They say when white people catch a cold, black people get pneumonia. Nothing illustrates this better than the trends of automation, globalization, and immigration, which have left many black people in the dust even while lifting many immigrant groups and other races into the middle class.

Indeed, until about midway through the twentieth century, a black man with only a high school education could earn a good enough living to buy a home and support a family on a single income. Today, that is much more difficult. Research from the nonpartisan, nonprofit policy analysis group Young Invincibles shows that “holding all else equal, an African American male needs some college credit to have a similar probability of employment as a white male high school dropout.” The unemployment rate for black men with only a high school education is 9.6 percent, more than twice as high as the white male rate for that education level.

While the forces of globalization and automation that have contributed to this situation cannot be stopped, some policy solutions warrant consideration.