As of 2009, the average Black family's wealth in America was $2,200 versus $94,600 for White families.

Most Black people in America don't even have enough money to bury themselves when they die!

Wealth of black families and working people has disappeared after the Great Recession of 2007 and during the Pandemic!!!

Commentary: The progress of a whole generation is just gone!

By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch, February 9, 2011

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Great Recession has been hard on almost everyone, but it's been really tough on black households, who have seen much of the economic progress of the past generation disappear. Despite high-profile success stories such as Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey, the typical black family is poorer by some standards today than it was nearly 30 years ago. In a country where access to capital is everything, most blacks have nothing. Part of the story of the recession is a story about jobs. The unemployment rate for most demographic groups essentially doubled during the recession, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For blacks, the jobless rate rose from 7.7% to 16.5%, while the jobless rate for whites went from 3.9% to 9%. Those disparities in employment are well known. What's not fully appreciated is how deeply the recession cut into the incomes of black households, and how the recession devastated the wealth of black families. Median net worth for black households dropped from $9,300 in 2007 to $2,200 in 2009, far less than the $98,000 owned by the typical white household. Median net worth for black households dropped from $9,300 in 2007 to $2,200 in 2009, far less than the $96,400 owned by the typical white household. Median household income for blacks fell 7.2% from 2007 to 2009, significantly more than the 4.2% decline for whites or the 4.9% drop in Hispanics' income, according to the Census Bureau. (The median means half of households had more, half had less.) It's not until you look at the figures for net worth - assets minus liabilities - that you can understand just how marginalized blacks are in our capitalist society.

$2,200

Most blacks really don't have any capital at all. The average black person leaves his or her heirs just enough to pay the undertaker, with the typical black household's net worth totaling just $2,200, according

to the latest data. Let's be clear: The vast majority of wealth in this country is owned by a few people, mostly white. It's estimated that about 80% of all wealth is owned by 20% of the people, while about a third is owned by the top 1%. About 40% have no wealth at all. What little wealth the typical black family has is mostly tied up in the house. With housing prices falling for the past five years, black wealth has been wiped out. The typical black family had about three times as much wealth in 1983 than it did in 2009 - $6,300 in inflation-adjusted terms in 1983 compared with just $2,200 in 2009, according to an analysis of the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances. Read more about the survey on the Fed's website. The figures are shocking. In 2001, the median net worth of a white family stood at $124,600. For blacks, the median wealth was $12,500. For every dollar of wealth owned by the typical white family, the typical black family had 10 cents. Remember, these are figures for middle-class families. By 2007, the median wealth for white families hit $143,600, thanks to the housing bubble and a stock-market rally. But blacks were left behind. They don't own many financial assets, and they missed out on the housing bubble almost completely. Their net worth fell to $9,300. For every dollar of capital owned by middle-class whites, middle-class blacks had 6 cents. Then things got even uglier. By 2009, the typical white family had $94,600 in wealth, compared with $2,200 for blacks, according to an analysis by economist Edward Wolff. Blacks had 2 cents on the dollar. Hold on a minute. How can it be that blacks missed out on the housing bubble? According to conventional conservative wisdom, the housing bubble was inflated specifically to help blacks buy homes through government policies, such as the Community Reinvestment Act that forced banks to lend to blacks and other poor and undeserving folks. Yet the facts don't support that theory. The home-ownership rate for blacks actually declined during the housing bubble after rising in the late 1990s. After peaking near 50% in 2004, the ownership rate for blacks fell to 47% by the time the bubble burst in 2006. Black homeowners were targeted by predatory lenders in the private sector, though. When it came time to refinance their mortgages to take advantage of lower rates and the opportunity to cash out, blacks with good credit scores were much more likely to be steered into high-cost, high-risk subprime loans than whites with the same credit scores. Once black homeowners fell behind, they were nearly twice as likely to be foreclosed on as similarly situated whites. Wealth is like sourdough around the globe, accumulating capital has been seen as the key to economic development. The nations that have grown the fastest have been those with the most equal distribution of wealth. Asia is growing much faster than Latin America, for example. But wealth is a bit like sourdough bread - you need a starter to get it going. Each generation of black youth starts out with a deficit, not a legacy. Parents or grandparents don't have the capital to pass along to the kids to pay for school, buy a home or start a business. Black college graduates carry a heavier student-loan burden than white graduates. White kids backed up by their parents can better afford to work at the unpaid internships that increasingly are crucial to enter certain professions. Most black families are caught in a trap, and it's not any better for millions of working-class families of other races. In a world where wealth begets wealth, upward mobility is a struggle. Poverty is just one layoff or illness away. Americans like to believe that anyone can make it with hard work. If you are exceptional, hard work and a little luck might be enough. But if you have average talents, like most of us, there's nothing like a little capital to get you on your way. Unfortunately for many working-class blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians, the Great Recession washed much of the wealth they'd managed to gain. It'll be very hard to build it back up without a steady and good-paying job. Rex Nutting is a Washington columnist and international commentary editor for MarketWatch. Current economic recovery is crushing Black America! "....there are those who understand and respond to forces of globalization and there are those who will be crushed and destroyed by these forces!"

October 4, 2009

Current economic recovery is crushing Black America by Phillip Jackson, The Black Star Project

As bad as the last recession has been for Blacks in America, recovery might be worse. In the absence of federal policy interventions and without an effective "trickle-up" stimulus plan, Blacks will not only have lost ground during this recession, they will also continue to lose ground during and after the recovery. An April 2009 analysis of the Illinois Department of Transportation's stimulus dollar spending shows a paltry 1.67 percent, or $4,346,507 out of $260,472,254, went to Black contractors. Instead of narrowing the racial wealth gap, federal stimulus dollars are actually expanding that gap! Whether Black America is being systematically excluded from the recovery or whether Black Americans are just so far behind economically that the recovery funds will collectively slip through their fingers, the effect is the same. If everyone else benefits from the recovery more than those who need it most, then the current recovery is actually making things worse, far worse, for Black Americans. The Detroit Rebellion of 1967, though sparked by police violence, is attributed largely to rising unemployment. This was the scene at 12th Street and Clairmount on Saturday, July 23, 1967. In every economic downturn, recession or depression, Black Americans are more negatively impacted than Whites. A 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy, a research and advocacy group, shows that from 1998 to 2006, before the subprime crisis, Black Americans lost between $71 billion and $93 billion in home-value wealth from subprime loans. For people of color, this has been the greatest loss of wealth in history. The official Black unemployment rate is 15.1 percent, compared with 8.9 percent for Whites. The official unemployment rate among Black Americans is projected to reach 20 percent by next year. In New York City, the official Black unemployment rate has been rising four times as fast as that of Whites. And a 2006 Joint Economic Committee Study chaired by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., reported that 37.7 percent of Black men in the United States had no jobs. Even before Black America sank into the current recession, Blacks were hovering at double-digit unemployment rates, abysmally low savings rates, devastatingly low asset and business ownership rates, and had the lowest personal wealth net worth in the country. Now with the recession, a massive, perfect storm of unemployment, mortgage foreclosure and wealth loss has hit Black America with the negative economic force of 100 Hurricane Katrinas. Black America might never return to its previous precarious perch in the old economic pecking order as a middle-class entity. There are several ironies here. One is that America has 36 million Black American descendants of African slaves who were shipped to American shores 400 years ago for their economic value. Today, however, their heirs have lost that value and have not yet found a way to contribute substantially to the American economy. The second irony is that Black Americans can no longer cry racism or blame the "system," since the "system" is headed by its first African American president. Even with a Black president, the United States is still a dangerous and unkind place for most Black Americans. In 2009, and going forward, there are only two kinds of people: not Black and White, not Asian and Hispanic, not even rich and poor. In 2009 there are 1) those who understand and respond to forces of globalization and 2) those who will be crushed and destroyed by these forces! The current economic recovery is crushing Black America. The current recovery is not designed to stop the economic free-fall of Black America. In fact, without proper controls and interventions, it will accelerate that free-fall and annihilate Black Americans economically. Because many Black Americans do not have in-demand technical skills, sufficiently high education levels, and cannot compete in the global marketplace, Black Americans have collectively lost value in the American economy and are being systematically ejected from it.

In addition to what the government should and must do to help ensure that Black America survives the recovery, Black Americans must take control of their own economic destiny. As a way to improve their personal finances, family wealth, community economies, and to help lift Black America out of this downward economic spiral, please consider the Ten Key Solutions for Black Economic Well-Being: Start your own business. Few people acquire wealth working for someone else. By starting your own business, you will be able to hire family, friends, and community members. Additionally, you will build the economy of your community. You will also be able to pass on your successful business as a family inheritance to your children and grandchildren. Get as much education as you can. Higher levels of academic and technical education readily translate into more and better employment opportunities, higher income, and more wealth. Education begins when you teach your children to value learning and to read well. The new hierarchy of human needs is air, water, food, shelter, and education. Without education, existing viably today becomes virtually impossible. Educate or die! Stop renting apartments. Save enough money to make a down payment on a house. Then BUY A HOUSE! The largest portion of the net worth of most families is in home equity, not cash assets. Open savings accounts for your children. Teach your children the value of money and how to earn, save and invest it at an early age. Take personal finance classes so that you will become the best teacher for your children on the issues of money-saving, investing it, and not buying anything on credit.

Invest. First, invest your money and your time to enhance your skills and knowledge base and to improve your overall well-being - not in cars, clothes, furniture, frivolous electronics, sports, games and the lottery. Second, learn how to make big companies work for you through stock ownership, rather than you only working for them. And third, invest your money in the U.S. and global stock markets. The world is

much bigger than the United States. Manage your credit carefully and avoid unnecessary debt. Beware of spending excessive amounts on holidays, birthdays, vacations, weddings, and funerals. Learn to pay cash for what you need OR DON'T BUY IT! And forget about what you want. Create a household budget that includes food, living space, and utilities - and live by it. Save for a rainy day. It's coming! Get married. Two-person-headed households are more viable economically than one-person-headed households. Marriage can be an economic advantage when both parties are aligned on financial priorities and fiscal realities. Sixty-five to 70 percent of Black children are born into single-parent households and begin life in poverty. Most of them never make it out. Create a life-enhancing strategy. Include good nutrition, plenty of exercise, and proper rest so that you can share your good fortune and long, healthy life with your family and friends. Tithe. Give to your church or to a social cause that improves your community. Create a will. Ensure that your accumulated wealth is passed on to the next generation. Studies suggest as much as 70 percent of most households' current wealth was inherited from a previous generation. Phillip Jackson is executive director of the Black Star Project, 3509 South King Drive, Suite 2B, Chicago, IL 60653, (773) 285-9600, blackstar1000@ameritech.net.

Five Dollar Median Wealth

Average Single White Woman Has

$42,600 Median Wealth

Study finds median wealth for single Black women at $5

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5. In a groundbreaking report released Monday by a leading economic research group, social scientists turned a spotlight on the grave financial challenges facing an often overlooked group of women, many of whom could not take an unpaid sick day or repair a major appliance without going into debt. "It's rather shocking," said Meizhu Lui, director of the Closing the Gap Initiative based in Oakland, Calif., who contributed to the report "Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America's Future." Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5. "Even for those of us who have been looking at the wealth gap for a while, we were shocked and amazed at how little women of color have," Ms. Lui said. Researchers at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, based in Oakland, Calif., analyzed data from the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances, a voluminous report the Federal Reserve Board issues every three years that examines household finances in this country. Wealth, or net worth, measures the total of one's assets -- cash in the bank, stocks, bonds and real estate; minus debts -- home mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and student loans. The most recent financial data was collected before the economic downturn, so the current numbers likely are worse now than at the time of the study. Black women, in general, were more likely to have participated in the subprime loan crisis with upper-income black women being five times more likely to have received a high-cost mortgage than upper-income white men. "The popular image is they spend too much, which is the reason they are running up credit card and consumer debt, but the cost of living has risen faster than income, and they need to go into debt for basic daily necessities," Ms. Lui said. "It's compounded because unemployment is twice as high in the black community than it is in the white community." For all working-age black women 18 to 64, the financial picture is bleak. Their median household wealth is only $100. Hispanic women in that age group have a median wealth of $120. "That means half of [black women] have a net worth of more than $100 and half have a net worth of less than $100," Ms. Lui said. "So that gives you an idea of how far in debt some women of color are." Married or cohabitating white women have a median wealth of $167,500. Married or cohabitating black women have a median net worth of $31,500. The reasons behind the daunting financial challenges black women face are numerous and complex. "There are excuses and circumstances that have evolved in society, which put black women where they are," said Esther Bush, executive director of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, who said in Pittsburgh more than 70 percent of African-American families are headed by single women. The recession has hit single mothers especially hard. According to a recent report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania, more than four out of 10 families headed by single mothers in Pittsburgh and more than one in three in Pennsylvania, live in poverty. In Pittsburgh and across the country, the financial burdens of single parenthood fall mostly on women, but black women are more likely to endure the work and responsibility of raising children on their own. They are more likely to be the backbone of their families and communities, with greater responsibilities to support struggling friends and families. In a 2008 study of black women and their money, the ING Foundation found that black women -- who frequently manage the assets of their households -- financially support friends, family and their houses of worship to a much greater degree than the general population. They also are more likely to be employed in jobs and industries -- such as service occupations -- with lower pay and less access to health insurance. And when their working days are done, they rely most heavily on Social Security because they are less likely to have personal savings, retirement accounts or company pensions. Their Social Security benefits are likely to be lower, too, because of their low earnings. Rather than strictly comparing income, researchers in the Insight study looked at the wealth gap. The current economic crisis has shown that a person's wealth affects not only retirement security, but also a person's ability to handle financial setbacks such as a job loss or a health emergency. High unemployment and high incarceration rates for black men also lower the likelihood of single black women finding a partner to help build a more secure financial future. Ms. Lui said the Insight report would be used to encourage the government to close the wealth gap and improve the outlook for women of color, just as it did for Americans who received land through the Homestead Act, and education through the GI bill. "If wealth was based on hard work, African-Americans would be the wealthiest people in our nation," she said. "It's not about behavior. It's about government policies. Who does the government help and who is it not helping? "Our government knows how to build wealth for rich people. They've done it for big corporations and the rich wealthy class of people who are making decisions every day at our expense. Working people like us need to study this system so that we can understand our working-class interest is not the same as theirs! We need to focus our study and energy on organizations, institutions, political/economic programs and policies that serve working people.

"Focus your attention on todays debate by rightwing conservatives attacking the public sector /government programs and public service workers /workers rights and jobs with budget cuts as well as job lay-offs. Will it impact our community, youth, women of color, schools, and services? Look at the situation and see what we need. The right-wing wealthy corporations and rich folks are coming back to get what the economic crisis of 2008 left." here's HOPE! Come out and learn how we can take action together.....

IN OUR NEXT MONTHLY Financial Health Workshop Series 6 PM, we will learn the "Five Principles or Laws for Strengthening Your Finances". Please study "THE FIVE LAWS OF CREDIT" by Brian Clark that we circulated at our first Financial Workshop Series. It was a great session. Also, please bring your notebook, calendar, and pen. We will be developing specific personal action plans.

Thanks for your enthusiastic engagement.

Please call the Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center at 919 876-7187 for more information.

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