Post by SAMURAI36 on Oct 28, 2004 19:32:23 GMT -5
Subject: USA Today article on Black spending habits
This is an interesting excerpt from USA Today.
Tough choices for tough times : By Yolanda Young
These are tough economic times, especially for African-Americans,
for whom the unemployment rate is more than 10%. Alarmingly, rather
than belt-tightening, the response has been to spend more. In many poor
neighborhoods, one is likely to notice satellite dishes and expensive
new cars.
According to Target Market, a company that tracks black consumer
spending, blacks spend a significant amount of their income on
depreciable products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived; we
spent $22.9 billion on clothes, $3.2 billion on electronics and $11.6
billion on furniture to put into homes that, in many cases, were rented.
Among our favorite purchases are cars and liquor. Blacks make up
only 12% of the U.S. population, yet account for 30% of the country's
Scotch consumption.
Detroit, which is 80% black, is the world's No. 1 market for
Cognac. So impressed was Lincoln with the $46.7 billion that blacks
spent
on cars that the automaker commissioned Sean "P Diddy" Combs, the
entertainment and fashion mogul, to design a limited-edition
Navigator replete with six plasma screens, three DVD players and a Sony
PlayStation 2.
The only area where blacks seem to be cutting back on spending is
books; total purchases have gone from a high of $356 million in 2000 to
$303 million in 2002.
This shortsighted behavior, motivated by a desire for instant
gratification and social acceptance, comes at the expense of our
future.
The National Urban League's "State of Black America 2004" report
found that fewer than 50% of black families owned their homes compared
with more than 70% of whites.
According to published reports, the Ariel Mutual Funds/Charles
Schwab 2003 Black Investor Survey found that when comparing households
where blacks and whites had roughly the same household incomes, whites
saved nearly 20% more each month for retirement, and 30% of
African-Americans earning $100,000 a year had less than $5,000 in
retirement
savings.
While 79% of whites invest in the stock market, only 61% of
African-Americans do. Certainly, higher rates of unemployment,
income disparity and credit discrimination are financial impediments to
the economic vitality of blacks, but so are our consumer tastes.
By finding the courage to change our spending habits, we might be
surprised at how far the $631 billion we now earn might take us.
Yolanda Young's next book is SPADE: A Critical Look at Black America.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second
thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices,
people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar, and sometimes the
obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of decency
is
too often suppressed in school and the workplace.
Please pass along!!!!!!
This is an interesting excerpt from USA Today.
Tough choices for tough times : By Yolanda Young
These are tough economic times, especially for African-Americans,
for whom the unemployment rate is more than 10%. Alarmingly, rather
than belt-tightening, the response has been to spend more. In many poor
neighborhoods, one is likely to notice satellite dishes and expensive
new cars.
According to Target Market, a company that tracks black consumer
spending, blacks spend a significant amount of their income on
depreciable products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived; we
spent $22.9 billion on clothes, $3.2 billion on electronics and $11.6
billion on furniture to put into homes that, in many cases, were rented.
Among our favorite purchases are cars and liquor. Blacks make up
only 12% of the U.S. population, yet account for 30% of the country's
Scotch consumption.
Detroit, which is 80% black, is the world's No. 1 market for
Cognac. So impressed was Lincoln with the $46.7 billion that blacks
spent
on cars that the automaker commissioned Sean "P Diddy" Combs, the
entertainment and fashion mogul, to design a limited-edition
Navigator replete with six plasma screens, three DVD players and a Sony
PlayStation 2.
The only area where blacks seem to be cutting back on spending is
books; total purchases have gone from a high of $356 million in 2000 to
$303 million in 2002.
This shortsighted behavior, motivated by a desire for instant
gratification and social acceptance, comes at the expense of our
future.
The National Urban League's "State of Black America 2004" report
found that fewer than 50% of black families owned their homes compared
with more than 70% of whites.
According to published reports, the Ariel Mutual Funds/Charles
Schwab 2003 Black Investor Survey found that when comparing households
where blacks and whites had roughly the same household incomes, whites
saved nearly 20% more each month for retirement, and 30% of
African-Americans earning $100,000 a year had less than $5,000 in
retirement
savings.
While 79% of whites invest in the stock market, only 61% of
African-Americans do. Certainly, higher rates of unemployment,
income disparity and credit discrimination are financial impediments to
the economic vitality of blacks, but so are our consumer tastes.
By finding the courage to change our spending habits, we might be
surprised at how far the $631 billion we now earn might take us.
Yolanda Young's next book is SPADE: A Critical Look at Black America.
We all send thousands of jokes through e-mail without a second
thought, but when it comes to sending messages regarding life choices,
people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar, and sometimes the
obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of decency
is
too often suppressed in school and the workplace.
Please pass along!!!!!!
