Outcome gaps between black and white Americans in health, wealth, and employment have long existed in the United States. Existing research examines the role of segregated schools, redlined neighborhoods, and other discriminatory institutions in perpetuating these disparities. We research the role of government in contributing to inequality by studying a far‐reaching episode of discriminatory government policy—the segregation of the U.S. government under Woodrow Wilson’s administration—and assessing its economic cost to black Americans in terms of earnings, wealth, and intergenerational mobility. In 1913, soon after his inauguration, President Wilson authorized his cabinet secretaries to implement a policy of racial segregation across the federal bureaucracy. This policy was one way in which Wilson—a Southerner by upbringing—imported Jim Crow norms of racial hierarchy and segregation into the federal government.
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- United States of America