(NAME-MCE) Hurdles to the Middle: Race and the American Dream 6-26-08 New York NY

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Hurdles to the Middle: Race and the American Dream

Thursday June 26, 2008    Program from 12:00-2:00 pm

Demos    220 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor    New York, NY

Introducer: Alan Jenkins, Executive Director, The Opportunity Agenda.

Moderator: Jennifer Wheary, Senior Fellow, Demos.

Panelists:

- Tom Shapiro, Director, The Institute on Assets and Social Policy & Pokross
Professor of Law and Social Policy
- Sonia M. Pérez, Senior Vice President for Affiliate Member Services,
National Council of La Raza
- Sarah Ludwig, Executive Director, Neighborhood Economic Development
Advocacy Project
- William E. Spriggs, Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, Howard
University

What will our Middle Class look like ten years from now? The United States
faces major challenges in sustaining a strong middle class in the decades
ahead. Rapidly changing, often volatile economic conditions are making it
more difficult to enter the middle class -- and stay there. Even as the bar
to the middle class life is raised higher, economic opportunity is fading.
As a result, the most rapidly growing groups in the U.S. -- particularly
African Americans and Latinos -- face growing obstacles to entering, and
staying in, America's middle class. In addition, to the aforementioned
unstable economic conditions, minorities have an additional barrier -
institutional discrimination. The panel will tackle the main institutional
barriers that have kept minorities from entering or staying in the middle
class and propose recommendations to make up for lost time.

Thomas Shapiro directs the Institute on Assets and Social Policy and is the
Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at The Heller School for Social
Policy and Management, Brandeis University. He has written The Hidden Cost
of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality and with Dr.
Melvin Oliver, he wrote the award-winning Black Wealth/White Wealth. His
work has been reviewed or discussed in The Washington Post, The Boston
Globe, USA Today, The American Prospect, the Chicago Sun-Times and
Newsweek.

Sonia M. Pérez  is Senior Vice President for Affiliate Member Services (AMS)
at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic
civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., with headquarters in
Washington, DC. Ms. Pérez launched NCLR's New York and Puerto Rico field
operations and provides strategic support to activities in each location.
Her work has been cited in a range of English and Spanish media.

Sarah Ludwig, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project's
Co-Director, is a leading advocate on community equity and financial justice
issues. Sarah co-leads New Yorkers for Responsible Lending, a state-wide
coalition of 139 community and consumer groups and community financial
institutions dedicated to combating predatory lending practices. Sarah was
appointed in 2006 to serve on the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory
Council.

William E. Spriggs is Chair of the Department, and a professor, of Economics
at Howard University in Washington. Previously Professor Spriggs was at the
Economic Policy Institute as a senior fellow. He presently serves as Chair
of the Independent Health Care Trust for UAW Retirees of Ford Motor Company.
Register online or call (212) 389-1417


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