The Caytons maintained an upper-middle-class standard of living, including a home in a wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood and employing a full-time Japanese servant.

In 1934, Cayton went to work as a researcher for the United States Department of the Interior, co-authoring Report on the Negro's Share in Industrial Rehabilitation with George Sinclair Mitchell in 1935.

The book was considered pioneering in its exploration of the role race relations played in creating the economic situation of lower and middle-class blacks in urban America.

[4] He continued to participate periodically in academic and political pursuits, including a seminar on "The Black Experience" at Cowell College, and serving as a speaker at the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center in Atlanta.

[3] Cayton died of influenza in Paris, France, on January 21, 1970, while on a National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored research trip to gather material for a biography of his friend, author Richard Wright.