My research clearly reveals that if we want to put inner-city workers to work immediately, we just can’t rely on the private sector. They don’t want to touch them; they don’t want to hire them.

If you’re not working, over time you’re much more likely to develop attitudes and orientations and behavior patterns that are associated with casual or infrequent work. And then when you open up opportunities for people, you notice that these attitudes, orientations, habits and styles also change.

A lot of joblessness in the black community doesn’t seem to be reachable through fiscal and monetary policies. People have not been drawn into the labor market even during periods of economic recovery.

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.’

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

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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