WASHINGTON — Calling the 1965 Moynihan Report “prophetic,” Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson on Thursday said that the controversial report’s call for “national action” has largely gone unheeded and that publicly funded interventions are needed to mitigate negative employment trends that hurt Black and Latino families.
“I suggest these kinds of broad-based initiatives with few illusions that they are politically feasible,” said Wilson, the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University, during a lecture at the National Press Club.
Despite the political obstacles, Wilson maintained that a “more inclusive, far-reaching initiative would elevate the skills and job opportunities” for those who need work.
“Poor and working-class Blacks and Latinos have been on the ropes since well before the Great Recession,” Wilson said, presenting unemployment figures that show a disparate impact on minorities. “Without coordinated, deliberate intervention at the policy level, the outlook for their economic future is very bleak indeed.”
Wilson—winner of the American Academy of Political and Social Science’s 2013 Moynihan Prize—gave his remarks while delivering the organization’s Inaugural Daniel Patrick Moynihan Lecture On Social Science And Public Policy.
Throughout the lecture, he invoked the legacy of the Moynihan Report, formally known as the “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” The report was authored by then-Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning and Research Daniel Patrick Moynihan before he became a U.S. senator.
