Fact Check 5: Black home ownership rate declined under Obama, grew under Trump
Fact Check 5: Black home ownership rate declined under Obama, grew under Trump
This fact should be common knowledge, 26 days away from the election, but it isn't. Why?
Preface: See 2024 Fact Check: Introduction and link-list
Sources
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, citing US Census Bureau data:
Minority Homeownership Rate Posts a Year-End Gain, by Carmel Ford, National Association of Home Builders: Eye On Housing newsletter, February 5, 2020. Excerpt:
The minority homeownership rate increased to 48.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019, up 0.8 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2018, according to a new data release from the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancies and Homeownership survey (CPS/HVS) (Figure 1). This is the highest it has been since the third quarter of 2011 (48.9 percent). […]
Breaking down the minority homeownership rate shows that the Hispanic homeownership rate gained the most in the fourth quarter, with a 1.2 percentage point increase to 48.1 percent (from 46.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018).
The black homeownership rate posted the second largest gain of 1.0 percentage points to reach 44.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 (from 43.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018). This is the largest quarter gain in the black homeownership rate since the first quarter of 2017. […]
Breaking down the minority homeownership rate shows that the black homeownership rate gained the most in the first quarter, with a 2.9 percentage point increase to 44.7 percent (from 41.8 percent in the first quarter of 2019). This is the highest the black homeownership rate has been since the fourth quarter of 2012.
U.S. Census Bureau:
Table 16. Quarterly Homeownership Rates by Race and Ethnicity of Householder: 1994 to Present – by U.S. Census Bureau [XLSX – 325K]; PDF HERE
Analysis
Since 2019, President Biden, Vice-President Harris, the DNC, and many of America’s most influential news organs keep claiming that President Obama handed Donald Trump a “booming” economy, but that Trump's policies destroyed it, because his only objective was to help the super-rich, while suppressing minorities. Examples:
On September 29, 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden said: “[Trump] comes in on a booming economy. He blew it. He blew it. What he did, even before COVID, manufacturing went in the hole. Manufacturing went in the hole.”
On September 10, 2024, Vice President Harris said: “Donald Trump said he was going to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing jobs.” (which I debunked here)
There are innumerable other examples of such claims, which, almost invariably, go unchallenged by the “news” platforms that feature them.
Most recently, music legend Bruce Springsteen dropped a video on October 2, explaining why he is endorsing Kamala Harris (transcript here). He said said Trump’s policies were (and are) aimed at helping the super-rich (like Springsteen himself, who is now a billionaire) — not blue-collar workers, who constitute a huge portion of “The Boss’s” core fan base:
“[Harris-Walz] want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all, not just the few like me on top. That’s the vision of America I’ve been consistently writing about for 55 years.”
The supreme irony: Springsteen co-hosts a podcast with President Obama, whose policies —as this infographic report demonstrates — were responsible for a steady decline in black home ownership, which was reversed by Trump’s policies.
Springsteen’s claims also bring to mind a quote by one of President Obama’s super-fans, PBS host Tavis Smiley, who publicly said this, as Obama entered the final stretch of his presidency, about his economic policies, and how they affected black Americans in particular:
“Sadly, and it pains me to say this, over the last decade black folk, in the era of Obama have lost ground in every major economic category. Not one, two or three [categories], but every major economic category, black Americans have lost ground. We’ve been so caught up in the symbolism of the Obama presidency, we haven’t pressed as hard as we should on the substance of this presidency. Black people and black leaders have been too deferential to this president.”
One wonders how Springsteen would respond to Smiley’s assertion, which is backed up by a mountain of economic research data.
Previous 2024 Fact-Check infographic reports
Fact Check 1: Did Trump’s policies destroy manufacturing jobs, reversing Obama’s “booming” economy? (October 6)
Fact Check 2: Electricity prices stayed the same under Trump, but skyrocketed under Biden-Harris (October 7)
Fact Check 3: Gasoline prices declined under Trump, but skyrocketed under Biden (October 8)
Fact Check 4: Diesel prices were stable under Trump, but skyrocketed under Biden (October 9)
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