21 Quotes by William Julius Wilson

The middle class has just fallen further and further behind the rich.

The worst thing we could do is impose time limits and then expect people to sink or swim once they move off welfare.

There is a tendency to want to treat blacks as a monolithic socioeconomic group.

Liberals were intimidated by the Reagan administration and did not want to appear naive by talking about programs that called for government support. I just said, 'The hell with that. I'm out there.'

Prior to 1940, the affluent and the middle class began to converge, but after 1979, the economic gap between the middle class and affluent widened significantly.

I don't think we should stop emphasizing race because I think, you know, race is still very, very important, and we have to recognize that and continue to introduce programs to address racial inequities. But we have to widen our vision and also address the growing problems of economic class.

I maintain that the period during the first half of the 1990s, the period in which rising inequality reached its peak, was a period in which we came very, very close to a demagogic immobilization of racism in this society.

Black employers are just as negative as the white employers concerning inner-city workers.

Liberals were intimidated by the Reagan administration and did not want to appear naive by talking about programs that called for government support. I just said, ‘The hell with that. I’m out there.’