether the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) narrowed the well-documented racial gap in federal income tax burdens. Using ZIP code-level IRS data merged with racial composition estimates, the study finds that persistent disparities remained after TCJA, and that signature provisions such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credits had limited equalizing effects once household income is accounted for.

The third paper takes a long historical view, tracing the dynamics of Black-White wealth inequality from Emancipation to 2020. Through a calibrated macroeconomic model, the authors identify asymmetric downside financial risks — not just earnings gaps — as a critical and underappreciated driver of racial wealth fragility, including the disproportionate share of Black households holding zero wealth.

The fourth paper turns to higher education, examining whether MacKenzie Scott’s large, unrestricted “Yield Giving” grants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) translated into measurable improvements in student access, retention, and degree production. The study offers rare empirical evidence on trust-based philanthropy as a tool for advancing racial equity in an era of chronic public disinvestment in HBCUs.

Together, these papers illuminate how public policies and private resources interact — often insufficiently — with structural racial inequalities and point toward evidence-based reforms that could better advance equity across income, wealth, taxation, and educational opportunity.

Policy Area

• Social Equity and Race

Chair

• Samuel L. Myers, University of Minnesota

Discussants

• Yonghong Wu, University of Macau

• Sangyoo Lee, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Organizer

• Samuel L. Myers, University of Minnesota

Individual Presentations

• Medicaid Expansion, the Marriage Penalty, and Marital Transitions - Presenting Author: Haiyue Jiang, University of Minnesota

• The 2017 TCJA and Racial Disparities in Federal Income Taxation: Zipcode-Level Evidence - Presenting Author: Man Xu, University of Macau; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Yonghong Wu, University of Macau

• Dynamic Racial Wealth Inequality Accounting, 1860-2020 - Presenting Author: Teega-Wende Zeida, Brock University

• Trust-Based Philanthropy and Mission-related Outcomes of HBCUs: Estimating the Effects of MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving Grants - Presenting Author: Shuyi Deng, Indiana University