African Americans lower Wealth
African American salaries are 60% of white American salaries.
Bill Gates has more wealth in securities than all black American households combined.
Will his donation to fund scholarships for minority college students help address this inequity?
Notes:
10,000 blacks have graduated from America’s top 25 business colleges in the last 25 years.
But almost no blacks have ownership or stock options or are CEOs of top corporations especially
the new high tech companies. Nor do blacks serve on the boards for Internet companies. In fact,
a recent book, Black Wealth/White Wealth, authors Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro say that
systemic barriers to upward mobility have seriously impaired the ability of many black
Americans to accumulate wealth and a better life.
For example, the average white blue collar worker has been able to accumulate more wealth
than the average black professional, at least in part due to the country’s history of racial
oppression.
Some of this is due to historic and contemporary limitations in educational opportunities.
Some of it is also due to discrepancies in small business loan approval rates. The National
Bureau of Economic Research notes that almost 70% of small business loan applications by
African Americans are turned down compared to a denial rate of 27% for whites.