Silver State Times

Drawing on a report put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, an opinion contributor for USA Today recently argued that the high rate of inflation caused by President Joe Biden and the Democrats disproportionately affects people of color in Nevada and nationwide. 

With inflation at 9.1% and things looking like they could get worse, DaQuawn Bruce says it's no secret why Black Americans who voted for Biden in 2020 are slowly beginning to lean away from his administration.

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

Inflation is considered a hidden tax on poor people, as it disproportionately includes people of color, Bruce asserts. 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 0.6% higher. 

To back his assessment that Black and brown people are more affected because the money they have is spent on things most affected by inflation, he used gas prices and the cost of used vehicles as an example. The June report found that Black Americans spend more of their income on transportation than white groups.

The U.S. Census reported in 2019 that Black Americans represented 23.8% of the population living in poverty while only accounting for 13.2% of the total population, he wrote, meaning that the percentage of Black Americans living in poverty is nearly double that of their percentage of the total population.

There have been other studies in the past that point to the same point Bruce makes about inflation. For example, Bruce mentioned a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in April. It showed that everyday necessities such as electricity and cellular service make up a large proportion of Black Americans' budgets.

He also cited November’s Bank of America study that found that Black, Hispanic, and Latino households spent 7.1% of their post-tax income on energy while 5.4% was spent by other groups. As for food, Blacks tend to spend 12.5% of their income, compared to 11.1% for other groups.

Bruce leads Concerned Communities for America, an organization dedicated to facilitating political liberation and social transformation of communities of color across the country.

In Nevada, an estimated 9.97% of the population, or 322,756 people are Black and 28.70% or 853,041 people are Hispanic, according to worldpopulationreview.com.