I would imagine that if you performed a standard regression analysis, in which you held constant positive contributing factors such as education and work experience, and negative factors such as criminal records and location, the gap would be reduced. Nobelist Gary Becker's book Human Capital proposed that brazen racial discrimination can't exist in the long run because if an employer hired less qualified White candidates over more qualified Black candidates, he would lose money over time.

I haven't seen such an analysis recently, but I would expect there would still be a substantial gap left over, although much reduced. That would be true employer racial enmity that Becker proposed would die out over time. My own research on the gender gap shows that this is only partially true, that blatant racial and gender discrimination persists beyond differences in qualification.

But we ALSO have to take into account that the contributing factors are THEMSELVES a significant product of discrimination. This is true of such analyses of the gender gap also. These SYSTEMIC forms of discrimination are easier to tackle. If we can get rid of these, direct racial discrimination by employers might diminish over time, and it would certainly be much easier to identify.

However, I would like to say that Yglesias has a point. The GREATEST enemy of Black people is not White people, it is the same enemy of the average White person - the greed of the wealthiest people, of any color.

$50 Trillion. That is a key number we all should keep in mind. That is what the 1% has taken from us, to date.