Cities like Fort Worth Texas have less than 3% of city contracts going to black owned businesses, meanwhile there are 15% black Americans who live there.
Fort Worth is therein 5x less likely to give black Americans city contracts, as would be expected.
Fed government raises about $3 trillion in revenues yearly, but local and State governments collectively raise another $3 trillion yearly, approximately.
As described by the business owners in Fort Worth, government contracting often tends to be the only source for contracts for many people from economically disadvantaged families.
At a minimum, these metrics must be revealed for cities with greatest economic disparities, if city and national leadership are truly interested in closing those disparities.
That this data and these metrics aren’t already known and being actively published and reviewed by economists nation-wide, is itself emblematic of the problems with the business contracting systems. Herein, workgroups should have been operational already in every major city, to identify these disparities.
Lack of oversight and enforcement contributes to the racial disparities in household economics, which directly lead to mortality during the inevitable times of crisis.
Certainly, obstructing access to opportunity by race has been outlawed for ‘centuries’ – although because these hardships persist, they become disincentive to entrepreneurial activities.
Disparities in hiring and who gets jobs — per the 6 to 1 racial unemployment gap in places like DC — forces people with advanced education to start businesses…
Literally — of all major racial groups, black Americans are MOST likely to initiate new businesses in recent years than any other racial group, in search of income opportunities that have been obstructed via typical employee working arrangements.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2011/06/a-new-benchmark-for-minority-business-ownership.html
And amidst these ‘best efforts’ to level the playing field, income has gone up for some, while down for others.
Of greater importance to national economic security, perpetuating these historic economic disparities threatens the security of the U.S. Treasury’s largest asset (ie, student loans).
For sure, there’s an obvious conflict when cities commission artists to paint in big letters conveying how ‘some’ lives matter, yet there are persistent demonstrated hurdles to getting economic opportunities to those historically economically oppressed families from those same said cities.
This is theatre. If Black lives matter then deal with the fact that our families have $8 in wealth. https://t.co/U8HgrCoKzo
— Vandal (@iamvandal617) July 6, 2020
Otherwise it reiterates the inherent and historical impurity of U.S. monetary policy as a force for social good.
Evidently, historically, and up to recently, there’s been an unwillingness of executive branch leaders to monitor and report on racial contracting metrics, despite the benefits of ‘diversity’ in contracting.
Comparative Yield of Businesses Owned by Economically Disadvantaged People
On one hand, this says plainly to people from economically disadvantaged families, AVOID entering into economic marketplaces where measurably unwelcomed.
Instead, while economically disadvantaged, perhaps go to find opportunity where someone’s family is the preferred labor workforce.
Then USE that income to invest wisely, so personal wealth can be deployed to push open doors that previously and historically were closed to families from certain racial groups.
For sure, these disparities are not intended to encourage economically disadvantaged people from economically disadvantaged families to try and ‘change the system’, at least not while economically disadvantaged.
Perhaps the new social momentum of late, is shifting perspectives on these issues, to capture the benefits to both governments and households. Monitoring, for progress.