At the risk of a copyright lawsuit from Glenn Reynolds: They told me if I voted for John McCain, the wealth gap would grow and blacks and Hispanics would be hardest hit. They were right.
Hispanic families lost 44 percent of their wealth between 2007 and 2010, the Urban Institute estimates, and black families lost 31 percent. White families, by comparison, lost 11 percent of their wealth
Oddly enough, the name Barack Obama does not appear in the New York Times story chronicling the disproportionate impact of the recession on minorities. In fairness, neither does it mention Bush. (Perhaps he’s enjoying a presidential library ribbon-cutting honeymoon.)
It also seems that the push to loosen mortgage lending standards — so folks in racial minority groups could become homeowners — may have backfired.
Many young Hispanic families, for instance, bought homes as the housing bubble was inflating and reaching its peak, leaving them saddled with heavy debt burdens as house prices plunged in places like suburban Phoenix and inland California.
Black families also were hit disproportionately by the housing collapse, because heading into the recession housing constituted a higher proportion of their wealth than for white families, leaving them more exposed when the market crashed.
In unrelated news, black voter turnout surpassed white turnout in 2012 for the first time, apparently providing the margin of victory in the president’s reelection.
Now, if we can just find a presidential candidate whose policy agenda benefits the African-American community as much as their voting patterns benefit him.
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