Media

Americans who vote are different from those who don’t. Voters are older, richer, and whiter than nonvoters, in part because Americans lack a constitutional right to vote and the various restrictions on voting tend to disproportionately impact the less privileged. In 2014, turnout among those ages 18 to 24 with family incomes below $30,000 was 13 percent. Turnout among those older than 65 and making more than $150,000 was 73 percent.

The key to changing public policy in key areas is increasing the number of people who vote, according to a recent report by Demos, a public policy group that supports economic and social equality.

When compared to White voters, non-White voters were more likely to support policies that increased government spending on the poor, guaranteed jobs and a standard of living and reduced inequality.

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“Because of the growth of the prison industry, you’re having these artificial shifts that empower the rural communities but take power away from the urban communities,” Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, told me.

That is wrong.

In 2012, Demos — a public policy organization that battles inequality in the U.S. — submitted testimony to the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations urging it to find a solution to “prison-based gerrymandering.”

Voter registration has been making headlines quite a bit this month. 

The significance of National Voter Registration Day has never been clearer to me than when I found myself in Tulsa, fighting for the voting rights of Oklahomans.

Demos, a public policy organization, published a report that demonstrated if the rate of homeownership by people of color would increase, the racial wealth gap would substantially reduce the racial wealth gap. “Black and Latino homeowners saw less return in wealth on their investment in homeownership: for every $1 in wealth that accrues to median Black households as a result of homeownership, median white households accrue $1.34,” states the report. 

This morning’s routine was going well — make coffee, pour juice, cut fruit, listen to NPR. The reporter was interviewing a former ambassador to the Vatican who was saying that the Pope’s views on climate could establish a new moral grounding for US public opinion, if only he would back off on the criticism of voracious capitalism. The former ambassador patronized the Pontiff, conjecturing that his holiness was only familiar with corrupt South American businesses, being unfamiliar with the far more ethical businesses of the developed world.

Among mortgage professionals, it is widely held that owning a home is how many Americans build wealth. As the private mortgage market has failed to make loans available to Black homebuyers, our community suffers from a limited ability to create wealth through this reliable and proven method.