The right way to answer the question of African-American loyalty is to treat blacks as rational citizens voting in their self-interest. And while the sluggish economy of the Obama years may seem like a bad case for Democratic loyalty, that’s not true of Democratic administrations overall. According to
a recent paper from Zoltan L. Hajnal and Jeremy D. Horowitz—both political scientists at the University of California–San Diego—there’s clear evidence that when the nation is governed by Democrats, black well-being “improves dramatically” across multiple dimensions.
Specifically, looking at data from 1948 to 2010, Hajnal and Horowitz found that “African Americans tend to experience substantial gains under Democratic presidents whereas they tend to incur significant losses or remain stagnant under Republicans.”
On average, under Democratic presidents, blacks gained $895 in annual income, saw a 2.41 point drop in their poverty rate, and a 0.36 point drop in their unemployment rate. By contrast, under Republicans, blacks gained $142 a year, along with a 0.15 point increase in poverty and a 0.39 point increase in unemployment.
What’s more, this was true in relative terms as well. As they write, “[W]hether we look at the gap between blacks and whites or at the ratio of black to white outcomes, the patterns are essentially identical: Republican administrations were, on average, bad for African Americans and Democratic administrations were, on average, good for them, both in absolute and relative terms.”
The cumulative (i.e. year-after-year) differences are huge.
Across 16 years of Democratic governance, the black poverty rate, for example, declined by nearly 40 points. Across 35 years of Republican governance, by contrast, it increased by 3 points. Indeed, during most years of Republican presidential leadership, black poverty grew and black unemployment increased.
Do Minorities Do Better Under Democrats?
sure
