Published in Sep 2017

Video: America does not have a Black Middle Class

Attorney Antonio uses data from the Census & Federal Reserve to show that using wealth as the barometer rather than income, there is not a middle class of working age black families in America today. Moore argues that the number of these families that have a net worth that matches the median family worth of $81,000.00 as set forth by the Federal Reserve are nominal. Moore's piece on Huffington Post "Black Wealth Hardly Exists"

In fact, when you deduct the family car and other depreciating assets from their worth of the total 14.5 million African American homes, half of all black American households accounting for over 7 million families of three, have a total net worth of less than $1,700. While the net worth of the median white family remains near $100,000 using the same method of accounting. Yet African Americans dream on. Even the white poor have more money than most black families. Princeton University sociologist Dalton Conley has found that even white families living near the poverty line have a net worth exceeding $10,000.

Going even further into the data, a recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Corporation For Economic Development (CFED) found that it would take 228 years for the average black family to amass the same level of wealth the average white family holds today in 2016. All while white families create even more wealth over those same two hundred years. In fact, this is a gap that will never close if America stays on its current economic path. According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, for each dollar of increase in average income an African American household saw from 1984 - 2009 just $0.69 in additional wealth was generated, compared with the same dollar in increased income creating an additional $5.19 in wealth for a similarly situated white household.

Just last week Forbes released its annual Forbes 400 report on the richest people in the U.S., focusing in on the top 25 people on The 2016 Forbes 400, they are all white, and have a combined net worth of over 900 billion dollars. That is over 37% of the total 2.4 trillion dollars in wealth held by all 400 members on the elite list. Together, this data makes clear white supermanagers, and white capital holders are making most, if not nearly all of the American held wealth being earned in the U.S. today. Wealth in America is not diverse, in fact, it is really white. This remains true no matter how many times we are shown Lebron James in his mansion in feel good commercials. Because for every singular sports phenom like Lebron James playing basketball, there is not just a Bill Gates controlling computers, there are countless white wealth holders making money that black Americans are locked out of accessing. The great irony being that whites also make up the bulk of the 5% of entertainers in the top .1% of earners Piketty refers to as well.

Looking at this even more specifically, a set of data recently released by the Survey of Consumer Finances and Brandeis Research showed counting all their assets less than 1% of black families have over 1.4 million dollars in net worth. This is contrasted with nearly 10% of white families holding the same amount of wealth.


By Attorney Antonio Moore