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Lawyer And Policy Analyst Matt Bruenig Claims Barack Obama Destroyed Black Wealth

Lawyer And Policy Analyst Matt Bruenig Claims Barack Obama Destroyed Black Wealth

Bruenig

Lawyer And Policy Analyst Matt Bruenig Claims Barack Obama Destroyed Black Wealth Photo: Chicago Activists Say School Shouldn’t Be Renamed After ‘Oppressor’ Barack Obama Photo: In this photo taken Jan. 18, 2017, President Barack Obama speaks during his final presidential news conference. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Looking back on the historic presidency of Barack Obama, lawyer and policy analyst Matt Bruenig claims that the country’s first Black president failed Black America by destroying Black wealth.

The Obama presidency was a disaster for all middle-class wealth, but Black Americans were the hardest hit, Bruenig wrote in a 2017 article for Jacobin Magazine co-written by Ryan Cooper. Between 2007 and 2016, the average wealth of the bottom 99 percent dropped by $4,500. Meanwhile, the average wealth of the top 1 percent rose by $4.9 million.

“Much of this decline, we will argue, can be laid at the feet of President Obama,” Bruenig and Cooper wrote. “His housing policies led directly to millions of families losing their homes. What’s more, Obama had the power — money, legislative tools, and legal leverage — to sharply ameliorate the foreclosure crisis. He chose not to use it.”

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The average white home equity in 2016 was 3.5 times greater than Black home equity. The average Black home equity was $16,700 lower than that of whites.

“Homeownership makes up a much larger percentage of Black and Latino wealth than it does white wealth, and a much larger percentage of middle-class wealth than top wealth in all racial groups,” Bruenig and Cooper wrote.

Bruenig is the founder of the People’s Policy Project, which analyzes politics, produces policy proposals and raises money through crowdfunding. Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com.

Median Black wealth never returned to even its modest $10,700 from before the Great Recession during Obama’s presidency. By 2013, it had dropped to $1,700, even though white wealth rebounded, the Institute for Policy Studies reported.

By the end of Obama’s presidency, the wealth gap was largest it had been in the last 30 years. In 2007, Black Americans earned about 60 percent as much as whites. By 2016, that had dropped to 58 percent.

Fast forward to 2021, and the racial wealth gap has continued to grow. Experts agree that Obama could have done more to close the gap than he did. 

“Under Obama-Biden for eight years, Black net wealth decreased 30 percent according to the Federal Reserve, numbers,” said Raynard Jackson, CEO of the political consulting group Raynard & Associates. Under Trump, Jackson said, Black wages increased 7 percent.

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Jackson attributes these numbers to the two administrations’ differing immigration policies, ABC News reported.

“You can’t have a flourishing small business community and an economy that’s thriving if you’re constantly bringing in illegals if you’re constantly depressing wages because you have cheap labor coming into the workforce illegal,” Jackson said.