The Sconi

Daquawn Bruce, executive director for Concerned Communities, an organization that focuses on facilitating political liberation and social transformation of communities of color, argues recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York proves that the high rates of inflation under President Joe Biden are disproportionately affecting people of color in Wisconsin and across the country.

Bruce says he could have predicted the country's soaring inflation rate would come to have the crippling impact on minority communities that it is.

"The reasons why inflation hits Black and brown people harder than others is simple,” said Bruce, a USA Today opinion contributor. “We have less money on average than other groups, and we spend more of the money we do have on things affected the most by inflation.”

With inflation now at 9.1% and things looking like they could get worse before they get better, Bruce adds it stands to reason that many of the Black Americans who cast ballots for Biden would now be experiencing buyer’s remorse.

With Bruce stamping overall inflation as a hidden tax on poor people, the June report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported the inflation rate for Blacks to be 0.2% higher than the national average and for Hispanics, it was roughly 0.6higher.

Bruce adds inflation tends to people of color more viciously than others because often have less money than other groups and the money they do have is spent on things most affected by inflation, such as gas prices.

While the Federal Reserve Report in June highlights how Black Americans are forced to spend more of their income on transportation than white groups, a Bank of America study from November further details that Black, Hispanic, and Latino households spent 7.1% of their post-tax income on energy, compared to 5.4% spent by other groups.

When it comes to food, the same discrepancy holds true, with Blacks tending to spend 12.5% of their income, compared to 11.1% for others.

USA Today reports there have also been other studies that point to the same point Bruce raises about inflation, including one published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in April that highlighted how everyday necessities such as electricity and cellular service make up a large proportion of Black Americans' budgets.

In 2019, the U.S. Census reported that Black Americans represented 23.8% of the population living in poverty while only totaling 13.2% of the total population, meaning that the percentage of Black Americans now living in poverty is nearly double the percentage of them making up the total population.

According to World Population Review, it is estimated that in the state of Wisconsin 7.41% of the population, or 434,778 people are Black and 6.81% or 394,392 people are Hispanic.