Transcript: Race in America: Black Economic Mobility with the Chair and Co-CEO of Ariel Investments

Transcript: Race in America: Black Economic Mobility with the Chair and Co-CEO of Ariel Investments, John W. Rogers and Chair of the Economic Advisor Board of White House, Cecilia Rouse 02! ادهنترز

We developed vaccine in record time, and the U.S. Rescue Plan provided us with the funds to develop a very effective rollout strategy to make us shot in the arms of people in record time and to vaccinate people against it and, most important of all, these vaccines proved far more effective than I knew I could imagine earlier in January. If you are fully vaccinated, you do not transmit, and these vaccines at least so far are very effective against the variants. We ought to knock on wood.

All of this means that we have returned to the semblance of normality very quickly, especially with the really rapid deployment of vaccination. And when I say very soon, it was only on April 19th that we opened up vaccination for everyone and it takes five to six weeks that adults receive full vaccination. Are we what? Three or four weeks after most adults were completely vaccinated.

What this means is that demand has returned rustling. It’s come back more quickly than the Federal Reserve expected. It’s back faster than I’d argue most companies anticipated, so you’re struggling to find employees. They also struggle to put goods on the shelf and supply because last spring they liquidated their inventories and liquidated them often at loss, or driven their own businesses down, so everyone comes back at once. This creates challenges for the supply chain.

Workers, on the side of the workers, have broken relations since we have followed a policy. People have been fired by the pandemic. It means that workers must now find another suitable position and that they can start returning to normal for a few weeks.

MR. CAPEHART: Okay.

Dr Rouze: Dr Rouze: So we see what I think is the kind of reopening of an economy of close to $23 trillion. This is an ordinary process.

I believe, therefore, that this inflation is temporary at the moment. It’s transitory, because the economy works together as we knit together, and I think that’s what the Fed believes.

Do I think we see inflation as a problem? I don’t think it’s a problem in that it’s anchored, a technical term is used and a result of hyperinflation, but I think we’ll see some high prices as the economy returns back to normal.

Dr. CAPEHART: Mr. Dr. Rouse, what’s the only thing you look at in the remaining 30 seconds, when closeing the racial gap, to show you how successful you are, that the administration is succeeding in closing the gap in racial wealth?

Dr Rouze: Dr. Rouze. Over time, wealth happens. First, I would like to see if we have unemployment rates that look more equal, so we can see Blacks participating at rates similar to Whites in our economies. This is the first step I’d be looking at.

I would start to look at the wages, whether we see the wages decreasing, the gap in wages decreasing, and then on wealth, I’d like to see Black people purchase houses in the same type of areas as whites, and they can afford to buy homes in the areas they want. We know that homeownership makes up over 30 percent of the Black-White rich gap, and so I think it will be important to determine if we have developed policies, types of credit markets and availability, so that Blacks can take part in homeownership at higher rates.

These would be early signs, but over time wealth happens. It’s a build-up —

MR. CAPEHART: Okay.

DR. ROUSE: — which is why it is really one of those profound signs of the health of our economy, because when you have so wide and strong wealth differences, that’s not to say there is a difference at one point in time. This tells you that for quite some time this difference has been going on.

MR. CAPEHART: And we’ll have to leave it with that, Dr. Rouse. Cecilia Rouse, President of the Economic Advisers Council of the White House, thank you very much for coming to Washington Post Live.

Dr Rouze: Dr Rouze: You are very welcome. You are very welcome. It was a pleasure.

MR. CAPEHART: John W. Rogers Jr., CEO and Chairman of Ariel Investments.

ROLLEY: MR. Hello. I’m Otis Rolley III, senior vice president at The Rockefeller Foundation for U.S. Equity and Economic Opportunity.

I’m excited to talk to Shelley Stewart III today. Shelley is a partner with McKinsey and head of the US Black Economic Mobility Institute at McKinsey. He is a leader in the private equity and main investor practice of McKinsey and has published numerous articles and is a talker about the subject. Shelley is also a member of the National Black MBA Association’s Board of Directors.

Shelley, I have so many different questions, but I just want to start somewhat with why you did this research and why now?

STEWART: MR. All in all, Otis, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.

Look, the killing of George Floyd, the unfolding of the pandemic and its disproportionate impact on Black Americans have created a real time for us to reassess and reassess the way we think about racial justice.