The Missing Piece in the Pensions Debate

Detroit's bankruptcy has injected new vigor into the argumentthat public-sector pensions should be scaled back. That's an important debate, but what's missing is a topic from which it can't be separated: racial inequality.

Public-sector workers are disproportionately black. In 2011, about 19 percentof black workers were employed by the government, compared with 14 percent of whites and 10 percent of Hispanics. That figure used to be even higher (21 percentin 2008-2010), but the recession and its aftermath have been hard on public-sector workers. Berkeley economist Steven Pitts has called government jobs a "pillar" of middle-class African-American life.