02-25-2005
: African American Spending Habit
Next
time you see that 'player of the year 'flawsin' in that 2005
Chrysler 300 sittin' on 23's while he is pulling it into a
parking stall of a rented apartment hand him this
article.
USA
Today article on Black Spending Habit : 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 spends a significant
amount of their income on depreciable products. In
2002, the year the economy nose dived, we spent $22.9
billion ($22,900,000,000.00) on clothes, $3.2 billion
($3,200,000,000.00) on electronics and $11.6 billion
($11,600,000,000.00) on furnitures 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 US 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 (Pass the
Co-------).
So impressed was Lincoln with the $46.7
billion ($46,000,000,000) 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 Play Station 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 ($631,000,000,000.00) we now earn take us.
Please pass this on. Knowledge is power.!!
Dare
to forge the future . . . make the difference.
"
Sharing Our Warmth With The World"
