The Department Of The Treasury Pledges To Promote Racial Equity And Black Economic Institutions

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.

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.

The other focus of the Treasury is to increase representation within the department of people who are focused on promoting equity. This includes establishing a position of Counselor for Racial Equity, creating a Racial Equity Advisory Committee to hold the department accountable for fulfilling its promises and installing “long-standing career officials who are focused on equity so that equity is at the core of what the department does every day rather than something that happens when there are certain politicians in office.”

Speaking later with Blavity, Adeyemo reemphasized the importance of representation in positions within the Treasury and beyond. “You want to make sure that in the places where policy is being made, it’s being made by people who don’t only academically understand the issues but actually have lived experience in the communities,” Adeyemo told Blavity.

Though the conversation focused on domestic concerns, the issue of the crisis in Ukraine came up when Adeyemo was asked why the U.S. was able to quickly approve billions of dollars in emergency aid to Ukraine when assistance to Black communities in America is often deemed too expensive to be included in the budget. Acknowledging that “we need to work on” promoting job growth and economic development in Black communities, Adeyemo framed the urgency of addressing Black economic growth as “a national security issue.” The strength of Black and brown economies, he argued, added to the overall national power of the country. Further addressing the Treasury’s roles in promoting Black and brown economic growth and conducting foreign policy initiatives such as sanctions against Russia, a senior Treasury official emphasized that the department could and should handle both responsibilities.

Overall, Deputy Secretary Adeyemo emphasized that the policies being pursued by the Biden administration and implemented by the Department of the Treasury are beneficial from the perspectives of equity and the overall strength of the country. “If we make investments in [Black and Brown] communities,” he told the NAN audience, “these are investments that will pay off for all of America.”