What is the state of communities of color?


Communities of color are in an economically much less secure situation than white families. That is due to two reasons. One, they started the recession from a position of much more weakness—higher unemployment, lower incomes, less savings—than white families. And the second part is that during the recession they saw their unemployment rates rise much faster than for white families so their incomes fall much faster and they saw their wealth disappear much faster than was the case for white families. Ultimately leaving CoC in an economically much weaker situation than white families as the  recovery takes shape.


Why is it important to have policy priorities that focus on communities of color?


The experience of the last 10 to 15 years shows that focusing just on job growth is not enough. We need more polices to help communities of color to make strides toward closing the gap with white families. That is, we need policies that focus both on job creation—particularly in communities of color—but also on the quality of jobs that people in communities of color actually would have.


What are the policy issues that would affect primarily communities of color?


Well, we need, when it comes to policy focus, first in the short run and then in the long run. In the short run, we need to help struggling families—both white families and communities of color. In particular, with strengthening unemployment insurance and foreclosure preventions, those, at the minimum, are the policies we should pursue. Second, for the long term, we need to have policies that will ultimately close the gap between the economic security of white families and those of communities of color. For instance, through universal health insurance, for instance, through universal retirement systems. We could also promote more homeownership targeted toward communicates of color. We can have comprehensive immigration reform, and a number of other steps to really build a structure that will allow us to close the economic gap between communities of color and white families.