Reuters, WASHINGTON -In an address to Reverend Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference in New York on Friday, U.S.
President Joe Biden praised his administration’s efforts to close the racial wealth gap, one of the nation’s most enduring disparities.
In an effort to strengthen his position with Black voters ahead of his rematch with former President Donald Trump in November, Biden compared his plans to those of the Republicans, who want to reduce money for social security, state-provided health care, and racial fairness projects.
The wealth difference between races has narrowed for the first time in 20 years, with black wealth rising by 60%. You know, I think this change is transformative.
But we are aware that there is still a great deal of work to be done,” Biden said to the audience virtually.
He said that threats including political violence, efforts to rescind reproductive rights, voter suppression, and election subversion disproportionately affected Black Americans and other communities of color.
“There are more extreme voices out there who simply don’t want to see people of color in the future of our country,” he stated. “These radicals are committed to undoing all of our accomplishments. However, we are committed to writing history together, not erasing it.”
The Federal Housing Finance Agency has begun to crack down on what it considers assessment bias, according to new data that the White House says showed a 40% reduction in the difference between home appraisals in communities of color and those in predominantly white communities.
Biden is losing Black men’s support, according to a Wall Street Journal poll.
A long-standing wealth disparity that has been fueled by municipal and federal regulations on everything from hiring practices to highway development is not only exacerbated by home valuations.
Data indicates that, in spite of Biden’s efforts, things are growing worse.
According to a New York Fed study published in February, from the beginning of 2019 through the third quarter of 2018, the inflation-adjusted wealth of
White households in the United States grew faster than that of Black and Hispanic households, with Black households in particular being worse off than they were prior to the pandemic.
Black Americans supported Biden with 92% of the vote in the 2020 election; but, this year, their support is less guaranteed, as a Pew Research Center survey from January indicated that 49% of Black adults disapproved of Biden’s performance.
In addition, Biden declared that in fiscal 2023, a record $76.2 billion, or 12.1%, of government contracting dollars flowed to small disadvantaged businesses—achieving his target of 15% of such contracts by 2025.
According to White House economists, closing the differences in company ownership percentages would help close the wealth gap across races
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