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Marc Morial on the nationwide protests and income inequality in America

Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, joined Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers, Sibile Marcellus, Seana Smith, and Myles Udland to discuss the protests taking place across the nation and income inequality in America.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: We're joined now by Marc Morial, former mayor of New Orleans and president of the National Urban League. Marc, it's great to speak with you.

MARC MORIAL: Thank you.

SEANA SMITH: I want to start with the backdrop to these protests, at least economically. So before coronavirus, we had a black unemployment rates. They were twice that of their white counterparts. Poverty rate for black Americans are-- is almost nearly 25% and less than 10% for whites.

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And when we're talking about household wealth-- I want to make sure I say these numbers right here-- whites have on average over $900,000 compared to just $140,000 for black households. Now, those are just the data points and the statistics. But I'm wondering if you can paint a picture for us of what inequity looks like here in the United States as it pertains to the black community?

MARC MORIAL: This is a-- and thank you for your question, and thank you for having me. So you gave statistics, which are a snapshot of how things are today. What is so dramatic and I think what fuels the anger, what fuels the sense of what the protests are about, sparked by the death of Mr. Floyd, is, if you look back to 20 years ago, the numbers have gotten worse. The income numbers have worsened. The wealth numbers have worsened.

The gap between blacks and whites when it comes to income has widened in America. The gaps between blacks and whites when it comes to wealth has widened in America. Indeed, for black Americans, black Americans have lost one-fifth approximately of our homeownership levels in the last 10 years.

So we were at probably 39%, 40% of all blacks own a home in 1968, the year that the Fair Housing Act was passed. We are back to that number now in 2020. So the slippage has occurred. But beyond the racial dynamics, there's another dynamic.

And that is, regardless of race, the average person, the average, if you will, income-earning person in America, their income has actually declined over the past 20 years, meaning it has not kept pace with inflation. So this has fueled a combination that, while, quote, unquote, the economy has recovered and, quote, unquote, before the pandemic and the unemployment rate had come down, the disparities still existed. And people were working and still unable to make ends meet.

I'll give you another stack. Many Americans today who are renters are paying as much as 50% of their take-home income in rent. So the economic stress on working people, on black people, on people of color, the economic stress, the backdrop of it is there's also been an enormous growth in wealth, an enormous growth in income. But it's just not been widely shared. And I think the economic disparities are now compounded by the fact that we've got some 40 million people out of work and rising unemployment and economic anxiety and uncertainty because of COVID.

SEANA SMITH: How then do we bridge that gap? We talk a lot about reparations. Is it baby bonds? Is it universal basic income? How do we close that gap?

MARC MORIAL: There's a combination of things. So I'm very interested-- and it's great to see Mayor Tubbs on-- very interested in this concept of universal basic income. But my view is that it's got to be significant enough to be able to make a difference. It can't be symbolic. It's got to be significant.

Secondly, a basic measure like a national living wage-- the minimum wage has not been increased by the Congress since, I believe, 2007. That's a 13-year period. Congress has been obstinate. Over 20 states have, on their own motion, created their own minimum wage.

It's steadier economic policy if the minimum wage levels are set at the national level. So a combination of a living wage, a living wage floor, if you will, combined with ideas like universal basic income, combined with measures that make housing more affordable and available, whether it's downpayment assistance, low-interest mortgages, soft seconds in the mortgage market, we've got to help people with the basics. The basics in economics are income and earnings.

And I think that earnings have been pushed down. Earnings have been flattened. And I'm talking about the wages that people make for working every day. In addition to that, we need a heavy investment in human capital and in training to prepare people to be able to move up the economic ladder and enhance their skills without going into debt, without going into enormous debt in order to do it.

So there's a range of things. When it comes to economic advancement and economic advancement for black people or for working people or for those that are even middle class in America, there's no silver bullet. There's no one measure. It takes a combination of measures because this long trajectory of a growing economy but widening disparities is really a long narrative for many decades.

MYLES UDLAND: And, you know, Marc, you've talked about what needs to happen at the individual level. But as you know from your time in office, I think that there needs to be a conversation-- this is my personal view-- in how we allocate funds to state and local governments.

I mean, this is also coming-- as you know, these cities that we're seeing these actions in, they've been constrained by policies coming from their states, policies coming from the Federal government. How much in your view does that conversation need to happen?

Because that's about public schooling. That's about half of cities' budgets going to police, sometimes more than. And that's also sitting at the root of this.

MARC MORIAL: You make an excellent point about the allocation and distribution not only of federal funds but the allocation and distribution of state funds. And it also-- the decision making in the private sector on where to invest in business locations also impacts. All of these are components of the red lining, which is the long disinvestment.

You know, I favor an enhancement that would build on the Clinton Empowerment Zone program of the 1990s. And that is for The federal government to do targeted investments in areas that are historically red line, areas that have been historically left out. We've got to get public dollars. And then we've got to incentivize private investment. And we've got to build the cities back.

I mean, one of the tragedies-- I visit cities-- is to see glittering downtowns and then, six blocks beyond, a neighborhood which looks to be hollowed out. That's the tragedy of the times in which we live. It's the tale of two cities.