America Fails To Meet Justice Goals 40 Years After Kerner: Over the last 40 years, America has failed to make significant progress on poverty, inequality, racial injustice and crime, according to a report that updates the 1968 report of the Kerner Commission, the bipartisan National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.
In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission, convened to respond to a wave of riots that engulfed communities of color from 1963 to 1967, the Eisenhower Foundation published a report to update the commission’s 40-year-old findings. The foundation is a nonprofit group that continues the work of the National Advisory Commission.
The report revealed that 37 million Americans live in poverty and another 46 million Americans are without health insurance. While poverty among African-Americans has declined, poor African-Americans are three times as likely and poor Hispanics twice as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to live in deep poverty, half below the poverty line. Nearly 44 percent of Black female-headed households with children under 18 were impoverished in 2006.
