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Objective: To assess whether an indicator of structural racism - the legacy of slavery - impacts racial inequality in poverty among individuals within the same family structure. Background: Family structure is a dominant explanation for racial inequality in poverty. This overemphasis on an 'individual-level' variable results in relatively less attention to the role of structural factors. Yet, structural factors, like the legacy of slavery, may be key to understanding how race and family structure intersect in the context of poverty. Method: We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study, the American Community Survey, and the Historical 1860 Census. Multilevel models link individual- and state-level data and separate models focus on counties. We assess whether a proxy of the legacy of slavery (i.e. the historical concentration of enslaved people in 1860) relates to Black-White inequality in poverty among single mother households and among married with children households in the U.S. South. Results: There is an impact of the legacy of slavery on Black-White inequality in poverty even within family type, but the legacy of slavery appears to be more consequential for married with children households than single mother households. Among married parent households, the racial gap in poverty is more pronounced where the legacy of slavery is stronger. Conclusion: Results suggests the link between family structure and racial inequality in poverty is overstated and more indirect, operating - at least partially - through structural racism Implications: This study challenges the perception of marriage as an anti-poverty mechanism. It also underscores the limitations of viewing family structure from an individual-level perspective when explaining racial inequality. Local manifestations of structural racism are part of how family structure matters for inequality in poverty.

Building on literatures on racial regimes and the legacy of slavery, this study conceptualizes and constructs a novel measure of the historical racial regime (HRR), and examines how HRR influences contemporary poverty and racial inequality in the American South. The HRR scale measures different manifestations of the U.S. racial regime across different historical periods (i.e. slavery and Jim Crow) and is based on state-level institutions including slavery, sharecropping, disfranchisement, and segregation. Using Current Population Study data from the Luxembourg Income Study 2010-2018 for 527,829 Southerners and historical state-level data from various sources, evidence is triangulated from bivariate associations, multilevel regressions, and decomposition analyses. Results show that residing in a state with stronger HRR is not significantly associated with greater poverty for all and especially not among White Southerners. Rather, a higher level of HRR worsens Black poverty and especially Black-White inequalities in poverty. Further, HRR explains a significant share of the Black-White poverty gap. These results hold even after adjusting for a wide variety of individual-level variables, many of which plausibly mediate the influence of HRR. Altogether, this study demonstrates the enduring influence of historical state institutions on contemporary poverty and inequality.

While American poverty research has devoted greater attention to poverty in the Northeast and Midwest, poverty has been persistently higher in the U.S. South than other regions. Thus, this study investigates the enduring question of why poverty is higher in the South. Specifically, it demonstrates the role of power resources as an explanation for this regional disparity, yet also considers family demography, economic structure, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity. Using six waves (2000-2016) of U.S. Census Current Population Survey data from the Luxembourg Income Study (N=1,157,914), this study employs a triangulation of analytic techniques: (1) tests of means and proportions differences, (2) multi-level linear probability models of poverty, and (2) binary decomposition of the South/Non-South poverty gap. The comparison of means associated with the power resources hypothesis yield the largest substantive differences between the South and the Non-South. In the multi-level models, adjusting for power resources yields the largest declines in the South coefficient. Binary decomposition results indicate that power resources are the second most influential factor explaining the South/Non-South poverty gap. Overall, power resources are an important source of the South/Non-South poverty gap, though economic structure and other factors certainly also play a role. Results also suggest an important interplay between power resources and race. Altogether, these results underscore the importance of the macro-level characteristics of places, including political and economic contexts, in shaping individual poverty and overall patterns of inequality.

Marriage and work have long been central to debates regarding poverty and the family. Although ample research demonstrate their negative association with child poverty, both marriage and work have undergone major transformations over recent decades. Consequently, it is plausible that their association with child poverty may have also changed. Using ten waves of U.S. Census Current Population Survey data from the Luxembourg Income Study, this study examined the relationships between marriage, work, and relative measures of child poverty from 1974-2010. Results indicated both marriage and work still decrease the odds of child poverty. However, time interactions showed marriage's negative association with child poverty has declined in magnitude, whereas work's negative association with child poverty has increased in magnitude. These findings underscore the historically-varying influence of demographic characteristics for poverty. They also suggest the limitations of overemphasizing marriage and the growing importance of work for reducing child poverty in America.