(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Can Crypto Narrow the U.S. Racial Wealth Gap?

Tags

African Americans, bitcoin, blacks, cryptocurrencies, digital currencies, finance, Hispanics, inequality, investing, investment, Latinos, personal finance, racial wealth gap, wealth, wealth gap, whites, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Shares of Americans who say they’re “familiar” with

cryptocurrencies:

 

Whites: 37 percent

Hispanics: 49 percent

Blacks: 50 percent

 

Shares of Americans reporting owning cryptos:

Whites: 11 percent

Hispanics: 17 percent

Blacks: 23 percent

 

(Source: “Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors see crypto investments like bitcoin as ‘a new path’ to wealth and equity,” by Charisse Jones and Jessica Menton, USA TODAY, August 13, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/08/13/crypto-seen-path-equity-black-latino-and-lgbtq-investors/5431122001/?gnt-cfr=1)

Im-Politic: Trump’s Decidedly Non-Racist Economic Record

Tags

African Americans, Barack Obama, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2020, families, family income, Federal Reserve, Hispanics, Im-Politic, inquality, Joe Biden, median income, racism, Survey of Consumer Finances, Trump, wealth gap, whites, Wuhan virus, xenophobia

Some pre-debate advice for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden: Don’t rush to trot out your charge that Donald Trump is the first racist President in American history. Because if Mr. Trump has been briefed with any competence, two recent official economic reports have just come out making clear that when it comes to African Americans and Hispanic Americans, – at least before the outbreak of the CCP Virus that has hit minorities especially hard for longstanding structural reasons – the incumbent’s economic record compares quite favorably to that of the Obama administration for which Biden rode shotgun.

The evidence we’ll look at today drawn from the latest edition of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, contains arguably the most important finding of all: The wealth gap separating African Americans and Hispanic Americans on the one hand from white Americans on the other narrowed more during Mr. Trump’s first three years in office than during the final three years of the Obama administration. (RealityChek regulars know that such time frames provide the best apples-to-apples data needed for comparisons, since they came right next to each other in the same economic cycle – in this case, the post-2009 expansion.)

This racial wealth gap is often described as the most damning indictment of the nation’s longstanding failure to generate equal economic opportunity, since the wealth created by one generation can be passed down to future generations, and thereby boost the odds that beneficiaries are cushioned against major economic and financial stress, and foster all the self-reinforcing social as well as economic advantages flowing from such achievement of the American Dream.

The numbers come both from the Fed’s new survey, which covers the 2016-2019 period, and its previous survey, which covered the 2013-2016 period, and here they are, starting with the growth in median family net worth (the Fed’s preferred measure of wealth) for all American families, for non-Hispanic white families, for non-Hispanic black families, and for Hispanic families.

During the final three Obama years, in pre-inflation dollars, this net worth increased as follows for the aforementioned three groups pre-tax

for all U.S. families: +16.25 percent

for white non-Hispanics: +16.80 percent

for black non-Hispanics: +29.41 percent

for Hispanics: +45.77 percent

As a result, median wealth for black non-Hispanic and Hispanic families as a share of median family wealth for their white counterparts rose as follows:

                                                                   2013                    2016

black non-Hispanic families:              9.29 percent        10.29 percent

Hispanic families:                               9.70 percent        12.11 percent

Alternatively put, black non-Hispanic families closed the wealth gap with white non-Hispanic families by 10.76 percent, and Hispanic families by 24.85 percent. No denying that’s progress.

And the Trump record through 2019 in comparison? We’ll start again with the increases in pre-tax median family net worth from 2016 until then:

for all U.S. families: +17.58 percent

for white non-Hispanics: +3.46 percent

for black non-Hispanics : +32.42 percent

for Hispanics: +65.30 percent

So during the first three Trump years, median family wealth overall grew faster than during the final three Obama years, and minority families far outgained white families in this regard. Moreover, this was especially true for Hispanic families, who belong to an ethnic group Mr. Trump is often accused of despising.

That this minority family outperformance bettered that achieved during the most analogous Obama period comes through even more clearly from the following table, which shows how minority families’ net worth grew as a share of white family net worth between 2016 and 2019:

                                                                    2016                    2019

black non-Hispanic families:              10.01 percent       12.81 percent

Hispanic families:                               12.04 percent       19.23 percent

Again, alternatively put, during the Trump years, these results mean that black non-Hispanic families closed the wealth gap with white families by 27.97 percent, and Hispanic families by 59.72 percent. So both groups made much more relative progress during the Trump supposedly racist and xenophobic Trump administration (pre-CCP Virus) than during the supposedly racially enlightened Obama administration.

The Trump record isn’t as good when it comes to another measure of economic peformance – pre-tax family incomes and their growth. But any fair-minded observer would have to agree that it’s more than respectable, especially considering the President’s reputation among so many of his opponents.

Once more, let’s start with the Obama record on this score between 2013 and 2016. (These results aren’t adjusted for inflation, either. During these years, median family income grew as follows for the groups in question:

for all U.S. families: +9.56 percent

for white non-Hispanics: +6.44 percent

for black non-Hispanics: +9.94 percent

for Hispanics: +14.93 percent

As a result, median incomes for black non-Hispanic and Hispanic families as a share of median income for their white counterparts rose as follows:

                                                                    2013                    2016

black non-Hispanic families:               56.00 percent       57.84 percent

Hispanic families:                                58.26 percent       62.91 percent

So the income gap with white non-Hispanic families shrank by 1.13 percent for black families and by 7.98 percent for Hispanic families. These relative gains generally were far smaller than those registered for wealth, but they were gains all the same

At first glance, it’s clear that the Trump record between 2016 and 2019 lagged the Obama era progress. Here’s how family incomes rose then for the groups concerned:

for all U.S. families: +4.64 percent

for white non-Hispanics: +6.00 percent

for black non-Hispanics: +7.00 percent

for Hispanics: -0.49 percent

The same conclusion flows from examining the changes in minority groups’ family income as a share of non-white Hispanic families’ income:

                                                                    2016                    2019

black non-Hispanic families:               57.76 percent      58.41 percent

Hispanic families:                                62.83 percent      58.99 percent

In fact, Hispanic families actually lost ground on this front.

And not surprisingly, the income gap between Hispanic families and white non-Hispanic families widened by 6.11 percent during these Trump years, while that between black and white non-Hispanic families narrowed by much less than during the final three Obama years (1.13 percent versus 3.29 percent).

These Fed figures hardly show that President Trump, as he likes to claim, has done more for African Americans than any President in history Lincoln aside, or that Hispanic Americans have been special beneficiaries of his policies. But they do show impressive progress for minority groups and, perhaps more important, progress that compares well with such achievements under the nation’s first African American President.

Therefore, Biden (and other Trump opponents) could well be right about the President’s racism and xenophobia when all considerations are taken into account. But if so, he’s clearly the strangest racist and xenophobe in U.S. history – a conclusion that will be supported when RealityChek turns next to the new poverty statistics and another set of income figures just issued by the Census Bureau. .

Im-Politic: A Chinese Link to Black Lives Matter?

Tags

Alicia Garza, Black Futures Lab, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter Too, BLM, China, Chinese Progressive Association, election interference, Heritage Foundation, Im-Politic, race relations, racism, reparations, structural racism, systemic racism, The Federalist, wealth gap, white fragility

Our times are so racially fraught that even I (someone who rarely feels defensive about my views) feel the need to start out this post by specifying that I am not a systemic or structural racist or even an unwitting example of white fragility. Indeed, I’m so woke on the issue of continuing racial discrimination in America that I’ve come out for reparations to remedy what I see as one recent example of open-and-shut racial injustice whose victims would be relatively easy to identify and compensate. And I’ve called attention to the still yawning racial wealth gap. 

I don’t even have significant problems with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) – although I like “Black Lives Matter, Too” because it avoids the possibility of either-or interpretations while making clear that there’s a still a racial gap that must be eliminated.

But the various organizations and coalitions invoking this phrase that have sprung up lately? I’m not so sure about many of them, especially since their proclaimed agendas often go far beyond securing racial justice. (See, e.g., here.) And just yesterday I found out about another potential problem with these groups that seems to support a point I made in a recent article about the massive and under-reported scale of Chinese interference in American public life – signs of close connections between a key BLM organization the Chinese government.

As reported in The Federalist, a conservative publication, based on research by the equally conservative Heritage Foundation, an outfit called Black Futures Lab (BFL) is funded mainly by an organization called the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). The Lab’s own website, moreover, confirms this finding.

It’s true that BFL is only one group in the BLM constellation. But it’s no ordinary group. Its “Principal” is Alicia Garza, who describes herself, and is credited in news reports, as a founder of the BLM movement.

It’s also true that the CPA isn’t officially affiliated with the Chinese government. But Beijing is certainly a fan of what’s been described as its Boston chapter, as this article (cited in the Heritage Foundation report) from its official mouthpiece demonstrates. One charge I could not independently corroborate – the claim that the Chinese flag-raising event the article mentions was “hosted by the Consulate General of China in New York.”

Consulate officials clearly attended the other event – a flag-raiser – and spoke. But unike the aforementioned Boston passport-focused event, I was unable to find evidence that they played any organizing role.

So maybe the cooperation doesn’t go any further than attending (and sometimes organizing) the kinds of celebrations that might simply be ethnic solidarity events. But according to this study (an undergraduate thesis, but one from Stanford University by a student with clearly progressive sympathies), the admiration between CPA and the Chinese government is decidedly mutual:

“The CPA began as a Leftist, pro-People’s Republic of China [PRC] organization, promoting awareness of mainland China’s revolutionary thought and workers rights, and dedicated to self-determination, community control, and ‘serving the people’.

Further, although “Its activities were independent of the Communist Party of China or the US,” it “worked with other pro-PRC groups within the US and San Francisco Bay Area.”

Again, the prospect can’t be ruled out that Beijing is content simply to admire CPA’s efforts to improve social services for Chinese Americans or even help organize Chinese American events with the group. But given the influence I thoroughly documented in the aforementioned magazine article that China has gained over major American institutions; and given the unusual interest displayed by a group like CPA, which is exclusively focused on Chinese Americans (as it makes clear) in an organization that says it’s exclusively focused on African Americans (especially since serious problem of poverty and discrimination still clearly dog Chinese Americans, according to CPA), grounds for further investigation don’t exactly seem to be lacking.

Indeed, as known by anyone with legal or law enforcement experience, or most fans of detective stories, showing that defendants have had “motive, opportunity and means” is a venerable framework for investigating and determining wrongdoing. When it comes to fomenting racial tensions in the United States, the Chinese government surely has all three. So let’s hope that the federal government (both the Exective and Congress), as well as the supposed watchdogs of our democracy, the news media, look into China’s involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement as aggressively as it’s looked into other charges of improper foreign interference in America’s politics.

Im-Politic: A Case for Reparations

Tags

African Americans, education, GI Bill, higher education, housing, Im-Politic, immigrants, inequalty, mortgages, race relations, racism, reparations, wealth gap, white privilege, World War II

Here’s a RealityChek post I never thought I’d write, leading off with two ideas I never thought I’d consider: First, I’m warming a lot toward the idea of the U.S. government paying some kind of taxpayer-funded reparations to African Americans in compensation for at least one cut-and-dried historical episode of economically costly racism. Second, a main reason is that I and my family – and millions and millions of others like us – have benefited economically, and considerably, from the white privilege reinforced by this episode.

I’m still somewhat wary of a main possible result of reparations – that payment will generate an ever growing list of demands for more payments. I also remain concerned that reparations will ease much of the moral pressure felt by white and others who oppose reparations to eliminate sources of racial economic inequality ranging from lousy and inequitably funded public schools to discriminatory mortgage practices.

But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that these worries reflect overly simplistic “slippery slope”-type arguments to which I’ve objected in the context of other issues. Specifically, they too easily become excuses for avoiding many necessary actions. For they imply that citizens and political leaders are devoid of the judgment needed to make the kinds of distinctions any complex community or society needs to be able to identify in order to remain even minimally functional.

More important, a little research I conducted the other day brought to my attention an instance of massive, systemic racism that took place many decades after emancipation. It came in the form of the discriminatory implementation of the GI Bill of 1944, which denied more than a million black World War II veterans vital most of the opportunities created by the law to establish a foothold in the nation’s middle class, and beyond.

If you’ll remember, opening unprecedented economic opportunity to the men and women that risked their lives to save their country and indeed the world was the whole point of the legislation. The means chosen were low-interest mortgages and equally generous loans for buying businesses and farms, and stipends to finance higher education expenses. Given the importance of homes and other assets in amassing significant amounts of wealth, and of college and many vocational degrees in generating middle-class-and-beyond income levels, the strategy made perfect sense. And it worked like a charm for most of the white veterans who used it.

Inexcusably, however, as this account makes clear, most black World War II veterans were excluded from these programs by a combination of state-level official and informal barriers to participation. Just as important, the effects of this discrimination also hobbled the economic prospects of the descendents of these African American servicemen and women. One major piece of evidence – the decades-old yawning racial wealth gap, which results largely from the long limited home-owning opportunities available to African Americans.

And here’s where the story gets personal – for me and others whose ancestors only came to the United States in the late-19^th and early 20^th centuries. It’s absolutely true that our grandparents or parents never owned slaves, overwhelmingly had no hand in maintaining systemic American racism, and largely arrived from their homelands with little more than the clothes on their backs. It’s also true that many and even most worked like the dickens to achieve their share of the American Dream, and that many were the victims of at least informal discrimination at some point in their lives.

This history was long the principal basis for my own insistence that, if any reparations were to be paid, I sure didn’t owe any.

Getting down to my case, my father, and his peers in the ranks of my relatives and friends, also came from economically modest backgrounds and generally worked like the dickens. My own father was blessed with the most powerful mind I’ve ever encountered, and owed much of his success to this brainpower as well (as did so many others of course).

He didn’t buy his first home until 1963, and so just missed the chance for GI Bill mortgage assistance. But there’s an excellent chance that, despite his intellect and other talents, he’d have never gone to college without the financial aid provided by the legislation – which enabled him to attend full-time and not have to worry about helping to pay the family bills. Certainly, my grandparents never encouraged him to continue his education beyond high school. Without college, of course, there would have been no law school (at night, on top of working full-time), and without his law degree, my own upbringing mightn’t have been so comfortable, and my own higher education opportunities might have been very different.

Again, my father was so brilliant, and so driven, that I’m sure he would have achieved considerable professional success without the GI Bill. I’m similarly confident that the same applies to any number of his peers. But it’s entirely possible that they wouldn’t overall have achieved as much success. And on the whole nowhere near as quickly. More important, their GI Bill benefits relieved or at least partly relieved my father and millions of other white veterans of having to make the kinds of often difficult choices and accept the kinds of often family-straining tradeoffs that confronted black veterans denied these benefits.

As a result, some amount of reparations based on the economic impact of GI Bill discrimination seems justified to me, along with including GI Bill beneficiaries like me as payers.

Obviously, critical details would need to be worked out, along with the question of what other kinds of reparations should be considered and paid. But the GI Bill’s history amounts to a clear instance of the federal government, and many sub-federal governments, systematically awarding to one group of Americans benefits whose effects have lasted many generations, and just as systematically excluding another class of Americans with equally valid claims. And even though subsequent veterans aid programs have been put into effect much more admirably, this clearcut discrimination, moreover, has had lasting, damaging effects.

What could be more fair and ethical than openly acknowledging this inequity, and providing compensation to the victims? And seriously discussing other cmparaable wrongs that might be at least partly righted in this way?