Last week, the National Action Network held its 2022 convention. The New York City-based civil rights organization founded by Rev. Al Sharpton attracted a plethora of notable figures to speak, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Democratic National Committee Chairperson Jaime Harrison and various community leaders and officials from the Biden administration. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo, the highest-ranking Black official in the Treasury Department, appeared before the conference for a Q&A session and spoke of the Biden administration’s past accomplishments in terms of economic recovery and support for Black and other marginalized communities.
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Economic recovery programs aimed at Black and brown communities
In his remarks to the convention, Adeyemo focused on highlighting the achievements that the Biden administration accomplished toward Black and brown communities concerning pandemic recovery. Specifically, Adeyemo touted the extension of the Child Tax Credit, which benefited 62 million children and their families.
“We know that implementation matters,” Adeyemo said of how the administration’s economic recovery policies were administered. “And we’ve implemented in a manner that has tried to be as equitable as possible and get the money to the Black and brown families who need it.” He also pointed toward Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA), a $46 billion program to provide help to renters. Of the funds dispersed by the program, Adeyemo detailed that 40% went to Black renters, 20% went to Latino renters and 80% went to low-income households.
A senior Treasury official explained that the department not only made such funds accessible but also engaged in extensive efforts to publicize the availability of money like the Child Tax Credit and Emergency Rental Assistance. Treasury officials appeared on Black and Latinx radio stations to advertise the available resources, the source said, in addition to consulting with religious leaders and community groups to reach people who were unlikely to be reached by national media sources.
Equity through focused policy and committed policymakers
Looking ahead, Adeyemo emphasized that the Department of the Treasury was focusing on racial equity as a central goal of its approach to both economic recovery and long-term economic growth. To accomplish these goals, the deputy secretary pointed toward both policy initiatives and efforts to increase representation within the government. Going forward, the major policy initiative that Adeyemo promoted was an expansion of support for minority-owned small businesses to incorporate larger and more diverse minority-led economic institutions and activities. Treasury is going to focus “not only on Black and brown small businesses, but also Black and brown medium-sized businesses, Black and brown asset managers, Black and brown banks.”
The administration has allocated $9 billion to be channeled through community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and minority depository institutions (MDIs) — “Black banks” — and Adeyemo has issued a memo to other departments across the administration urging them to deposit their money with these institutions and not simply with large majority-white banks.
Source: The Department Of The Treasury Pledges To Promote Racial Equity And Black Economic Institutions
