As last recorded by the US Federal Government, the median wealth for a white family in the United States was 171,000 dollars and the median wealth for a Black family was just 17,000 dollars, a 10x different over 150 years after the end of slavery.
美國聯邦政府最新紀錄顯示, 美國白人家庭的財富中位數 是 171,000 美元。 而黑人家庭的財富中位數 只有 17,000 美元。 奴隸制廢除已一百五十餘年, 仍有十倍差距。
I think first we have to ask ourselves, what is wealth really? Well, wealth is all of your assets, all of the things that you own, minus all of your liabilities. Assets are things like your car, your house, your savings account, your checking account, your investments, if you own other properties, your business. Well, that gap, that 10x gap, is partially because for many years, decades in fact, Black Americans were left off of that ladder and didn't really have access to it.
我認為我們該問的首要問題是: 財富究竟是甚麼? 這個嘛,財富就是你的總資產、 你擁有的所有東西, 減去你的總負債後的部分。 你的車子、房子、儲蓄帳戶、 支票帳戶、投資、 其他不動產、你的公司, 都是你的資產。 至於,為什麼會有十倍的差距, 部分原因是多年來, 事實上,幾十年以來, 美國黑人被排除 在累積財富的階梯之外, 而他們也沒有機會爬上那道階梯。
Well, why are we talking about this now? Well, in 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and a looming recession, inequities are really laid bare across nearly every system in the United States: health care, education, criminal justice and finance, and people were moved to take action online, in streets, in meetings at work, in corporate boardrooms. And I, as a consultant, started having conversations with clients that I thought I would never have. I guess the question that I'd been asking myself is, how do we make sure that in this moment, this results in action and progress that starts to close that wealth gap for Black versus white Americans?
為什麼現在我們要談論這件事呢? 2020 年,在全球疫情 與經濟衰退浮現的關口, 美國幾乎各個體制的不公正 都被暴露出來: 包括醫療、教育、 刑事司法和金融等體制, 這些促使人們開始 在網路上、到街頭上、 在工作會議和公司的 董事會上採取行動。 而我,做為一個顧問, 我開始與一些客戶 談到一些意料之外的話題。 我想,我一直都在問自己的問題是: 在當下,我們如何確保 這些現象可以化為實質的行動與進展, 從而縮小美國黑人 與白人之間的貧富差距呢?
So who am I? My name is Kedra Newsom Reeves. I am a consultant for banking institutions, hedge funds, asset managers. But before any of that, I am a Black American who is the descendant of slaves. And when we talk about the wealth gap, it's really important to understand the history, so I thought I'd tell a little story about a family, my family, and how policy intersects with wealth.
嗯,我是誰呢? 我叫做凱德拉‧紐瑟姆‧里維斯。 我是銀行機構、避險基金 與資產管理的顧問。 但我在擁有這些抬頭之前, 是一位美國黑人奴隸的後代。 當我們談到貧富差距時, 了解它的歷史是很重要的, 所以我想講一個我家庭的小故事, 以及解釋政策如何與財富交織在一起。
So we'll start with my great-great-grandfather. He was a man named Silas Newsom, and Silas was born a slave outside Nashville, Tennessee, on Newsom Station, where he and his family worked on a quarry. He didn't own anything. He didn't own his home. He didn't own property. He didn't really even own his own body, his own labor, his children. Any of those things, all of those things, were here to create wealth for someone else. So we believe that he was a servant during the Civil War for a Confederate general who was actually fighting to keep him enslaved, so he really had no wealth, he had no control over his life.
故事要從我的高祖父開始。 他的名字是西拉斯‧紐瑟姆, 西拉斯是出生於田納西州納士維外 紐瑟姆站的黑奴, 他和家人在當地的一個採石場工作。 他一無所有。 沒有家、沒有房產、 連他的身體都不是他的。 他的勞動、他的小孩, 任何東西、所有東西, 都是用來為他人創造財富。 所以我們認為他在美國內戰期間, 是一位同盟國將軍的僕人, 服侍一個為了繼續奴役他而戰的人, 所以他真沒有甚麼財富, 他無法掌控他自己的人生。
Well, at the end of slavery, there was a policy opportunity. There was a question: what do we do for the hundreds of years of slavery now that we are ending slavery and the country is coming together? And there was a choice. We could make a settlement with the slaves, or we could make a settlement with the slave owners. Well, the slaves had no power to advocate for themselves in that moment, and the country had to be united, so the federal government decided to give that settlement to slave owners, essentially giving them money for the property that they had lost at the end of the war. And not their physical property, not their homes, but people, the slaves that had provided free labor for years and decades. So Silas, at the end of the Civil War, had no wealth. He was free but had no wealth. He became a sharecropper.
在奴隸制度結束時, 有制立新政策的機會。 一個問題出現了: 在我們正要終結奴隸制度, 國家正在團結起來之時, 我們要怎麼處置 幾百年以來的奴隸制度? 這時有兩個選擇: 我們可以付給奴隸調解金, 或者付給奴隸主人調解金。 但是在那個時候, 奴隸並沒有為自己發聲的力量, 而國家也需要團結, 所以聯邦政府決定 將調解金發給奴隸主人, 在本質上為他們 在戰爭結束時失去的「財產」 提供金錢的補償。 這並不是要補償他們的 財產或房子,而是失去的人── 那些數十年來免費提供勞動的奴隸。 所以,西拉斯在內戰結束時, 並沒有任何財富。 他是自由了,但沒有財富。 他後來成為一個佃農。
My great-grandfather Silas was born a number of years after the end of slavery, and he was drafted to serve in World War I along with 350,000 other Black American soldiers in segregated units. He served in the war. When he came back to the United States, at the end of the war, there was very anti-Black sentiment. The economy was compressing, there were a lot of stressors, and Black people could not get land, they could not get loans for homes, they really could not acquire any credit to build wealth over time, so he also became a farmer. And he had a son, also named Silas -- there are a lot of Silases in my family -- my grandfather.
我的曾祖父西拉斯出生於 奴隸制度結束的幾年後, 他被徵召在第一次世界大戰期間 與其他三十五萬個美國黑人士兵一起, 到隔離的部隊中服役。 他上了戰場。 當他在戰爭結束回到美國時, 國內瀰漫著非常強烈的反黑人情緒。 經濟正在緊縮,有很多的壓力來源, 黑人無法取得土地、 無法獲得房屋貸款, 時間過去,他們無法獲取 任何信用以建立財富, 所以他後來也當了農夫。 而他有一個兒子,也叫做西拉斯 ──我們家族裡 有很多人叫做西拉斯── 也就是我祖父。
My grandfather Silas was also a soldier and fought in World War II. After World War II, the US Federal Government passed the GI Bill, which provided support for veterans. And the bill provided for building of hospitals, student loans and, most importantly for wealth-building, low-interest home mortgages for veterans. In the years following the war, the GI Bill accounted for four billion dollars of funding to nine million veterans. But Black veterans largely did not benefit. So Silas, my grandfather, came back to Nashville, Tennessee, and he married my grandmother, whose name is Cinderella. Yes, my grandmother's name was Cinderella. And they had eight children. But they never bought a home. And the highlight of their housing journey was moving into a new public housing project with their children and paying rent for that housing project, which in terms of the quality of housing was fantastic for them and a step up, but did not allow them to build wealth.
我祖父西拉斯也是一位 在二戰期間打過仗的軍人。 二戰過後, 美國聯邦政府通過了軍人權利法案, 為退伍軍人提供支持。 該法案提供資金以建立醫院、 提供學生貸款, 還有,最重要的,幫助退伍軍人 累積財富的低利息房貸。 在戰爭過後的幾年中, 軍人權利法案為九百萬個退伍軍人 提供了四十億美元的資金。 但是大多數黑人退伍軍人 並沒有從中獲益。 所以我的祖父西拉斯 回到了田納西州的納士維, 和我的曾祖母結婚,她叫做仙杜瑞拉。 你沒聽錯,我的曾祖母 真的叫仙杜瑞拉。 他們有八個小孩。 但他們從來沒有買房子。 而在他們找尋住宅過程中的重頭戲 是在他們和孩子搬進 新的國民住宅, 並支付租金的時候。 住宅的品質方面上非常棒, 也比之前更好, 但是這並不能讓他們建立財富。
My father, another soldier, a 20-year veteran of the United States Marines, bought his first home in his early 50s, but it took four generations for our family to move into homeownership and begin to build ownership and equity in a home.
我的爸爸,又是一位士兵, 已經從美國海軍陸戰隊退伍二十年, 在他五十出頭的時後買了第一棟房子, 但是我的家族花了四個世代 才有人擁有房產, 並開始累積所有權和建立平等的地位。
That's one family's story, and I skipped a lot of things that happened between the end of slavery and today: redlining, housing discrimination before the Fair Housing Act in the 1970s, the really important role that Black-owned banks played in building Black communities, the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980s, which crushed a lot of Black banks, and the subprime crisis in 2008, which stripped a lot of Black and brown homeowners of their homes. There's a lot of history there, but that story tells you a bit about how we get to this 10x gap where we are today.
這只是一個家族的故事, 而且我還沒提到很多 從奴隸制度結束之後 到今日之間發生的事情: 在 1970 年代《公平住房法案》 通過前的拒絕貸款門檻與歧視, 黑人擁有的銀行在建立黑人社群中 扮演了非常重要的角色, 1980 年代的儲貸危機 擊垮了許多黑人的銀行, 在 2008 年發生的次貸危機 剝奪了許多黑人、棕色人種房主的家。 其中有很多的歷史, 但這些故事可以提供你一些線索, 以了解我們是如何走到今天 這個十倍差距的地步。
Now, certainly, as we think about the size of that gap, it is critical for the Federal Government to take a number of actions. That said, financial institutions play a really important role in providing access to credit, access to capital, to build communities and allow Black communities to thrive.
當然,當我們考慮到差距的規模時, 聯邦政府需要迫切地採取一些行動。 不過,金融機構在授權提供 信用、貸款方面上扮演很重要的角色, 以建立社群 並讓黑人社群可以茁壯繁榮。
We have to be clear; managing 17,000 dollars better does not get us there. Better education does not get us there. Access to credit and capital are critical. So I want to talk about four solutions today that financial institutions can contribute to start to close the wealth gap.
我們必須清楚明白; 即使更善加運用 17,000 美元 也無法幫助我們實現目標。 更好的教育也無法幫我們實現目標。 能獲得信用與資本才是關鍵。 所以我今天想要談談四個解決方案, 是金融機構可以為 縮減貧富差距做出貢獻的。
Number one is getting more people on the ladder, getting more people banked. We know today that about half of Black Americans are un- or underbanked. Unbanked means that you don't have a banking account. Underbanked means that you have a bank account but you use alternative services for check-cashing or payday lending or paying bills. And that's not just expensive from a transaction perspective in terms of the fees that you pay, it's also expensive in terms of the time that you commit to paying a bill. Think about how you pay your utility bill today. It probably comes out of your checking account. You don't even think about it. You set it up in advance, and it's automatic. Well, if you're unbanked, you are probably going to get a money order somewhere, physically, a piece of paper. You then travel to City Hall or your DMV to pay that bill.
第一個方案是讓更多人 可以爬上累積財富的階梯, 讓更多人到銀行存錢。 我們知道今天大約有半數的美國黑人 是無帳戶者或次級銀行用戶。 無帳戶者指的是你沒有銀行帳戶。 次級銀行用戶是指你有銀行帳戶, 但是你用其他服務來兌現支票、 支付發薪日貸款、 或支付帳單。 從交易的角度上來說, 不僅是你付的費用會很昂貴, 而為了付帳,也會使你花費掉 許多寶貴的時間。 想想看你現在是如何付水電費的。 大概會從你的存款帳戶中自動扣款。 你不會特別想到它。 你已經事先設立好帳戶, 過程都是自動的。 但是,如果你沒有銀行帳戶, 你可能需要到某個地方取得匯票, 它就是一張紙。 接著,你要出門跑一趟市政府或監理所 去付帳單。
About 40 percent of people who are unbanked say they are unbanked because they think they don't have the minimum amount to really maintain a checking account. Well, that's just not true. In the last several years, credit unions, community banks and major banking institutions have created low-cost, no-minimum checking and savings account products specifically made for this population. So we have an issue with awareness. Banks, community partners and others have to work together to increase the awareness of these products in communities that need them, so that we can start to reduce the number of people who are un- and underbanked and get them on the ladder that we talked about earlier.
約有 40% 沒有銀行帳戶的人 表示他們沒開戶, 是因為他們覺得他們沒有 可維持存款帳戶的最低金額。 但這個理解是錯的。 近幾年以來, 信用合作社、社區銀行 和主要的銀行機構 已經創造了低成本、無最低存款 或儲蓄金額帳戶的產品, 是專門設計給這些人口的。 所以我們面對的是認知的問題。 銀行、地區分行及其他人 必須通力合作以讓更多 需要這些產品的的社群 認識該產品, 如此我們可以開始減少 無帳戶者與次級銀行用戶的數量, 並讓他們爬上我們才剛談到的階梯。
The challenge is about 28 percent of Black and Latinx families are credit-invisible, which means that you have a thin credit file or no credit file. And the way that credit works and creditworthiness assessments work is to say, if you can prove that you have paid credit back consistently previously, then I can lend you more credit. It's kind of a chicken or an egg situation. The interesting thing is that banks and financial technology companies have really innovated in recent years to use alternative data -- cable bills, utility bills, rent payments, etc. -- to show that you're able to consistently make payments. The additional challenge on this one, unlike the last one, which was more about awareness, is that you need to have regulatory support to do these things. You need to prove to regulators that you are able to fairly use alternative data to lend credit to marginalized groups. What we need to see is, from the Federal Government and the banking industry, to come together to create innovation sandboxes to start to use alternative data to expand to marginalized groups.
我們會遇到的挑戰是 大約 28% 的黑人或拉丁裔家庭的 信用是看不見的, 意味著你的信用檔案的 記錄很少或沒有紀錄。 而信用和信用等級運作的方式為, 如果你可以證明 你先前一直有償還信用貸款, 那我就可以再借你更多的信用貸款。 這就產生「雞生蛋,蛋生雞」的問題。 有趣的是,銀行與金融科技公司 在近幾年來已進行創新,使用另類數據 ──例如:有線電視的帳單、 水電費、 租金支付,等等── 來衡量你有定期付款的能力。 而還有另外一個挑戰, 與上一個和認知較有關的問題不同, 你必須有法規的支持來實現這些事情。 你必須要向管制者證明 你能夠公平地使用這些替代數據, 將信用貸款借給邊緣化群體。 我們需要看到的是, 聯邦政府和銀行業 可以一起合作創造出創新的沙盒環境, 開始運用替代數據, 並擴展到邊緣化群體上。
Well, what about communities? Without community wealth, individual wealth, in a way, is on an island. And if you go into most major cities in the United States to most communities of color, what you'll find is underinvested communities. For every economic crisis, these communities have suffered severely. For every economic boom, they have not benefited. And so what we're seeing in a number of cities across the country, and I'll use Chicago as an example, is the partnerships occurring between banking institutions, philanthropists, the city and community leaders to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build community resources and communities that have historically been disinvested.
那社群呢? 沒有群體的財富, 個人的財富,比方來說, 就像是海上的孤島。 若你走進美國最主要城市裡的 大多數有色人種的社區, 你找到的會是未受到足夠重視的社群。 遇到每次經濟危機, 這些社群都遭受沉重的打擊。 遇到每次經濟繁榮, 他們也沒有享受到益處。 所以,我們在這個國家的 一些城市裡正在目睹的是 ──我以芝加哥當作例子── 一個正在建立的夥伴關係: 銀行機構、 慈善家、 城市與社區的領袖 一同合作投資數億美元 建立社區資源 與發展歷史上不受重視的社群。
Lastly, we've got to talk about business, and not just small businesses. Now, when you have individual stability and a banking institution, and you have access to credit, and when you have community wealth, those are all fantastic things, but we need also job creation. Take all of the new tech companies, and I say "new" because now they're not so new, but take Facebook, Google, Amazon. At some point, all of those companies were sole proprietorships with one employee or a few employees that were building a technology that was not yet proven. What those companies received early on was venture capital money. And when you look at venture capital today, only one percent of venture capital funds go to Black founders. So if Black entrepreneurs are largely shut out of those networks they're not able to grow, and the only way for that to change is from within the industry itself. In this generation, we must not only be talking about thriving businesses in Black communities. We must also be talking about seeing more Black-owned and founded businesses going public.
最後,我們該來談談企業, 不只是談小型的企業而已。 當你有個人的穩定、有銀行機構、 可以取得信用,又有社群的財富, 能夠有這些東西實在是太棒了, 但我們也需要創造就業機會。 舉那些新興的科技公司來說 ──我雖然說「新興」, 但其實現在它們沒有很新── 但以臉書、谷歌、亞馬遜當作例子。 在某個時間點,這些公司 都是獨資經營的企業, 由一個員工 或數個員工 發展一項尚未得到認可的技術。 這些公司早期收到的是 創業投資基金。 當你看今日創業基金的情況, 只有百分之一的創業投資基金 為黑人的創業者享有。 所以,如果大多數的黑人企業家 被排拒在那些網絡之外, 他們便無法茁壯, 而改變這現狀的唯一方法, 來自於產業內部本身。 在這個世代,我們不只 要讓企業在黑人社群中 蓬勃發展。 我們必須看到更多 由黑人擁有、建立的企業上市。
Those are just four solutions. There's many other things that can and should be done to close the wealth gap. This gap is not new. It was born and perpetuated by federal policy, social constructs and business practice over time, and all of those things need to change to start to close the gap. Financial institutions play a really critical role at the individual level, at the community level and at the business level. It's important to our families, it's important to our communities and it's important to our economy.
以上只是四個解決方案而已。 還有許多其他事情 是我們能做且必須做, 以縮減貧富差距。 這段差距已經存在很久。 它是因聯邦政策、社會架構和商業運作 產生並延續到現在, 而那些東西都需要改變 以開始減少差距。 金融機構在三個層次上 扮演非常關鍵的角色: 在個人的層次、社群的層次、 和企業的層次上。 這對我們的家庭、我們的社群、 我們的經濟來說都很重要。
Instead of talking about how the gap continues to grow, let's begin to close the gap now.
與其顧著談論差距正持續擴大, 不如現在就開始著手減少差距吧。
Thank you.
感謝聆聽。