Prior to 1940, the affluent and the middle class began to converge, but after 1979, the economic gap between the middle class and affluent widened significantly.

I think it is difficult to achieve a meaningful political coalition if you have race-based programs that divide members of the coalition. The problem I have, however, is that white people assume an either/or position: Either we have race-based programs or we don't. What I see is comprehensive social reform that includes race-based and race-neutral programs.

A lot of joblessness in the black community doesn't seem to be reachable through fiscal and monetary policies. People have not been drawn into the labor market even during periods of economic recovery.

There is a tendency to want to treat blacks as a monolithic socioeconomic group.

But the person who scored well on an SAT will not necessarily be the best doctor or the best lawyer or the best businessman. These tests do not measure character, leadership, creativity, perseverance.

If you're going to compare a middle-income black kid with a middle- income white kid, and, say, you control for family background, family education, and family income, and if this middle-income black kid doesn't score as well as the white kid on the test, then I say, look, you haven't taken into consideration the cumulative effect of living in a segregated neighborhood and going to a de facto segregated school. You're denying a position at Harvard or some other place to a kid that really could make it. That's why I support affirmative action that's based on both class and race.

If you're talking about the narrow issue of public assistance, I would like to see us move to a more healthy system. But until we come up with certain guarantees - for example, guaranteed jobs where mothers move off welfare - I support welfare very strongly. The worst thing we could do is impose time limits and then expect people to sink or swim once they move off welfare.