♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> dedrick asante-muhammed joins us now he is with the national community reinvestment coalition. serves as a fell within such a for policy studied and mr. dedrick asante-muhammed a quote from the federal reserve report on this issue of the racial wealth gap in america. this is what that report said.

long-standing andas substantial wealth disparity between family and different racial ethnic groups were little changeed since the last survey in 2016 paid the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical black family and five times the wealth of the typical hispanic family. the question, how did we get here that the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical black family? think the question is more what do we not do to remain with this great disparity? i always like to say, hurt your conversation earlier this morning about racial inequality. the foundation of racial inequality as racial economic inequality. the foundation of racial economic inequality is the racial wealth divide. we have had this deep wealth inequality in our country since its beginning paid the countries actually founded on racialized wealth and equality were black people, african people were made the wealth of white spread where native americans indigenous lands were taken to be utilized for

private wealth by white immigrants. so the rasul wealthit divide is at the foundation of the country. in a great sadness is over the last 40ri or 50 years how little the country is done to abridge this deep inequality. >> host: what about the past year? what did the pandemic mean to this issue of the racial wealth gap in america? >> guest: what it means is pretty much what it means to every crisis. thwhen you have such low levels of wealth estimated not t include depreciating assets african americans have about $9000 median wealth. you have such a little amount of wealth any type of economic bump or an international health pandemic will have much more severe consequences because you do not have much money to fall back upon. that is what we have seen with covid a break that's was out the great recession, that's oec was small recessions. it just multiplies the deep instability -- economic instability african-americans latinos a while and native

americans. >> host: dedrick asante-muhammed. is our guest of the "washington journal" pretty going to start calling end of this issue ofti the racial wealth gap in this country. you mentioned your work with the national communion investment coalition and integer for policy studies. do you want to give a one on one what those groups do? >> guest: there two separate organizations. the issued think tank found in the 60s, w has a wide breath of different types of analysis. it has a great website site page inequality.org that looks at different aspects of economic inequality but where employed is the national committee reinvestment coalition that was founded in 1991 i believe by john taylor. it focus is advancing committee economic development for people across the country of it being a major advocate around the community reinvestment act. >> host: you mentioned our conversation at the top of our show today. based on president biden's visit out to tulsa for the 100 anniversary of the tulsa race

massacre, as part of his remarks at that event he announced a couple of initiatives aimed at black communities, aimed at this issue of racial wealth gap in this country. here's just about two minutes of president biden from yesterday. >> today we are announcing to expanded efforts targeted toward black wealth creation. that will also help the entire community. the first is my administration is launched an aggressive effort to combat discrimination housing for that includes everything fromm redlining, to the cruel fact that a home owned by a black family is too often appraised at a lower value than a similar home by a white family. [applause]em [applause] and i might add, might need help figuring iter out, but if you live in a black community and there's another when on the other side of the highwood that they white community

built by the same builder, and you have a better driving record than the guy with the same car in thehe white committee, you can pay more for your auto insurance. [applause] shockingly, the percentage of black americanhi homeownership is lowered today in america, then when the fair housing act was passed more y than 50 years ago. lowered today, that is wrong. and we are committed to changing that. just imagine, 9 million americans areas building their own homes and build generational wealth, we made it possible for them to buy home and build equity into that home and provide for the families. and second, small businesses are the while of our economy that glue our communities. as president, mayan ministration overseas hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts. everything from refurbishing decks of aircraft carriers and installing relative federal

buildings to professional services. there's a thing called a won't go into it all there's not enough time now, but i am determined to use every taxpayer's dollar that is assigned to me to it spend going to american companies and american workers to build american products. and as part of that i'm going to increase the share of the dollars the federal government spends two small disadvantaged businesses, including a black and brown small businesses. right now we are close to 10% were going to move that 15% of every dollar spent. [applause] dedrick asante-muhammed, that was present biden yesterday announcing those two initiatives in tolls, oklahoma. are they going to make a difference? >> guest: i think homeownership is very important. think it's important that he recognizes that african-american homeownership is around 44 -- 45% compared to white homer's ownership rates around 73%.

that has to be bridged. i don't think the primary problem is the evaluation of value of homes. though that should be investigated and looked at pretty think the primary problem again is the median wealth of african-american's 9000 and median household income is around 45000 bird that is not much money in order to purchase a home. i think we are going to have to have a serious investment to help with downpayments and actually increase that affordable housing supply so we can have a massive boom and african-american homeownership. hopefully latino homeownership. whites became majority homeowners through massive government investments and restructuring mortgage programs that allowed whites to move from minority homeowners around 40% to majoritym homeowners over 50%. i think that same thing is going town have to occur in thet century for the first time being racially inclusive. it will require more work on the homeownership front.

on the small business space, i think it is important -- i've reddy sent but maybe an extra $20 billion to go for small disadvantaged businesses but that's a positive step and we need to have much more clearer analysis though of what that percentage of americans going to latinoo businesses, african-american businesses, other businesses that might fit under that rubric. we are obviously going too need more than that to bridge the huge entrepreneurship disparity that we have in this country. >> host: for visual learners, from what dedrick asante-muhammed was just talking about this chart from inequality.org,, look at those three columns here. this is a black homeownership in 2016. as you said in the low 40 percentages. has not changed much at all since 1983. they are to the left of it is white homeownership in this country in 2016. in the 70s and percentile up a bit from 1983. latino homeownership is the

far right column in the low 40s asnc well-paid but up significantly from 1983. are there any lessons they are? what caused that jump in latino homeownership and can those lessons be applied to black homeownership? speech i think we are still learning. i think black -- latino homeownership and latino wealth was lower than blacks until sometime in the two thousands. i think one challenge also with latino numbers is that we are looking often times that new populations latino populations in 19 a3 is very different from latino population in 2003. in terms ofnoeati immigrants and what they represent. one of the differences where latinos live. in urban areas in the suburbs but latinos are more likely to be in suburban and rural areas

where there is higher levels of homeownership or to think there are some things to learn some things we want to investigate. but also different situation different scenario.s what racial wealth gap in our country is this conversation. the conversations to the bottom of the art 9:30 a.m. eastern. we'll start with love out of florida good morning were back with dedrick asante-muhammed. wilma are you with this? event yes. >> go-ahead man. >> it gotd. to turned on your television and go ahead with your question, wilma. >> i tell you what we want to figure that out as we go to darnell in san jose, california. >> good morning. hey how are you doing? i was wondering,. [inaudible] [inaudible] wonder why you guys always

talk about -- you're always comparing blacks to whites owning this and owning that. it's like you guys forget about the asians? are the asian people visible? i'm in silicon valley it's crazy it's polarized but on top of that we own a house with got up a $14000 year property tax. so basically you never own the house and we are whites. [inaudible] know how -- what i'm saying. >> host: dedrick asante-muhammed. >> guest: i miss part of that. i wouldld check out asian american wealth divide snapshot. you can find it on the website. that some porton analysis. i focus on black latinos, native americans as her ethnic

groups that usually have the greatest economic disparity. so those are my focuses they are. but asian americans have much closer homeownership rates of the whites in the high 60%. not quite what whites have. but much closer. sue went to baltimore city maryland this is leroy, good morning. >> caller: good morning. your timeho but the homeownership. this is what i have noticed. the asians, hispanics, africans, anybody that comes to this country they are coming here with a fresh start. what i mean by that is, i've been living my own life but not that it's so good but a lot of us do not have good credit. both eat the other people coming here they need a leg up. i had in here my whole life working and i need a leg up. they will help them get a house where they will help them get a business. by then getting thatit leg up those people have been here

forever that's why they seem to prosper and get more. it's heldhe against us because they can put the cracker credit records and say this this this this this print but the guy coming into the country with a clean slate, they give him a leg up. still it your point lead bright, dedrick asante-muhammed you want to take that? >> yes we do. we also did a snapshot called immigrants. : : : that's been a big challenge for african-americans and those who experience racism in this country because as the country has more among the haves and have-nots, over the last 40

years we've seen this regressive economy of black progress kept from being folded. if they come in lower income, more likely than not they stay low income and negative consequences but if they come in with high income they do much better and i think that's what you're seeing in terms of immigrants house, some are doing much betterr than those who have been here a long time because they come with high skills into the regressive elite part of the economy. >> coming back to your charts from inequality the org from one thing african americans have in this country is a larger student debtbt burden. these two charts here african-american men and women, the student debt well above $35000 for either, you can see how it compares closer to the 30,000 dollars range and asian

americans more in the $25000 range for men and women. why is that? >> of course why that would be his lower wealth, they have more to get into higher education just as african-americans follow a larger proportion there mortgage. i think higher education is similar, african-americans and latinos get to be part of these wealth building hopefullyt vehicles and less equity in their homes and less value given with a college degree compared to whites is a challenging situation, something we need to address certainly with making colleges more affordable and i would argue even free particularly at community college level the maxwell building, was a valiant baby fond? [bear growling] eric hamilton

and william are two economists that have helped bring this to the public light and cory booker put forth a bill to give i think all americans about $1000 of the baby fond, any american born $1000 depending on their household income level they get another maybe 2000 or less each year, with the idea that when people become 1825, a certain age, they will have capitol to help them move forward in their life whether to go to college, buy a home, jesse jackson said it's challenging being in a capitalist economy without capitol in the baby bond would be important for the 21st century to give all americans greater opportunity to move forward ands particularly those with deep poverty to help with that inequality we are talking about. >> ali, good morning.

>> hi, good morning. i a have a lot to say. first, how can somebody control how somebody else spends the money? why not call it what it is? i think sometimes people have poor spending habits they spend their money on hair and nails or eating out or food choices, you can't control that so you talk about haves and have-nots because i spend the scope responsibly doesn't mean somebody else is also going to do that so we need to teach kids in school economic responsibility, fiscal responsibility not spend what you don't have. >> you think poor spending habits are the reason for the racial wealth gap in the country? >> it can be, yes, i do and i

don't think it's a racial gap, i think it'st a gap. >> but it is a racial wealth gap. there are other gaps, there's concentration of wealth hi income, low wealth wise but there is a racial wealth gap and i do not believe it's not about financial literacy, we can look at the history of the country and understand his nomination, policy, corporate practice individual practice is created this situation. i do notnc believe financial education will solve the problem although i do think part of the education should be understanding reality of racial inequality and what it would take to help reach that and i think everyone could use better understanding of this complex economy and part of it is understanding inequality that's been proliferating the last 40 or 50 years. >> we began this conversation talking about that gapd in 2020 and federal reserve report but

hadn't changed months 2016, can you expand the view backwards and press forward asli well? is this something you expect to grow in years to come? t much has it grown until now? >> that's the most upsetting aspect, most people when they talk about race they want to, if they acknowledge it, it might not be reading it as fast as we want but we are going in the right direction but we look at racial wealth inequality, wealth inequality is increasing and we are on board to continue in this country so depending on using depreciating or non- depreciating aspects, we see the wealth gap is over $140,000 between african-americans and white americans for 2019 and it's been going since about 1983

when we started getting strong data and we've seen growth. numbers between wealth and equality between latino americans and white americans. i think it's a national crisis as the countryo becomes majoriy minority of the country will not be able to be middle class economy if the median well is 15000 or $20000 versus $150,000 for depreciating assets, 170,000 so i do believe it's a national crisis that must be addressed. >> mike, good morning california. >> is a lot of different aspects. i ama a construction worker 197. the different times, once of

jobs, there's so many insist people in charge of these jobs, any high-paying job, find a way, they don't want you to have a good paying job and they hire abthem college graduates, they paid all that money to go to college and the next thing you know, you don't get a job in your chosen field they get you on the lower level with the labor, they hire immigrants coming over over box and then what are you talking about? black people have a superhard time and if you do want a job, you got to be the best of the

best of the best. >> let's take up the issue of hiring. >> this is part of why it's so important for any of these programs put forward that we have data as to spending on infrastructure and we are going to be hiring, make sure government dollars are being forced unemployment inequality and we make sure dollars are being scheduled, what percentage is going for african-american laborers, white labors, make sure there's equity in the money we are spending and infrastructure and it's true and pretty much every sector whether it's middle management or senior management, you see strong ethnic racial disparity in terms of who has the position and who's being hired for something that also needs to be addressed as we deal with racial economic

inequality. >> we talk about two proposals president biden talked about in tulsa if you have the president year, but proposals will you put forward fix these issues we are talking about. >> you mentioned one, i did a report earlier, inequality.board, solutions to bridge the wealth divide because so big, it's not one policy that will address it, you have to deal with the whole structure of our economy the baby bond would be an important, it would provide for young people who oftentimes become adults with no wealth to have to move forward their life. we talked about solutions like full employment. african americans, people were talking about the economy, african-american unemployment rate is near 10%. i think that's the height of

what white unemployment was during the great recession so these are great issues and challenges and again i think the country has to have a new strong goal around homeownership. we put a report of 50% black homeownership, a radical goal for w help wealth development we have to have an idea of ensuring a majority home owners and what subsidies we put forward to make it a reality. >> talk about the issue of credit scores, how you get one, how it rises and falls and other aspects of this important element of money lending andnd borrowing. >> in the context of racial and economic inequality, the reality is when you have low wealth, low income and greater job instability as a whole black and latinos have, you have lower creditle risk and is true for african-american and chinos with a similar income level they

still have different levels of wealth because your income doesn't just magically produce well, wealth is oftentimes something that comes from generations of work, being in a community that has aspects that allows you to build off that so having stronger income with lower wealth leads to weaker credit scores which makes it more expensive to do the basic loading you might need to have a car so you can get to work or get a mortgage loan so idea of spirit credit scores highlights the challenges of how expensive it is wealth poor in our society. >> this is nancy, goodd morning. >> hi, there. i'm just here to say i think everybody can better themselves, i just want to give you a brief history, my husband and i were married when we were 19. he went to the university of michigan and lost his

scholarship because we got married. won't go into that. we had a small child, he was working going to school full-time, driving an hour each way every day, i was working with the child. we did this for years. we didn't own a home until after he graduated. we had government loans. we were in debt. then we paid off, we paid those off and ten years later, i went to school. we did the same thing and you can do this and today i give workshops, mental health field, i give workshops going to help people, about owning responsibility in your life because when you own responsibly, you take you tell everybody they do this they can do this and all i want to say. >> thank you for that, it's important for all responsibly, plenty of workshops on how to

buy a home and strengthen financial literacy, that's important only where we are today is in just people feeling present responsibly, it's government policy, government structures that create an unequaled system so government policies that create a place the last 40 years as the national gdp rises, most income is going to the highest income earners were like redlining or the ability to get loans to buy homes there are issues that need nato be dealt with as you try to deal with your o own personal finance and responsibility's son brad is been able to do that in your life and i think many african-americans have moved forward in their life but we are not bridging the racial wealths divide and we need policy to address it. >> this is -- good morning. >> good morning. i was listening to a gentleman who said --

[inaudible] when i was working, under ronald reagan, seven year, don't take out federal tax and seventh years, none with experience i worked with and that's how these people get ahead and from abroad they give their tax breaks. when they find out they take out federal tax, they moved to another state and its the same thing when they moved so that's how they get ahead. >> on the issue of immigrants in this country. >> i'm not familiar with the program is referring to in the 80s, but over the last i think since the great recession, we have seen over all a decline in

immigrants in this country, i think immigration can be a positive thing, i think we need to figure out again, i think the primary issue isn't immigrants, the racial wealth divide we had much less immigrants coming to our country, it's been a refusal to investigate in communities of color including immigrants of color so i think that is my perspective and focus on how we bridge these inequalities and bring in immigrants into a country where there's greater prosperity for all and fabricated between the have and have-nots. >> you mentioned redlining on that issue mary brings up, you are talking about the unfair government policies and programs that have contributed but she talked about the private industry as well and says there should be no such thing as a

black part of town and the white part of town in american cities, what once was government sanctions redlining still exists all kinds of informal ways and it's perpetuated by realtors both black and white. >> i think that'shi true and is also perpetuated by homebuyers, a black person would move into a neighborhood and create, scare white homeowners of of an area and now we see it in neighborhoods where there's about 20% black, but individually people have to be scared of living in diverse neighborhoods but we also have to create a system that allows communities like african-americans and latinos who don't have much wealth or income to become home owners and allow there to be greater integrated communities of homeowners instead of cities between a small amount of homeowners and a bunch of renters, so we see a great

racial division so we should be holding private companies accountable, real estate agent accountable to not build upon country we live in which is amazing dealing with the factoff segregation throughout this country. >> this is greg, good morning. >> good morning, thanks for taking my call. as a lot of frustrating comments coming in, you must be pullingce your hair out. it's hard for people to understand the benefit of generational wealth, they keep bringing up stories that are hold yourself by the bootstraps stories and they don't consider the fact that they can take risk that may be black folks can't take because they don't have a community aroundul them to pick them up if they take a risk that

goes bad or family and friends so it's got to be frustrating hearing these stories but i did want to say, you keep pointing to how we need to create more opportunity for folks and i would caution against that, it seems like we have a disproportionatere benefit in ts country to only houses and benefits and tax breaks that go along with that, it seems like we try too hard to force people into homeownership simply because it's a way of wealth building, it seems like we ought to decrease the benefits of home ownership to begin with. >> where i partially agree with you, we decreased the tax benefits of home ownership for high income people. that's what i do think it's ridiculous. i would probably even increase for first time homeowners of certain income levels below

$70000 but it is ridiculouswe tt we give, the more expensive house the more tax benefit we give to households and i see no reason to give tax subsidies to higher income people for a bigger more expensive home so i agree with you there but i think particularly in communities like after american, latino who aren't majority homeownership committees we need to strengthen homeownership for those communities but we also need to strengthen affordable rentals as crisishat's also a throughout the country. >> this is dustin, good morning. >> good morning, can you hear me? >> i wanted to expand on what you've been talking about, if it is a known fact that events and tolls and other communities terrorized during the jim crow era and you know for the fact

the federal government denied home loans to the black community basically dropped them in the inner city while white communities escaped to the suburbs as industry left the city, we know all of this information and know about hiring discrimination, how can we move forward without reparations? because there is a debt that needs to be paid and an issue that needs to be addressed before we can move forward. generational wealth has been denied, far too many people of color, i decided move forward until we address the. >> i am in agreement with you, that was fast investment, people talking about race relations, earlier i think on sunday sitting at the dining roomof tae with somebody talking about race, we don't need to just talk about it, we need to invest in bridging the inequalities, hreparations meaning investments

particularly for african-americans to see what they've gone through and maybe native americans, what they have gone through is necessary and we need to prepare our increasingly unequal economy where wealth and income concentrated at the highest so we'll take the description of resources investments, we spent $750 billion a year in both development. most of that money goes to already wealthy. we know how to create new money, we can take $750 billion a year and make sure it mostly goes to those that can have a positive effect. >> jack from davenport iowa. >> good morning. do you think african-american kids invest their time and effort and things like sports with these overpaid athletes the black musicca culture and these same kids under invest in things

like math and science or medical science culture and a bigger part of the african-american lack of success. in other words, is currently a values crisis. >> i don't believe crisis is valued. tolls wasn't, out of lack of values of african-americans redlining wasn't because of lack of values and neither was jim crow or enslavement or the fact that you are born to grandparents who dealt with the issue i don't think it's a value, i have seen studies were children invest too much in sports, i have african american children, they do sports book plenty of white teammates so i'm g not clear whe you get that analysis from. >> five minutes left, what aspect of the racial wealth gap haven't we touched on as much that you want to talk about? >> product earlier, joe biden

said during his speech, we talk about tulsa a lot and its horrific impact and everybody can say that's awful also within a few years there was an attempt to rebuild but there were things like redlining the couldn't get governmentnt investment into rebuilding these homes and government loans to do these things. there was a highway right on top of that community so it wasn't just a white right that we can the black tulsa community, ongoing discriminatory policies and practices that have kept, i mentioned derek tolls was named, he put out a paper on the wealth divide in tulsa and i think you will see the inequality not just because of what happened 100 years ago it happened 80 years

ago, 60 and now. my biggest concern again is unhappy many talking about racial wealth inequality but i'm concerned they're not willing to invest the dollars and have to see, are we reaching this inequality? i don't want to 20 to 40 years ago so be talking about going and the wrong direction with the racial wealth divide. >> what parts of the american families plan, the infrastructure proposal, what aspects of that helping these issues. >> my concern is that there are not clear goals of how much the funds are going to ensure increase in black employment so infrastructure in black neighborhoods and even recording, where does the money go? the government do these things so we not clear how the money is spent and then we find five

it's done little to address it so having clear quantitative goals and making sure you collect clear data on how the money is spent on addressing these issues. >> they be one or two phone calls. larry has been waiting in illinois. >> good morning. i think horrific is anytime you got the population t committing 70% of the crime. i think what's horrific it's what's happened to the black community. congratulations to the democrat party, i think what you have done is brilliant, what you manage to have done is turn the police force into the bad guys and i think the black community needs to look within but before

you come raising taxes on every person in this country, because you can't get it together. >> i agree with that what has happened to african-americans and native americans is horrific, i think it is sad people still have these stereotypes that the reason african-americans and native americans and latinos where they are is because of the inferiority versus structural inequalityd placed in front of them throughout american history. >> the institute for policy ystudies, also working at the reinvestment coalition the past five minutes, before we go, i want to give you a final minute or two, he said he watched the first hour of our program or heard some of it, the question we asked, in the wake of president biden going to tulsa and remembrances of the 1921 master, how race relations have

paid change, it's what we are talking about in this last segment coming up but how would you answer that. >> i think there's much more interaction particularly among, between african americans and white americans, much more intermarriage, much more friendship but that doesn't change the economics of the situation and we haven't gotten to regulations where the country as a whole is united in saying inequality is wrong and we are going to invest, and inequality so i think that the relations and looking forward to and working to advocate that we allow because it's hard to have great relations when we have racial inequality, it's hard to sit down with your neighbor of opposite, another race when most of your neighbors are all of one race the dealing with racial

inequalities and wealth divide will be the important next step in strengthening relations in the future. >> if you want to read more of his work, and crc.org and follow him on twitter. appreciate your time this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> c-span, unfiltered view of government funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> you think it's a community center? no, it's way more than that. ♪♪ comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers can you a front row seat to democracy. ♪♪

>> we feature book tv programs showcasing is available every weekend on c-span2. tonight we look at science and tech, neuroscientists lisa discusses how our memory works interview by author forgetting podcast cohost david and science writer, carl investigates scientific experiments that attempt to re-create life. later new york times cybersecurity reporter nicole reports on emerging cyber weapons. >> lisa, great to see you. this will be so much fun. i have to start by saying, not cool. you are a fiction writer, why are you invading our space with nonfiction? who are already the queen of fiction, it's you got this gigantic kingdom and it's not enough for you, you need to come over to the nonfiction writer's

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